We’re supposed to be a Christian country – but try telling that to the keepers of our public order

Mar 24, 2019 by Jill

by Lucy Denyer, Sunday Telegraph:

Is it no longer acceptable to allow your Christian faith to inform how you view the world in modern Britain? Three separate stories of the past few weeks – from the ridiculous to the outright disturbing – would suggest not. If that is the case, it is deeply troubling.

First was the arrest of a 64-year-old London street preacher outside Southgate tube station. In the video posted on social media showing the arrest, the man is accused by the police of “being racist” and “breaching the peace” before they handcuff him and take his Bible away, although it is unclear what exactly it was he said while preaching that caused the police to intervene. He was later “de-arrested”, according to a Metropolitan Police spokesperson.

Next came the news that police were investigating a Catholic journalist, over tweets in which she “misgendered” the adult child of the head of a transgender support charity, and suggested that the genital surgery carried out on the child (in Thailand) when aged 16 was “mutilation”. “It is my belief that a person cannot change sex”, said Caroline Farrow.

Finally, last week saw the frankly extraordinary tale of a letter from the Home Office to an Iranian national refusing his application for asylumbecause his conversion from Islam was “inconsistent” with his claim that Christianity is a peaceful religion. The rejection letter referenced six Bible passages, and claimed that the book of Revelation is filled with “images of revenge, destruction, death and violence”.

Each of these stories is fairly disturbing. Taken together, it is possible to come to the alarming conclusion that in Britain, in 2019, officialdom does not allow for deeply-held Christian faith to mean very much at all. That is, it does not allow for the possibility that faith might mean a person says or believes things that other people find uncomfortable or strange. No matter that those things do not incite violence towards others. No matter that Britain is not only supposed to be a country that upholds the right to freedom of both speech and religion but is still, technically, officially a Christian one. Those whose job it is to uphold public standards are, it seems, increasingly bowing to the mores of a progressively secular society, in which faith is not only viewed as an outdated oddity, but as something both ridiculous and dangerous.

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