The Lords Prayer advert now banned in cinemas.

[Blue&whitestripes]

I sincerely hope we get the opportunity to see whether your verdict is endorsed by the courts. Merely repeating the word 'nonsense' may not be a sufficient defence of DCM's widely condemned action. I see even Dawkins wants to be called as a witness for the prosecution.

I'd quite like to see the CoE attempt to bring a case on this issue as well: that would put a stop to this nonsense.

 

[Matty]

sounds like the thin end of the wedge, with more and more "local churches" going this way and such being spread far and wide, i can see those that currently go not making the effort

The community at my mum's church is, unsurprisingly, fairly elderly. Neither of the options for merging are all that close geographically so if you don't drive you're going to struggle to make the transition. I'm sure there will be some assistance from other church goers initially, but memories are short and what seems helpful and dutiful at first will quickly become problematic and a chore. I'm not sure there's too many options however, as numbers dwindle, and funding is harder to come by, it's simply not possible to keep all the churches funded and open. My mum's church looks a bit of a state, fencing is falling down, paint is peeling, stained glass windows have smashed/missing bits, it hasn't had any real work done to it, or money spent on it, for about 2 decades. There's neither the will nor the means to do what needs to be done to bring the building up to standard.

 

[Moriati]

The Root of All Evil? Part 1: The God Delusion.

 

[BimboBob]

The trouble is, god botherers seem to think that people would like to sit through an ad before their movie of choice. This is clearly not the case but if you want to learn more about god then go to one of the many buildings that are in your town/ village/ hovel with a spire on it, walk through the door and have a chat. They really are quite nice people in these buildings unless you are under the age of 16 then I wouldn't bother.

 

[totallywired]

There must surely be a few moderate, intelligent atheists on this forum who are capable of challenging beliefs without insulting or mocking them. I remember a time when we all used to stand for the national anthem at the conclusion of the film at the cinema but those days are long gone.

THANK FUCK FOR THAT.

 

[Chris in London]

The diocese are at pains to make ends meet, and cost cut where they can. Whilst it's more "Christian" to hand the buildings over to councils etc to help the community it's more financially astute to sell them off to construction companies to either demolish and build on or renovate. There's strong rumours my mum's parish is going to be merged with another local one and the church and it's land sold off for development. It'll earn Salford diocese a decent wedge as the church and lands are fairly large and on the edge of a sort after area where house prices are comparatively high.

Churches aren't the only historic buildings to find their role far more limited than previously. Pubs is a good example of another type - where I grew up there were about 50 pubs within a two mile radius, today more than half have been closed. One is now a butchers, many are restaurants, one is a solicitors office and many are housing. One was even a video shop at one point. It is aways a shame when buildings with substantial and historic community ties closes, but that's the way of the world. How many northern mill/factory towns have seen their historic industrial buildings become flats, retail outlets, hotels, trendy wine bars or simple piles of rubble? Anyone who feels strongly about changes of use can always get involved in the planning application - if its wrong for the old methodist church to be converted into a house, people can always say so.

 

[George Hannah]

Churches aren't the only historic buildings to find their role far more limited than previously. Pubs is a good example of another type - where I grew up there were about 50 pubs within a two mile radius, today more than half have been closed. One is now a butchers, many are restaurants, one is a solicitors office and many are housing. One was even a video shop at one point. It is aways a shame when buildings with substantial and historic community ties closes, but that's the way of the world. How many northern mill/factory towns have seen their historic industrial buildings become flats, retail outlets, hotels, trendy wine bars or simple piles of rubble? Anyone who feels strongly about changes of use can always get involved in the planning application - if its wrong for the old methodist church to be converted into a house, people can always say so.

Not to mention cinemas.

 

[Matty]

The trouble is, god botherers seem to think that people would like to sit through an ad before their movie of choice.

I think it's ad agencies, movie companies, and cinema chains who think people would like to sit through ads before their movie. Trailers yes, fine, but ads can fuck off, films nowadays don't start for about 25 minutes after the "start time" advertised.

God botherers isn't particularly nice or helpful either.

 

[Matty]

I'm not convinced a cinema screening is the right place for an "advert" for a religious group. It's not really an advert in the true sense of the word in any case, we're not talking about Coca Cola here, or the new Ford Focus, we're talking about religion, and specifically the Church of England. I'd say this was more closely linked to a party political broadcast than it would be to an advert for beer or perfume. People aren't going to get riled up, offended, or agitated by an ad for the new iPhone 6, there's the definite possibility that some would be by religious content, whether that be because they are anti religion as a whole, or simply don't associate themselves with the specific religion in question. I don't believe you can judge the two types of "advert" equally, they are very different things.

For me an advert promoting a certain religion has no place in a movie theatre, in the same way that a party political broadcast has no place there either. I'm also not convinced that showing this advert in cinemas would actually be worthwhile in any case, I struggle to see the scenario whereby someone sits down to watch the latest blockbuster, sees an advert about the church, praying etc and thinks "I must drop down my local church on Sunday".

 

[Blue&whitestripes]

Well somebody's lying then. The bishop that was involved in the making of the ad has been on Vine's show on Radio 2 this afternoon and categorically stated that the agency originally agreed to take the ad before it was even produced and not only that, also offered the C of E a discount.

I've just listened to that on iPlayer and, first of all, the Bishop interviewed says he was NOT directly involved in making the ad, but is involved in the website the ad points to. If he is correct in stating that DCM initially agreed to place the ad and then reneged on that agreement then DCM are probably in breach of contract. But it's still not discrimination :)