Situation for UK Christians is now ‘graver’

Persecution of Christians in the UK for preaching the gospel has grown in last 15 years and is “graver”, says Sam Armstrong from the Free Speech Union (FSU).

Armstrong, an evangelical Christian and a political consultant with the non-sectarian organisation, says the FSU has dealt with more than 100 cases involving Christian free-speech issues since its inception in 2020.

However, he adds: “I’m slightly worried that Christians haven’t made up a larger set of our cases … given how controversial and self-evidently offensive their views are, they should make up more of our work.”

After the murder of Charlie Kirk, Armstrong reports that there was an FSU “membership spike”, adding: “There is an unrelenting growth in people flocking to the FSU and … in the number of cases we are handling of people being disciplined, dismissed, arrested, convicted for a variety of speech”.

These include street preachers, individuals who have expressed Christian teaching on a particular social issue, and Christians bullied and victimised in the employment context as a result of workplace policies that, noted Armstrong, “make it impossible for Christians to be able to express their view faithfully”.