UK Gov’t Prosecutors Insist Holy Bible is ‘No Longer Appropriate’ in the Modern Society

Lawyers for England and Wales’ Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) attempted to convict a Christian street preacher for quoting the Bible to a lesbian couple, arguing that scripture is “no longer appropriate in modern society.”

The extraordinary case was brought against armed forces veteran and throat cancer survivor John Dunn in Swindon after police referred him to prosecutors for telling a lesbian couple that “it says in the Bible that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

“Whether a statement of Christian belief or not, the court is being asked to consider whether the language has the potential to cause harassment, alarm or distress,” the CPS wrote to the courts when pursuing the case, in a document quoted by the Belfast News Letter.

“This document is not the forum for religious debate, but the bible contains other material recognising slavery (Exodus 21:7), the death sentence (Exodus 35:2 and Leviticus 24:16) and cannibalism (Deuteronomy 28:27),” the prosecutors asserted — sloppily, as it turns out, as Deuteronomy 28:27 actually makes no reference to cannibalism.

“There are references in the bible which are simply no longer appropriate in modern society and which would be deemed offensive if stated in public,” the CPS insisted.

“The suggestion by the Crown that there are parts of the Bible ‘which are simply no longer appropriate in modern society and which would be deemed offensive if stated in public’, is one that if accepted would have significant constitutional implications,” a Christian theologian consulted by the Christian Legal Centre to formulate a defence for Mr Dunn argued, citing the fact that the Bible “has had a unique status within British constitutional history” and was, for example, presented to the late Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation.

The Belfast News Letter asked the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland — Northern Ireland and Scotland have separate criminal justice systems from England and Wales due to their history as independent kingdoms — if they agreed with the CPS’s stance on biblical quotes being criminal, but they only said, “[t]his is not a PPS case, so we are not in a position to provide comment.”

The Church of England, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and English Catholic Church all declined to comment, with the last claiming that “as this case did not result in a conviction, there is nothing we can add at this point.”

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, bemoaned the prosecution’s attempt, calling it “extraordinary that the prosecution, speaking on behalf of the state, could say that the Bible contains abusive words that, when spoken in public, constitute a criminal offence.”

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