Why the National Secular Society and not Cinema is the real enemy of freedom.
After a week of feeling
hugely tongue-tied and depressed, Christians (myself included) have at last got
a news story they can get excited about. The banning of a Church of England
advert in which the Lord’s Prayer is recited has got us all back hitting the
keyboards.
It is a story that I
confess to being conflicted about. On the one hand my initial reaction was to
be outraged at this seemingly petty, draconian and highly partial censorship.
If anything encapsulated the suffocating PC culture of contemporary Western society
then surely this was it. However, further reflection has tempered that indignation
and now I’m not so sure that either Digital Cinema Media (the agency who
decided not to allow its screening) were so wrong, or that Christian’s are
targeting their protest in the right place.
Firstly Christians can’t
have it both ways. Some have argued that the advert is so innocuous that it’s
ridiculous to ban it. After all the Lord’s Prayer is so absorbed into our
culture through school assemblies, national ceremonies, and Cliff Richard
records that it’s like banning an advert for including a Shakespeare quotation.
Well if that is the case its prohibition is hardly a great loss for the Gospel – anaemic
and toothless dittys aren’t going to change anyone. Alternatively, others argue
that it’s brimming with radical punch and counter-cultural challenge (the
problem of course is that without ‘a preacher’ most people just won’t get how
subversive and challenging it is). But if it is such theological dynamite why
are we surprised that a secular cinema chain doesn’t want it (especially just
now)?
Rather Christians should reflect on the comments from the National Secular Society President Terry Sanderson who said...
"The Church of England is arrogant to imagine it
has an automatic right to foist its opinions upon a captive audience who have
paid good money for a completely different experience”
"The Church does not hesitate to ban things that
it deems inappropriate from its own church halls - things like yoga. The cinema
chains are simply exercising the same right."
And actually he has a
point – and it is exactly the point that Christians need to quote back
relentlessly again the NSS and its allies in order to expose their hypocrisy in
this area and to make the case for genuine equality. After all where was the
NSS spokesman speaking up for the rights of the Asher’s bakery
when they refused an order to make a cake with a pro-Same Sex marriage
statement on it? Well surprise surprise the NSS were in the vanguard of those condemning Ashers and insisting that businesses should not have any
rights to decline such orders.
Surely, to be fair, the
right of one business not to promote views about prayer that some might find
offensive – should be extended to another business not wanting to promote views
on marriage that some others might offensive.
This isn’t after-all an issue of legality, both prayer and same-sex
marriage are legal, it’s an issue about the discretion of businesses not to
associate themselves with third party beliefs. Neither DCM or Ashers are
refusing to provide services to Christians or Gay people – they just don’t want
to promote their causes.
The fact that the NSS
support DCM while condemning Ashers simply reveals that its pronouncements are not at
all about equality or fairness – but about waging a vendetta against
Christianity wherever its sees an opportunity.
So Christians should leave
off DCM and actually defend its rights on this matter. Instead they should be holding
the NSS to account and using its own words concerning DCM and the ‘Lord’s
Prayer advert’ in order to fight for genuine freedoms and equality in the UK
today.
