When witnessing becomes illegal

When Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, of the Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool England, shared their faith with a Muslim guest, they probably thought God had given them a wonderful opportunity. They probably thought the Muslim they spoke to would be challenged. They may have even thought there would be a 'reaction' at some point, but I don't think they were ready to be charged by the state as criminals. That, however, is what happened.

The Vogelenzangs are Christians who like to share their faith with anyone up for a conversation. On this occasion, it was a guest of the Hotel who just happened to be a Muslim woman.

By all reports it was a regular conversation between people of different faiths & no more heated than anything you might have with a person who thinks differently to yourself.

However, when a complaint was put in to the Police, something reared its ugly head. The Vogelenzangs had unwittingly transgressed a silently understood, but uncodified law; thou shalt not challenge unbelievers with the gospel.

According to the UK Telegraph, the Vogelenzangs have been,

...charged with breaching Section 5 of the Public Order Act – causing harassment, alarm or distress. If convicted, they face fines of £2,500 each and a criminal record.

You can watch CBN's coverage of the story here.

So what exactly did this couple do wrong? It would seem the problem is a Christian these days is allowed to have his/her beliefs, but is not allowed to disagree openly with someone else's beliefs.

There have always been social boundaries we Christians have been aware of. We know that to say something about the sanctity of marriage to someone in a de facto relationship will cause ripples, so we either say it in a sugar coated way or keep silent.

We know that to complain about the public display of sexual images with cause people to scoff so we bite our tongue until the images are so gross that even non-Christians would agree with us.

We know that to call abortion 'murder' is to offend some of the most emotionally fragile people in society, so we say little about it publicly. We (hopefully!) don''t let the world sway our thinking on the matter, we just get a little more muzzled each day.

We have always known these 'touchy' areas existed in social circles, but we have not experienced those 'social' issues becoming 'legal' issues. That sounds like Iran or some such totalitarian state.

But there is every indication our generation is witnessing the crossing over of one to the other. We have allowed our freedoms to be slowly eroded and sat silently watching as Christianity has gone from mainstream to a minority viewpoint.

This latest incident in the UK follows hot on the heels of the story in the Mail Online about the woman who protested to her local coucnil that a gay pride march had been allowed to go ahead and was promptly visited by two Police officers who warned her she could be found guilty of a "hate crime".

In Australia, it is time to wake up. We have the nasty habit of watching what America and England does and then trying to emulate them a few years down the track. If we can, we would prefer to see where they are going and beat them to the punch.

So back to my original question; How far would you go to defend your right to witness in your own country?