The latest assault on Christians is happening in Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park. A Christian man has been told that he can no longer display his banner, which declares nothing more than “The blood of Jesus Christ.” Whether this ban on signage is a new law that will be applied to any and all posters being hung by every religious denomination, as well as the rest of the speakers who pontificate at the park, remains to be seen.

As a victim of homophobic abuse from a bunch of Muslim regulars at Speakers’ Corner, which I reported to the police at the time of occurrence, I was told that had the death threats against me happened just metres from where I was standing (outside the park), then the police could make arrests. Speakers’ Corner, as it happens, is outside the law of the UK, according to the Met police. Anything goes, they told me. Anything except a declaration of an allegiance to Jesus. Call for jihad in the name of Muhammad and it’s fine, but make calls for people to come together in Christ and that’s a step too far for the cops in Hyde Park.

This isn’t the first time we’re seeing double standards by the police in relation to Christian preachers here in the UK. Three men were arrested and charged in Bristol for the offence of reading from the Bible on a public street. Meanwhile, dawah stalls litter a large number of streets in London, from Dalston Junction to Woolwich, over to Kilburn and beyond. There is a permanent one set up in Leicester Square which blasts music (noise pollution) and hands out free Qurans and bad advice. These men never get tackled by police or shut down or asked to move along. They certainly don’t get arrested. Lee Rigby’s killers were free to walk around Greenwich park distributing extremist Islamic material with no complaints from the public, and no arrests made by the police. The three Christian men in Bristol, however, were mocked by the public, and the police were applauded and cheered when they made the arrests. It’s a scene that replicates the mocking of Jesus during his arrest, trial and punishment on his way to the cross.

The arresting of Christian preachers can be contrasted with the way the UK police interact with Muslim preachers on the streets. The police generally stand there, impotent, whilst taking a belly and an earful of verbal abuse from yet another angry Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” at them. The police, in these instances, in a bid to save face in the eyes of the public, are shamed into making a reluctant arrest. And any arrest of a Muslim preacher is not made without the fear of violent reprisal towards the arresting officers. The cops know this, and so they pick on the easy religious targets such as truly peaceful Christians.

The banners that are normally on display in the very small section of Hyde Park that is known as Speakers’ Corner generally verge on the ridiculous. The Blood of Jesus Christ pales in comparison to the rest of the posters and banners which generally tell of the end of the world being nigh, advocate for socialism, claim that meat is murder, offer free psychic healing and hugs, as well as tell tales of extraterrestrial life forms sending radio signals to interfere with our brains. The most offensive sign that I’ve seen at Speakers’ Corner, and on the majority of dawah stalls, are those that tell me Jesus is a Muslim. No, Jesus is not a Muslim. As a Christian, I would not get away with putting up a poster stating that Muhammad was a Christian. I’d be met by a braying mob before being swiftly arrested. The Blood of Jesus is not an offensive statement; it is the very heart of Christianity. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation states that we drink it in the Communion wine, with Christ’s body being found and ingested in the wafer.

The Christ energy invigorates the Western world. You could be forgiven for thinking that He is the blueprint for liberalism and leftist ideals — love thy neighbour, welcome the other, communal eating with outcasts, giving of your own wealth to help those in need, and reserving judgement of others whilst here on earth, but His words and deeds are different from big government taking your money from you and redistributing it without your permission. All of that just for starters. The blood of Jesus is understood to be salvific to the Christian mind. It is healing and redemptive. Why is Jesus’ death becoming a dangerous thing to the UK police? It’s baffling to me why our authorities and the general public seem to be siding with Islam rather than Christianity. What has gone wrong with us as a people and a nation that the blood of Christ is becoming a dirty thing in the eyes and minds of the public?