London Street Preacher Arrested

April 27, 2021

Peter Simpson relates the following in his first person account of his colleague's recent arrest.

I and my colleague Pastor John Sherwood, the Minister of a north London church, were preaching the gospel together in the centre of Uxbridge (in the PM’s constituency) on Friday April 23, as we regularly do. I began the preaching and referred to the grave abandonment by our nation of its Christian foundations, an abandonment which has manifested itself in, for example, the redefinition of marriage. This redefinition is nothing less than an assault upon the Biblical revelation, which tells us that marriage can be only between one man and one woman.

Pastor Sherwood then preached, expounding the final verses of Genesis 1, declaring that God’s design in creating mankind was to set human beings in families, headed by a father and a mother, not by two fathers or by two mothers. The distinction within mankind of just two genders, male and female, made in the image of God, constitutes the essence of God’s created order.

After a while, a number of police officers appeared on the scene, going up to Pastor Sherwood and stating that three complaints had been received about the preaching. The pastor stopped preaching to speak to the officers, in a courteous and reasonable manner for some considerable time, whilst adhering firmly to all that he had said. The accusation made by police was that ‘alarm and distress’ had been caused to members of the public.

Whilst this conversation was going on, another officer spoke to me about the need to avoid any homophobic statements. I explained that to uphold God’s moral law and to speak about the dangers of sin in respect of LGBT issues implies absolutely no hatred or unpleasantness towards any individual or group of people. Indeed, it is an act of love to one’s neighbour. Nevertheless, the Bible’s description of homosexuality as sinful is plain and clear-cut.

To this the policeman responded that some matters simply cannot be referred to in public places, because there is no freedom to make statements which offend people. I responded that the police would have no objection whatsoever to a Pride parade being held in Uxbridge, yet that would be highly offensive to Bible-believing Christians. The officer did not appear to appreciate the logic behind this argument. Furthermore, there is no law stating that people have a right never to be offended.

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Photo credit Bill Oxford