“We don’t want your kind of people on the street – hateful people”. A neo-Nazi demonstration? Ku Klux Klan? Drug dealers, perhaps? No, Christians having an open-air service:

Toronto — A member of a church group that has been accused of targeting the home of a gay couple in Leslieville with its street preaching says the media and area residents have jumped to faulty conclusions.

Members of the Highfield Road Gospel Hall have never targeted specific houses, let alone individuals for their sexual orientation, said the man, who asked that his name not be used over fears the furor that has erupted could continue to grow and threaten his employment.

“You know, we’re very sorry that this has happened. We’re hurt that this has been misconstrued,” he said. “If they feel they’re being targeted, we feel sad about that. They’re not being targeted.

“We’re there for everyone to hear the gospel. We’re not there to preach to just one house. That would be discrimination.”
The dispute began on Sunday evening on Highfield Road during one of the church group’s weekly “open-air meetings,” 20-minute services during which the fundamentalist Christian congregants sing hymns such as Amazing Grace and listen to fiery sermons from a rotating roster of ministers.

This church’s approach doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly effective way to reach the lost for Christ – it certainly isn’t working in this street, judging by the cries of, “get the hell out of our neighbourhood, you’re not welcome”.

The outbreak of neighbourliness is ostensibly a show of support for a homosexual couple in the street – although there is no mention that the preaching referred explicitly to homosexuality. Perhaps Christianity is in the process of becoming the anti-homosexual religion in the eyes of the masses; still, not to worry, early Christians were accused of cannibalism. The street’s inhabitants don’t appear too keen on showing the kind of tolerance to the itinerant Christians that they wish to receive from them or that one has come to expect from a society that cherishes religious freedom. Perhaps tolerance has run a little thin, having all been lavished on Islam.

Unlike “Islamophobia”,  “Christophobia” hasn’t been dignified by a dictionary appearance yet – and probably never will be. It isn’t an appealing word, but, it captures a reality that is absent in “Islamophobia”: phobias are irrational fears; fear of Christianity is irrational whereas a fear of Islam is entirely rational.