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. Clayden said the notice’s ban on “engaging or intimidating behavior” limited the church’s ability to preach “as the Bible tells it.”