TRIGGER WARNING: Hurtful and offensive video ahead.

Those of you who watched the video, did you survive? Or was it too traumatic for you?

If so, I’m sorry. Instead, why don’t you watch something much less hurtful and offensive – like, say, 50 Shades of Gray or Reservoir Dogs, or The Life of Brian, or The Last Temptation of Christ?

What am I talking about? Read the full story here, but in summary, the biggest cinema chains in England (representing 80% of all cinemas) have decided to ban a one-minute video showing different people each reciting a line in the Lord’s Prayer because it “could cause offense to those of differing political persuasions, as well as to those of differing faiths and indeed of no faith.” This, despite the advert being passed uncut by the British Board of Film Classification and given a “safe for children” certificate, as well as receiving clearance from the Cinema Advertising Authority.

Even new atheist, Richard Dawkins, says it should be shown, saying, “I strongly object to suppressing the ads on the grounds that they might ‘offend’ people. If anybody is ‘offended’ by something so trivial as a prayer, they deserve to be offended.”

And, wait for it, the assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, said he was “flabbergasted that anyone would find this prayer offensive to anybody, including people of no particular religious belief.”

When was the last time Christians, Muslims, and Richard Dawkins agreed on something? Eh, maybe time for some second thoughts?

Ironically, the advert was scheduled to be screened before the new Star Wars film – a film which has spawned its own religion with 177,000 claiming Jedi to be their religion in the 2011 British census! Apparently, the Jedi religion is fit for the cinema, but the Christian one is not. As Giles Fraser said:

They say that people might be offended by the Lord’s Prayer. But for years now we have been told by secularists that religious people have to stop being so easily offended when their faith is challenged. And I agree. But secularists have to stop being so easily offended too. “Don’t impose your religion on us,” they shout. Well, it’s no more of an imposition than all the other advertisements we have to put up with.

This is a revealing and worrying insight into the anti-Christian prejudices of those who control much of the media in the UK. For too long, the advocates of multi-culturalism and political correctness on both sides of the Atlantic have used their power to silence the Christian voice in the public square. Let’s hope and pray that, as is happening in America, events like these begin to expose the cowardly and bigoted agenda of secular humanism and that Christians will be emboldened to speak out and speak up again.

One thing’s for sure, in God’s good providence, far more people have already the seen the Lord’s Prayer video than ever would have, had the hyper-sensitive censors not intervened. In other words, despite the devil’s rage, God’s kingdom is coming, and God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. “For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”

  • Steven Birn

    I found this post a triggering microaggression because it invaded my safe space wherein no opposition to the Christian faith, real, imagined or indirect, is allowed.

  • Ben Thorp

    I think this is more of a storm in a teacup.

    DCM, by policy, do not show *any* religious or political adverts. They didn’t say that *this* advert was offensive, but that they don’t show religious adverts to avoid any possibility of offence.

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