Judging the line in Wimbledon

Everyone has been enjoying "Hawkeye" at Wimbledon in the last 10 days. Any time a line call at the tennis championships is challenged, the slow handclap builds to a frenzy as the slow-mo animated replay tells us: was the ball in or out! Brilliant. If only all matters of legal judgement were as simple.

Take what happened outside a shopping centre in Wimbledon Town Centre last Monday. A retired Californian Police officer was preaching in the street when he was arrested after someone took offence at his describing homosexuality as a "sin". He spent the next 6 hours being interviewed by police and being held in a cell on suspicion of "hate speech" before being released without charge. You can watch a youtube video in this news report.

The laws against "hate speech" in the UK are covered in a number of Acts of Parliament - all of which are intended to stop people being threatening and abusive to others - particularly where this is related to race, religion or sexual orientation. Of course, every Christian would want to back this aim completely. But one of the original laws said that it was enough to cause an offence if something was "threatening, abusive or insulting". In practice that has meant that someone only needed to feel insulted to urge the police to do something about it. Problem.

People take offence at all kinds of things, that are not necessarily illegal, or even intended as hurtful. And this particular nuance of the law has been used in some high profile cases to prosecute Christians for just saying what the Bible says. Rescue has come from an unlikely direction. A campaign to remove the word "insulting" from the statute book was started by a group of entertainers (notably Rowan Atkinson), who were fearful that their legitimate right to parody and poke fun at things that some people feel strongly about, might be compromised. This amendment was passed by the House of Lords last year, but has yet to come into force officially.

Now let me put things straight. There are some great people who do excellent street work, but I am not a particular fan of street preachers who feel they are serving the gospel by blaring a list of their sins through a microphone at passers by. But I do think they should have the right to, effectively, read out what the Bible says in public, without being arrested because someone felt hurt by it. As comedian Ricky Gervais wisely said to someone on a phone in I heard: "Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right".

But this cuts two ways. As believers, we can easily feel offended and hurt by all kinds of things. When people say ugly things about our Lord and Saviour, it can feel like a knife cutting through you. We can feel threatened and defensive when we see someone wearing Hijab. But if we want to live in a country where we are free to preach the gospel - we must be content that this also allows others to express themselves however they want too. It's a state of affairs we should be grateful for, because the door to the gospel remains firmly open. It may not always be the case...