Manic street preachers?

It could be argued that your average journalist is not so different from the much-maligned street preachers who congregate on the Moor. We both feel we have important messages for the general public and, in a world where attention is a hotly contested prize, are eager to capture our audience as best we can. Where journalists have a variety of tools in their arsenal — some of which, such as the “clickbait” headline, also tend to infuriate — most of Sheffield’s street preachers have one in common: the microphone. 

If you visit the Moor on a regular basis, you’ll almost certainly have heard them. Men, and the odd woman, with a knee-high portable speaker at their side and a message about your eternal soul in their heart, one of such immense importance that it apparently justifies being expressed at an equally immense volume. Though occasionally there are Muslim preachers in town, they are far outnumbered by the Christians. “It is so intrusive and really does set my teeth on edge,” local resident Judith Daley, 71, tells me, adding that she is “a person of faith” herself. “I’ve lived with the fact of street preachers all my life, but the amplified version these days goes too far.” 

Richard Fletcher, who shops in town most weekends, says multiple groups preaching on the same day sometimes end up “in an arms race against each other”, getting louder and louder as they fight to be heard. He also objects to how some preachers frame their message. “I don't appreciate being called a sinner. As far as I'm concerned, that's just rude,” he explains. More than one person tells me they feel for the employees of shops in the area, an unwilling captive audience for proselytising that can go on for hours at a time.

Even if you never set foot in town, you may have seen complaints like these in recent months. At a council meeting last November — during a chat about the city centre’s Public Space Protection Order (PSPO), which empowers the council to crack down on “anti-social behaviour” — Labour councillor Laura Moynahan wondered aloud whether there was anything the local authority could do about loud noise on the Moor. “I don't want somebody shouting at me that I'm doomed and I'll go to hell,” she said, adding that “the decibels were ridiculous”. 

No new rules to limit street preaching were agreed, or even outlined, at the meeting. A council officer noted that any noise limitations in the city centre could inadvertently impact the council’s own outdoor events. Cllr Moynahan is also keen to stress that she raised the same concern about buskers at the time. “If I hear someone absolutely strangling a Frank Sinatra song, that’s equally upsetting,” she told The Tribune. “But I’m not against busking[...] and I’m not against preaching either. I’ve had trolls saying I’m against Christianity but it’s a load of rubbish.” She doesn’t think the council “has any plans” to clamp down on preaching at the moment. 

However, like the corrupt king Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel, Sheffield’s street preachers seemed to see ominous writing on the wall. Just days after Cllr Moynahan’s comments — and amid concerns that the PSPO might be used to push street preachers out of the city centre, in the same way it has displaced the city’s homeless — a petition appeared to defend the practice, which has since been signed more than 750 times. “Imagine walking through Sheffield's vibrant city centre, enriched by the diverse voices and cultures that make our community unique. For years, street preachers have contributed to this atmosphere, sharing messages of hope, peace, and reflection,” the petition begins. “However, the practices that uphold these expressions might soon be jeopardised if Sheffield City Council proceeds with actions that could restrict or criminalise amplified street preaching.” Concerns that a PSPO might be wielded against street preachers are not entirely unfounded, given reports of this happening in Leicester last spring. 

While street preaching has some ardent defenders, its critics are equally impassioned. Within a few weeks a counter-petition appeared, urging the council to “expedite changes” to the PSPO so that those making excessive noise can “have their equipment seized” if necessary. The petition’s creator Alex McLean, who works out of a studio space on the Moor, wrote that he and many others “feel like we are being driven away from our city centre” by preachers “literally screaming” at passers-by. “It is not exaggerating to say that they reach levels that could cause permanent hearing damage,” he added. On the phone, McLean acknowledges that he is less likely to criticise buskers, who can also “be “super noisy” because “it’s how they make money”.

The debate around street preachers has already made headlines in a number of local publications but, somewhat ironically, the voices of those most central to this argument have gone largely unheard. So for the last few weeks I’ve paced from the Greggs on the Moor to the second Greggs on the Moor, on the hunt for someone to tell me the good news, at whatever volume they deem appropriate. What moves someone to preach on the streets, despite so many people praying for them to go away? And, if push came to PSPO, would they be willing to keep it down?