Political Correctnesscontinued ....

PREACHING THE GOSPEL

If P.C Is carried to its logical conclusion, free speech could be imperilled, and this would certainly affect the preaching of the Christian Gospel; for instance when a gentleman by the name of John Hammond was street-preaching in Bournemouth he spoke against homosexuality. A gang of gays attacked him and jostled him to the ground. Strange to relate, John, not the gang was charged and convicted for a public order offence. Before the case came to court unfortunately John died.

It should be noted from a previous case, (Redmond Bate v The Director of Public Prosecutions) the judgement of Lord Justice Sedley and Mr Justice Collins in July1999 stated that street preachers have the freedom of speech to be provocative and contentious. (It should be pointed out that members of Parliament are always exploiting this privilege!)

Section 5 of the Public Order Act of 1986 however does state that it is a criminal offence to engage in disorderly behaviour within the sight and hearing of persons likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby. Once again that Law could be applied in different ways, and generally speaking Christian street preachers do keep within this law, and should do.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ can be contentious. When Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (7) He would have caused offence to those who considered that there were other ways to God. But P.C promoters should also take into account that Christians too are offended when other religions deny the deity of Christ, or when we are called infidels; but we are tolerant of others' beliefs even though we do not agree with them.

We would therefore call for a wider debate on Political Correctness, before it gets out of hand - if it has not already done so - and takes us down the road to totalitarianism. The injection of a little humour will help, and P.C must never take precedence over moral, legal and spiritual correctness.