Ministry News

British Doc in Trouble for Mentioning Jesus

Details

Monday, 23 May 2011 22:18

A British doctor with 28 years of experience has been censured by the government’s medical licensing board—and may have his medical license revoked—for discussing Christianity with one of his patients.

Last year, Dr. Richard Scott, a general practitioner at the Bethesda Medical Center in Margate, England, saw a 24-year-old male patient, and the doctor discussed his faith at the end of a medical consultation after obtaining the patient’s permission.

"I said that, personally, I had found having faith in Jesus helped me and could help the patient," Scott recalled. "At no time did the patient indicate that they were offended, or that they wanted to stop the discussion. If that had been the case, I would have immediately ended the conversation."

The patient's mother filed a complaint with the government licensing council, which then sent a letter to Scott informing him that he had “harassed a vulnerable patient.” Fearing his medical license could be revoked, Scott appealed the censure.

“What’s happened to me is an injustice and I want to stand up for Christians who have been getting hammered in the workplace,” Scott explained.

As columnist Michael Tennant noted in a column on the New American website, "Scott is a member of an Anglican church. The Anglican Church, of course, is the established church of England. Thus, an English doctor is now being persecuted by a state body for the offense of talking to one of his patients about the state’s official religion."

— New American, Telegraph