In recent years, the United Kingdom has witnessed an unsettling trend: the gradual encroachment of state power into the realm of individual liberty—particularly religious liberty. At the center of this shift stands a bureaucratic but powerful instrument: the Public Spaces Protection Order, or PSPO. While framed as a means of promoting public safety and curbing anti-social behavior, PSPOs have become a tool of selective enforcement, increasingly used to stifle Christian evangelism, prayer, and public witness.
What began as an attempt to maintain order in public parks and town squares has, in some areas, morphed into a mechanism to criminalize peaceful Christian expression—including activities as benign as offering literature, speaking about Jesus Christ, or even praying silently. The deeper issue at play is not just the wording of these laws, but how they are enforced, and more troubling still, whom they are enforced against.
What Are PSPOs? A Tool of Order or Oppression?
Public Spaces Protection Orders were introduced in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, giving local councils broad authority to impose restrictions on specific activities within public spaces. These orders can last for up to three years (with renewals possible) and are often accompanied by fixed penalty notices (fines) or potential criminal prosecution for violations.
In theory, PSPOs are intended to target behaviors that local communities deem disruptive or unsafe—such as public drunkenness, drug use, dog fouling, or aggressive begging. In practice, however, many PSPOs have been employed to restrict public preaching, gospel literature distribution, and even prayer vigils near abortion facilities.
Criminalizing Compassion: The Impact on Christian Outreach
Christians have long understood their mission to be not only spiritual but social. From the Apostle Paul’s open-air preaching in Athens to the street evangelism of George Whitefield and John Wesley in 18th-century England, public proclamation of the gospel has been essential to the church’s identity and mission. Today, such expressions are increasingly being regulated, restricted, or outright prohibited in many British cities—under the banner of PSPOs.
For example:
- In Bournemouth, local authorities issued PSPOs that effectively banned Christian street preaching, citing vague concerns over “causing distress.”
- In Manchester, Christians have been fined for handing out tracts or engaging passersby in spiritual conversation.
- In London, officers have invoked PSPOs or similar local ordinances to disperse prayer groups or evangelists, even when they were peaceful and non-confrontational.
These incidents are not isolated. They point to a broader cultural shift, where Christian outreach is no longer seen as a public good, but as a nuisance or even a threat. The irony is profound: in a nation where Christianity helped lay the foundations of law, education, and welfare, its public expression is now policed with suspicion.
Free Speech: Comparing British PSPOs to American Constitutional Protections
In the United States, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, religion, and assembly in the public square. These rights are not absolute—there are time, place, and manner restrictions—but the government may not discriminate based on viewpoint, nor may it prohibit peaceful religious expression merely because someone finds it offensive.
In contrast, PSPOs allow British councils to ban specific speech or behavior based on how it makes others feel—even if that speech is religious and peaceful. There is no constitutional equivalent in the UK to the First Amendment, and while Britain has a long-standing tradition of common law protections for liberty, these are increasingly being undermined by statute and administrative discretion.
This has chilling effects on Christian witness. A gospel tract that offends no one on Monday might be illegal on Tuesday, depending on the whims of local officials and the shifting sensitivities of passersby. In effect, British Christians no longer enjoy the presumption of liberty in public spaces. Their rights are subject to the approval of bureaucrats.
Discriminatory Enforcement: Do PSPOs Apply Equally to All?
One of the most serious concerns about PSPOs is their selective enforcement. While the text of a given order may be neutral, its practical application often is not.
- Christian street preachers have been arrested, fined, or threatened under PSPOs for merely quoting Scripture—particularly on topics like sexual ethics or the sanctity of life.
- Yet Islamic street proselytizing, including controversial material on Sharia or women’s roles, is frequently ignored by authorities, even when it makes bystanders uncomfortable.
- Public calls to prayer from mosques or loud demonstrations supporting Palestine often receive police accommodation, while Christian events are shut down for being too “provocative.”
This disparity raises the question: Are PSPOs a neutral tool for public safety, or are they becoming an ideological weapon—used disproportionately against Christians?
When Even Silence Is Too Loud: The Criminalization of Prayer
Among the most alarming consequences of PSPO enforcement in the UK is the criminalization of silent prayer—a development that would have seemed unthinkable even a decade ago. Yet in recent years, British police officers have arrested individuals not for what they said, but for what they were suspected of thinking.
Two of the most publicized cases center on Isabel Vaughan-Spruce and Adam Smith-Connor, both of whom were arrested or fined for silently praying near abortion facilities. Neither was carrying signs. Neither was speaking aloud. They stood quietly, hands folded or at their sides, praying inwardly for the unborn and for women in crisis. That, under certain PSPOs—especially those designating so-called “buffer zones”—was deemed an offense.
