The reaction to this advert is quite revealing at another level. While the political secularists seek to remove every last vestige of our Christian heritage from public life, it seems as though the majority of the great British public don’t agree. Most people don’t go to church, but nonetheless many still regard Britain as a ‘Christian’ country.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Today, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Church of England and Richard Dawkins have united to question the wisdom of the Digital Cinema Media (DCM) agency, (which runs Odeon, Cineword and Vue) in banning the Lord’s Prayer advert by the Church of England. The resultant fuss and media and Internet chatter, have already ensured the ad has been a great success. However, what interests me is what this little pre-Christmas spat teaches us about the state of religion in Britain today.

1) Secular ‘equality’ means that all religions are to be excluded from the public square. DCM declared: “Some advertisements – unintentionally or otherwise – could cause offence to those of differing political persuasions, as well as to those of differing faiths and indeed of no faith,” and that “in this regard, DCM treats all political or religious beliefs equally”. The National Secular Society issued a statement that declared that the Church of England does not have “an automatic right to foist its opinions upon a captive audience who have paid good money for a completely different experience”. The problem is that none of us, when we go to the cinema have paid good money so that we can experience adverts for deodorant, cars, alcohol or chocolate – but we are a ‘captive audience’ nonetheless (unless we have the wisdom to head in 20 minutes late and so miss them). That is the point of advertising. ‘Equality’ here just simply means the exclusion of all religion from the public square – except of course the philosophy and faith of the atheistic secularists. The British Board of Film Classification passed the advert as a ‘U’. It is not a preachy, exploitative or proselytsing advert and yet, in case some people are offended, it has to be banned. This is the danger of the secularist position. I have even heard people ‘reasoning’ that because of the Paris attacks, this advert should be banned – in their minds there is a logical connection between a Jihadist terrorists and a Church of England vicar!

2) Militant secularists are one of the greatest threats to tolerance and freedom of religion in the UK today. But who is offended? Not Muslims, not Hindus and it seems not even the majority of the British public who are indifferent to most religious things. I was on BBC Radio this morning speaking about this issue, and they were struggling to get any callers who agreed with the ban. The Muslim Council spoke out against it. Richard Dawkins spoke out against it. Stephen Fry tweeted “Banning the ad is bizarre, unfair and misguided.” It seemed as though unanimity was going to break out among the chattering classes. But no – the National Secular Society swung into action. They immediately tweeted “There is no ban on the Lord’s Prayer. We support the right of cinemas to decline religious/party political adverts.”  We will leave aside the semantics of the difference between ‘banning’ and ‘declining to show’, and just note the hypocrisy of the secularists. It’s a commercial organisation they cry, they can do what they want. A standard they did not apply to the bakery case where Asher’s were prosecuted for refusing to post a religious/political advert on one of their cakes supporting Same Sex Marriage.

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See also: Lord’s Prayer cinema ad snub ‘bewilders’ Church of England