A 77-year-old retired pastor stands outside a hospital in Northern Ireland and gives a short message based on a Bible verse many learned as children: “For God so loved the world…”
Clive Johnston is now on trial for that.
His alleged offense is not intimidation, obstruction or intimidation. It involves a sermon – including the words of John 3:16 – within a legally defined “buffer zone” near a hospital where abortions take place. Prosecutors allege he may have “influenced” those who had access to such services, causing him to break the law.
That word – “influence” – does extraordinary work.
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Clive Johnston, 77, after a hearing before a district judge at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court on April 22, 2026. (The Christian Institute)
Johnston did not talk about abortion. He didn’t approach anyone. The case rests on the idea that passersby might have inferred his views on abortion from his Christian message, which had nothing to do with abortion, and that this alone could constitute unlawful “influence.”
If that norm holds, it regulates not only behavior but also belief, through a kind of guilt-by-association. Simply put, the Bible is on trial.
To American readers this may sound unlikely. The United States has long treated religious expression as a fundamental freedom, protected even – and especially – when it is controversial. But in parts of the UK and across Europe, a different approach is starting to take hold.
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In Finland, Päivi Räsänen, a former interior minister, was recently convicted of “hate speech” over a pamphlet she wrote in 2004 outlining her church’s teachings on marriage and sexuality. In England, people have been convicted for praying silently in certain streets.
These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a broader shift: a growing willingness to treat public expressions of Christian faith not as contributions to democratic debate, but as potential harm to be managed.
If quoting the Bible can be criminalized if it is offensive, then what is unfolding is not simply a domestic legal dispute. It is a test of the values that underpin one of the world’s closest alliances.
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The United States and Britain have long described their bond as a “special relationship,” rooted in a shared history, a shared language and, crucially, shared commitments to fundamental freedoms – including freedom of expression and religious freedom. That assumption is now under pressure.
Ahead of his trial, the US State Department warned this week that cases like Clive Johnston’s represent a “blatant violation” of fundamental rights and “a worrying departure from the shared values that should underpin US-Britain relations.”
Alliances depend on more than mutual interests. They depend on a basic agreement about the rights of citizens – what can be said, what can be believed, and whether the state exists to protect those freedoms. When that baseline shifts, so does the relationship.
The irony is that this moment of legal restriction comes just as faith is reviving in the West. In both the United States and Europe, members of Generation Z are rediscovering Christianity in unexpected numbers. Churches report a growing number of young people. Sales of Bibles are increasing. A generation once considered post-religious is starting to take faith seriously again.
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But while the revival is shared, the response is not.
For the time being, the United States has resisted Europe’s censorship path. The constitutional tradition reflects a confidence that citizens can confront competing ideas – even uncomfortable ones – without the state monitoring their expression. But that trust is not guaranteed. The value of freedom of expression must be continually reinforced for a population that is too easily drawn to the false compassion of ‘safe spaces’ and ‘bans on incitement to hatred’.
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The case of Clive Johnston across the Atlantic may seem small: a single man, a single sermon, a single Bible verse. But it raises a question with transatlantic implications. If preaching the Bible in “the wrong place” can be treated as a form of unlawful influence by one of America’s closest allies, what does that say about the sustainability of the freedoms they claim to share?
The special relationship has long been described in almost sacred terms. But ultimately it is based on shared values. It may not be entirely accurate to say that it lives by prayer. In this case, the life may be of something more fragile: whether a man is free to speak a Bible verse in public.
