Street evangelist Whitney Lynn, who says she's heeding a biblical command to preach on flights, is calling out Alaska Airlines in a series of her Instagram videos after she was kicked off a flight for allegedly spreading the gospel.
In part one of her "Kicked Off the Plane for Preaching the Gospel" series, a male flight attendant is seen asking Lynn to get her stuff and follow him.
"Can you tell me what's going on?" Lynn asks the flight attendant, adding, "You can't just tell me to get my stuff and then not tell me what's going on." The flight attendant responds: "The crews don't feel, uh, safe with you." To make the attendant repeat himself, Lynn asks, "They don't feel safe?" to which the flight attendant responds, "Yeah."
"Oh, my gosh! I didn't know the message of Jesus was unsafe," Lynn exclaims. She then asks the flight attendant if she has guns or anything like that. "So, freedom of speech is not safe. If I say something else, will that be okay?" However, the flight attendant refuses to answer her questions.
"I will tell you what this is. It is called spiritual warfare. You know why? Yeah, 'cause demons don't like the name of Jesus," Lynn tells the flight attendant. "Last days, people. Can't talk about Jesus anymore," she says as she exits the plane.
In the video's caption, Lynn revealed that two people gave their lives to Jesus before she was escorted off the plane.
"But here’s the amazing part: God still moved. Two people gave their lives to Jesus!" she wrote in the caption. In a subsequent video, Lynn claimed that the flight attendants harassed and disrespected her. In this video, a female flight attendant is seen behind her, whom she claimed pushed her bag.
"I kid you not—the flight attendant behind me pushed my bag with her foot and then blatantly lied, as if I was making the whole thing up," Lynn wrote, adding: "Looking back at these videos, I can see the spiritual battle that was taking place. I truly believe there were demonic influences at work, and you can see it in the way people were acting and in their faces. Then they all stood at the doorway of the plane like I was some criminal. Unbelievable."
She also accused the male flight attendant in another video of attempting to shut the door on her in the hallway, an action she described as demonic.
"I’m telling you, demons are real," Lynn wrote, adding, "This guy literally tried to shut the door on me."
She continued: "I had a feeling he wasn’t going to notify the airline, and sure enough, he didn’t."
According to Lynn, "I called the airline, and they had no idea what had happened."
Reflecting on the outcome, Lynn stated, "Praise God for His favor—they didn’t charge me a fee. I never even told them the situation. That was the Lord."
She further alleged, "He tried to set me up so I’d have to pay to change my flight after they kicked me off the plane."
Concluding her thought, Lynn teased, "But wait until you see what he tries to do next. It’s unbelievable," before adding, "I truly pray for this man."
In-flight evangelism isn't against the law. That said, airlines have policies, which differ slightly depending on the carrier. But generally, these policies require travelers to follow the instructions of flight crews. Additionally, these policies do not specifically address preaching on flights, but require that passengers avoid offensive, annoying, or disruptive behavior.
In-flight evangelists often say their messages are welcome, even by some flight attendants. However, there are also in-person protests. In her article, "Preachers are turning planes into their pulpits," Hannah Sampson, a staff writer at The Washington Post, talked about how Lynn had gotten cursed at and heckled, and documented an instance where law enforcement officers responded to a call about her preaching in an airport.
