John Coulter: A controversial new breed of preacher needs to watch their language and get professional open air evangelical training

Either they should put up the time to get professional training in the techniques of responsible open air evangelism, or they should shut up and stop making fools of themselves and a mockery out of the Christian faith and especially the doctrine of Salvation. This has been brought into sharp focus by the highly contentious comments of a street preacher at Belfast Pride 10 days ago.

The Covid pandemic changed the way open air evangelism is conducted, and the Christian churches - of whatever denomination - need to face up to this reality. Given the social distancing and meeting restrictions, a valuable frontline aspect of Christian evangelism which suffered was the open air witness.

As a mainstream Presbyterian minister’s son married to a Baptist pastor’s daughter, open air evangelism was a major part of church life for myself my wife and our families, especially our dads. Indeed, during the seventies, I recall taking part in Sunday evening summer events with our Presbyterian youth fellowship when we would set up on a housing development green patch, preaching the Gospel and singing Christian praise. Occasionally, too, we would travel as a youth fellowship to one of the north coast of Ireland ‘Ports’ – Portrush, Portstewart or Portballintrae – to distribute Gospel tracts and chat about Jesus Christ to passers-by.

Again in the late 1970s as a trainee reporter, I would spend my Easter holidays working with the Portrush-based Project Evangelism open air outreach organisation inter-acting with the various groups in society who would travel to that ‘Port’ for the annual Easter weekend. But the evangelism was performed through face to face conversations, and chats over tea and buns – no yelling and shouting into high-powered PA systems. But the post pandemic era has thrown up new challenges for the Christian churches, namely how does it sensibly and constructively approach the concept of open air evangelism.

The summer strategy I outlined above related to an era in the 1970s long since gone. The entire island of Ireland, regardless of your view on the constitutional question, has become more secular and pluralist and many churches have faced a severe uphill task to persuade folk to fill the pews. In some cases, churches and mission halls are also struggling financially because with the cost of living crisis biting hard, folk are having to make tough decisions on essential requirements such as food and heat.

However, the pandemic has also spawned a relatively new phenomenon in relation to open air evangelism – the re-emergence of a new breed of street preacher using loud hailers. The tactics of some of these so-called street preachers are confrontational. The real danger for the Christian churches, of whatever denomination, is that these confrontational antics of a small section of these street preachers will have lasting long-term consequences for anyone involved in any type of open air Christian witness.

When I think of the way in which my late dad and my father-in-law used public address systems as part of their open air evangelism, they did not use the sheer volume of noise which a section of the modern-day so-called street preachers deploy. But then is Ireland 2023 less tolerant of the Christian faith as when dad and my father-in-law were preaching? Whatever you think of the late Rev Ian Paisley’s politics, he was a gifted open air preacher who explained the concept of Salvation but did not ram it down people’s throats.

Many modern-day street evangelists would argue that given the increasingly pluralist and secular society in which we now live, there is a real need to use shock tactics and ‘in your face’ Hell-fire preaching to force people to think about the destination of their souls. This means using high-powered PA systems booming out their message, and especially the use of ‘no punches pulled’ judgemental criticism of the lifestyles of folk. A section of these street preachers live stream or put footage of their exploits on social media.

Watching some of this online footage of their activities, the perception is fuelled that a section of these so-called street preachers are trying to create a situation where they are arrested and have to appear before the courts as if they are a modern day St Stephen, viewed by many Biblical theologians as one of the first Christian martyrs. I did notice a marked differences in the responses of those street preachers who had some professional training in evangelism and those who merely appeared to grab a microphone and Bible and begin what I can only describe as a loud ‘guldering session’. Then again, having been brought up in the era of the conversational approach to open air evangelism, perhaps I have a natural bias against such ‘in your face’ strategies?

As far as I am concerned, having talked privately to a number of these so-called street preachers about their individual specific evangelism tactics, I have concluded that many of them are nothing more than publicity and attention seekers who if they don’t ‘wise up’ will provide an opportunity for those who oppose the Gospel message to lobby for tough laws which essentially prohibit the use of open air evangelism.

The ultimate nightmare is that any born again Christian believer who wishes to share their testimony publicly or participate in open air evangelism will be falsely branded as a ‘hate preacher’ because of the confrontational antics of a few attention-seeking eejits.

Northern Ireland has a very effective lobby of genuine and professional open air evangelists who can communicate the message of being ‘born again’ exceptionally efficiently. Equally, there is a minority of self-styled street preachers who are doing more harm to Christian evangelism with their provocative antics. I accept that they have a right to speak, but the least they should do is take professional open air evangelical training and try to watch their language.

• Dr John Coulter has been a journalist since 1978