POLICE SHOULD TACKLE CRIME AND NOT PREACHERS

 Church Times

Police should tackle crime, not preachers

01 MARCH 2024

But are megaphone martyrs motivated by the gospel or a search for soft oppression, asks Michael Coren

RECENTLY, yet another street-preaching Christian was confronted by the police, this time on Uxbridge High Street, in west London.

The pattern was fairly typical and achingly predictable. Someone called the police with an allegation of a homophobic hate crime, the police arrived and explained the details of public-order offences, the missionaries filmed the whole thing, conservative tabloids pounced on the story, and alleged free-speech advocates made a fuss. And the gospel was advanced not one inch, and quite probably took a beating.

The evangelist defended himself by claiming: “All we’re doing is preaching our religion. . . The Bible says in the book of John, chapter three, verse 16, ‘For God’s love of the world he gave his one and only son so that whoever, whatever person — homosexual, drunk, liar or a prostitute — believes in him shall not perish and have everlasting life.”

That, of course, isn’t quite what it says. The reading is: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” No mention of homosexuals — a word unknown until the 19th century. It is genuinely fascinating how often street preachers speak of a subject hardly mentioned in 784,000 words of scripture.

That said, the police can certainly be over-zealous, just as some people can be extremely intolerant of anything even remotely linked to Christianity. A few weeks before the Uxbridge incident, an entirely innocuous gospel singer in Oxford Street was warned by a policewoman that she had no right to be performing where she was. The police officer, who also poked her tongue out at the camera, was a volunteer officer, and her superiors apologised for her actions.

ONE couldn’t, as they say, make this stuff up. At a time of rising and often unsolved street crime, we have to wonder whether this is all a valid use of police time. In their defence, the police themselves are usually polite and often seem reluctant to be there; but, if a possible hate crime is reported, sometimes after a passer-by specifically and provocatively asks about gay relationships, the police are obliged to act. There are cases when they have gone to the scene and, after realising that someone has over-reacted, simply walked away.

My form of public witness is a little different. I wear my clerical collar wherever I go, which often leads to productive and respectful conversations and enquiries, and I write columns and articles. If I were to preach on the street — an extraordinarily unlikely event — and someone asked me what the Christian view on same-sex relationships was, my reply would be something along the lines of: “It’s that you love rather than who you love that matters; Jesus didn’t refer to it, and wasn’t big on judging and condemning.” But perhaps that’s just me.

In the United States, the culture and constitution are far more permissive around free-speech issues; but here, in Canada, in 2019, there was a high-profile case in which an evangelist, David Lynn, was arrested and charged after preaching in the heart of Toronto’s gay community at the opening of Pride Month. The charges were dropped a year later.

Beyond the legalities are the reasons that they are preaching in the first place. I certainly understand a desire to speak about God, and there is a noble tradition of engaging the street; but is this about sharing the good news, or searching for soft oppression?

For example, having viewed numerous videos of anti-abortion activists in Britain and North America breaking bubble zones around clinics, I think that it is clear that they know very well that the police will be called and ask them to leave, and that many are determined to be arrested. Street preachers may not be as deliberate, but there’s sometimes more than a hint of narcissism involved.

FAITH is a dialogue rather than a rant, and it is grim and downright dishonest to reduce it to a handful of strident opinions about equal marriage, women’s reproductive rights, and misunderstood eschatology. We need to attract people to church, and we all struggle with finding new and effective ways to do that — but it cannot be done by confirming preconceptions of intolerance.

I have been criticised in the past for questioning these megaphone martyrs. How can a priest, I was once asked, not defend Christians when they are heckled or hassled merely for preaching?

Actually, it is precisely because I am a priest and a Christian that I withhold my support. I care deeply about opening the door to show the world Jesus, and then getting out of the way, because it is about him, not us. There are all sorts of methods that we can use to open that door, but, much as I try, I cannot see this type of street preaching as one of them.

The Revd Michael Coren is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. His latest book, The Rebel Christ, is published in the UK by Canterbury Press (Books, 14 April 2023).