In Vaughan-Spruce’s case, police bodycam footage captured the moment they asked her if she was praying, and upon her confirmation that she “might be,” they placed her under arrest. The spectacle of uniformed officers detaining a middle-aged woman for silent Christian prayer illustrates the absurdity and authoritarian overreach that PSPOs have enabled.
Critics rightly note that no similar action has been taken against those silently meditating outside animal testing laboratories, or those participating in public Ramadan observances. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that such enforcement is not about neutral public order, but about ideological targeting—particularly of pro-life Christians.
Progressive Governments, Christian Roots, and a Willful Amnesia
The United Kingdom is not alone. Across much of Western Europe, Progressive governments—often under the banner of tolerance and secularism—are demonstrating an increasing hostility toward Christianity. In France, the burqa may be banned in the name of laïcité, but it is Christian crosses, Christian holidays, and Christian conscience rights that face relentless marginalization. In Germany, churches are turned into nightclubs while government funds support Islamic “integration centers.” In the Netherlands and Scandinavia, Christian schools and adoption agencies are pressured to conform to state sexual ethics or close their doors.
What makes this hostility especially tragic is that Christianity is not a foreign imposition on Europe—it is its historic soul. Long before the rise of modern liberal democracy, Christian institutions pioneered hospitals, orphanages, poorhouses, universities, and legal reforms. The impulse to care for the vulnerable—the widow, the orphan, the sick, the outcast—did not originate in Enlightenment secularism. It was birthed in the gospel, modeled by Christ, and institutionalized by His followers.
Consider:
- Hospitals were often founded by monastic orders and sustained by church tithes.
- Orphan care was prioritized by Reformation communities, particularly under Calvin and his successors.
- Charity was not seen as a private preference but a moral obligation rooted in the imago Dei.
To attack Christianity in the public square is not merely to suppress a set of private beliefs—it is to undermine the very moral infrastructure that made European civilization humane.
A Warning for America: The British Road is Not Far Away
It would be a mistake for Americans to view these developments in Britain and Europe as foreign curiosities. Under the Biden administration, we have already witnessed chilling parallels—particularly in the use of federal power to target Christians and pro-life advocates.
Selective Enforcement of the FACE Act
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, originally passed in 1994, was intended to prohibit threats or violence against those entering abortion facilities. Yet under President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, it has been selectively wielded against peaceful pro-life Christians, while left-wing violence against crisis pregnancy centers has gone largely unpunished.
- Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven and sidewalk counselor, was raided at gunpoint by FBI agents in front of his children in 2022. His supposed crime? Allegedly shoving a man who had been verbally harassing his 12-year-old son outside a Planned Parenthood clinic. Although local authorities declined to press charges, the Biden DOJ intervened, prosecuted him under the FACE Act, and lost in court—but only after months of stress, reputational damage, and government intimidation.
- Meanwhile, dozens of crisis pregnancy centers and churches were vandalized by pro-abortion activists following the leak and eventual reversal of Roe v. Wade. The DOJ has prosecuted almost none of these cases. In fact, as of late 2023, over 90% of known FACE Act prosecutions under Biden targeted pro-lifers—a grossly disproportionate statistic.
Catholic Surveillance and Religious Profiling
In another deeply disturbing revelation, internal documents exposed that the FBI Richmond office had considered infiltrating “radical traditionalist Catholic” groups, citing their views on abortion and sexual morality as potential extremist markers. These documents suggested surveilling Latin Mass communities and investigating their connections to supposed “white supremacist” ideologies—a smear tactic with no basis in evidence.
This form of religious profiling shows not just bureaucratic incompetence but ideological animosity. It reflects a growing belief in the Progressive Left that Christian orthodoxy itself—especially on life, family, and gender—is inherently dangerous.
Conclusion: Liberty Requires Vigilance
The lesson is clear: freedom is not self-sustaining. Once Christian expression is marginalized in the public square, it is only a matter of time before it is persecuted outright. The machinery already exists—through PSPOs in Britain, the FACE Act in America, or anti-extremism task forces in Canada and the EU.
The true danger is not just that laws are written, but that they are selectively enforced—targeting those who stand for life, truth, and the gospel. That is why Christians in the United States must be especially vigilant when voting for leaders and evaluating policy proposals. We must not hand power to those who view biblical faith as a threat to democracy or traditional morality as hate speech.
And yes, I am talking about the Democrat Party. It is a corrosive force within our nation. So-called “Progressives” are not progressive at all. They promote evil and corruption and their principles are openly anti-Christian. They have been clearly unmasked throughout the Biden administration.
The Biden administration’s record on these issues is deeply troubling. If such a government continues unchecked, America could find itself on the same trajectory as Britain—where praying silently near an abortion clinic is a crime, and quoting the Bible in public is considered hate.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
MMXXV
rob@christiannewsjunkie.com
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