‘The Gospel belongs on the streets’: UK church challenges council’s preaching ban
Christians at a church in Essex are fighting in court for the right to share the Gospel on British streets after a city council banned their use of loudspeakers and ordered them to stop warning people about Hell.
Colchester City Council issued a community protection notice, or CPN, through the Safer Colchester Partnership, which it runs, to Clacton’s Bread of Life Community Church, saying people had been alarmed and distressed by its preaching, The Telegraph reported.
The notice accused members of the church of telling passers-by, including children, that they were “going to Hell” and warned of a fine or prosecution if it carried on.
Essex Police and the Safer Colchester Partnership issued the notice in March. It said the church’s amplified preaching in public spaces had made excessive noise and disturbed people and local businesses, and it called the church’s conduct intimidating and harmful to residents’ quality of life.
A CPN is a civil order with legal force, issued under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and anyone who breaches it commits a criminal offense. Under this order, no member of the church may use amplification at its weekly outreach in Colchester’s city center.
The church, represented by the group Christian Legal Centre, denied targeting children. It called the notice unprecedented and said it amounted in practice to a ban on preaching religious messages.
Pastor Stephen Clayden, 44, who started the congregation six years ago, said defeat in the appeal could encourage other councils to crack down on street preachers and start checking sermons inside churches.
He called that prospect “a very dark day for the country.”
Clayden said the notice’s ban on “engaging or intimidating behavior” limited the church’s ability to preach “as the Bible tells it.”
The congregation wants to keep preaching unfiltered, as it always has, he said, and its positive message includes warnings of Hell and judgment for people who reject salvation through Christ.
A council spokesman was quoted as saying that the authority had received repeated complaints about conduct that alarmed and distressed people. Officers explained expectations to those involved, he said, and when the complaints continued, the council issued a Community Protection Warning and then the CPN.
The church has appealed, and a magistrates’ court will now decide the case, the spokesman said. Christian Concern, whose legal arm is the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), said the hearings will take place next week, on Oct. 22 and Oct. 29.
On Wednesday, Clayden delivered the petition to Colchester Town Hall. It called for an end to the ban on church outreach in Colchester and drew more than 27,000 signatures.
Preachers now comply with the notice by speaking without microphones. Supporters gathered with the congregation on Colchester High Street, where Clayden preached from the book of Romans and told the crowd, “We’re not using amplification, so abiding by the CPN. But the Gospel belongs on the streets.”
CLC Chief Executive Andrea Williams said councils must not use powers meant for genuine anti-social behavior to shut down lawful Christian outreach or to keep Christians from talking about their faith in public.
At the rally, she said open streets for the Gospel would mean open pulpits too.
The church says the authorities are going after the content of its message.
The petition organizers said the church had received no complaints in more than six years of preaching on Colchester’s streets before the notice, and that it runs a regular food bank collection and has bought warm clothing for people in need. Tony Needs leads the church’s Colchester outreach, the group said.
In May, Nigel Farage, who represents Clacton in Parliament for Reform UK, met Clayden and backed the church. In a Facebook post with a photograph of the meeting, the church thanked him and said the two men had talked about “Jesus, evangelism and the Bible.”
