A parish priest was beaten up by three youths who hurled religious abuse during the attack. The assault took place in the churchyard of St Matthew’s Church in Bethnal Green, East London. Reverend Kevin Scully was left with two black eyes and a cut nose, and only escaped more serious injury because a member of the public intervened.
EastEnders, a BBC soap opera based on the life of Lucas Aaron Johnson, a pastor played by Don Giler, portrays Johnson as a twisted Christian preacher with strong religious convictions committing terrible crimes. The executive producer Diederick Santer said about the character: "Lucas is doing the Lord's work".
Anglican priest, Canon Michael Ainsworth, beaten up and insulted in 'faith hate' incident in his own churchyard by Asian youths.
The Catholic Bishop of Lancaster UK today gave a spirited response to accusations by secularist MPs in a Commons Committee who accused him of trying to establish religious "fundamentalism" in his schools. Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue told the Committee that schools in his diocese should see it as their prime duty to teach the Catholic faith and to evangelise and that this constituted neither "proselytism" nor "fundamentalism".
A police community support officer (PCSO) told two church workers in Birmingham, “You can’t preach here, this is a Muslim area”. The incident happened as Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham handed out Christian tracts on Alum Rock Road.
A Christian magistrate lost his second and final appeal in a suit in which he claimed his employer had discriminated against him because of his religious conviction that adoptive children ought not to be placed with homosexuals.
The Anglican bishop of Hereford has been ordered by a court to undergo "equal opportunities training" and pay a fine of £47,345.00, the equivalent of about Euro 63,540.00, for refusing to hire an active homosexual for a position of trust with young people. The ruling also stated that Hereford diocese staff "involved in recruitment should receive equal opportunities training". "The respondents discriminated against the claimant on the grounds of sexual orientation," said the ruling from the Cardiff Employment Tribunal.
As a result of refusing by the Earl of Devon to allow a homosexual couple to hold a civil partnership ceremony, the local Council revoked the licence for hosting all civil ceremonies in the Castle. The Earl of Devon is a devout Christian, who lives with his family in the event location at stake in Powderham Castle.
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead displays statue of Christ with erect penis by gay Chinese-born artist Koh.
In 2007 one out of every three Anglican churches suffered a vandal attack at some point during the year. Theft, arson and malicious damage is a problem for churches. Claims cost £1.8 million in total, a significant amount for petty crime. The average cost of these claims was around £900. These statistics don’t even take into account the smaller attacks which churches don’t report to their insurer because the damage is minor. It is therefore likely that many more thousands of churches suffer malicious damage every year.