Streets of London

Chapter 4 of the book of Luke describes Jesus preaching in the synagogue, and He preached from a
passage in Isaiah that outlined His call by God:
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

That is the call of Jesus, and as He prepared to leave this earth, He commissioned His followers to go everywhere and proclaim His truth.  He has come to redeem humanity, to bring hope and liberty.  He has defeated the power of darkness, and He calls us to walk in His wonderful light.  He wants to open our eyes and the eyes of those with whom we interact to His truth.  In the power of God, we can communicate who Christ is and what He desires to do.

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In Acts 4, we find that Peter and John had been used by the Lord to pray for a man, who was healed.
They proclaimed:
11 This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.'
12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

Over the past few days, there has been a rapidly-growing chorus that has been publicized regarding  an unfortunate event on the streets of London.  Faithwire has picked up the story of the arrest of a street preacher; the report states:

In a video of the incident posted to Twitter, officers can be seen forcefully asking the African man to stop, before arresting him on a rather baffling charge of “breaching the peace.”

According to the published exchange with an officer near the Southgate Underground station, after the preacher is accused of "breaching the peace," the policeman says: “It’s what you’re doing at the moment...You’re causing problems — you’re disturbing people’s days and you’re breaching their peace. If you won’t go away voluntarily, we will have to arrest you.”

The preacher said, "I will not go away, because I need to tell them the truth — because Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life..."  The Faithwire account continues:

“But nobody wants to listen to that,” the officer snapped back. “They want you to go away.”

At this point, the officer handcuffs the man, before an additional officer snatches his Bible out of his hands.

“Don’t take my Bible away,” the man cried.

“You should have thought about that before being racist!” the officer replied.

 Racist?  Well, Faithwire reached out to the Metropolitan Police.  What did they find?

The police admitted that, despite the officer’s comments accusing the preacher of being “racist,” nothing of this nature had been said by the Christian man. They also noted that “no language of this nature was used in the presence of officers.”

“The initial report suggested some Islamophobic language had been used,” the police force told Faithwire. “However nobody has made a formal allegation to this effect and no language of this nature was used in the presence of officers.”

Now, it has been reported that the man was "de-arrested."  Yet, the account provides a chilling look at a clear case of bias against someone preaching the gospel.  As Faithwire reports:

Many have called on the police to apologize for the incident. Christians and atheists alike have expressed their outrage at the incident. Anglican clergyman and former chaplain to the Queen, Rev. Dr. Gavin Ashenden, was one of those to speak out.

“The police have closed down freedom of speech and become Christianophobic,” he wrote on Twitter. “If we fail to protest we will lose our freedom under the law.”

Obianuju Ekeocha, who is described in the story as a "Christian and pro-life activist," had posted one of the early accounts of the arrest of the preacher. Ekeocha also tweeted out a video of the arrest of the Christian preacher side-by-side with an incident in which UK police responded to a Muslim preacher shouting "Allahu Akbar;" shall we say it was a "friendlier" exchange.  The source of that video was the Leave.EU Twitter account.

Certainly, this central event is illustrative of the clash of worldviews in which we find ourselves.  Christianity has become a target, while worldviews aligned with Islam are tolerated and even found to be favorable.  Radical Islam is a serious threat, yet there has been a determined effort to downplay or eliminate the religious element; witness how media and politicians are reticent to label acts of terror as being connected with Islam.  And, yet to criticize Islam become bigoted and Islamophobic; criticizing Christianity is an accepted practice.

But, that's just par for the course, according to Jesus, and we have to be careful that we don't make ourselves out to be religious victims.  He told us we would experience tribulation and persecution. But, we can continue to exhibit confidence in our Savior and allow Him to live His life through us.

We do acknowledge that there are those that will challenge the Christian faith; we can study the Word and rely on the Spirit, prepared to defend it.  We can make a reasonable, determined defense of the truth of the Bible and adopt that attitude reflected in Romans 1, that we are not ashamed of the gospel.  We can certainly be bold for Christ.

Finally, there is a simple purity that is exhibited in this image of a preacher on the streets, proclaiming the Gospel.  In a day when we find church members and leaders debating a number of issues and incorporating worldly philosophies and constructs in our churches, we can continue to adhere to communicating the true, pure gospel, the good news that changes lives.