Two items from today's BUGB e-news sweep got me thinking.

The first is one that I find funny - but others may find offensive - which is a parody of some overworked worship songs.  Is it funny because it is Christians parodying Christians?  Would people take offence if a mobile phone company had done it...

The other related to the phones for you advert that involved a cartoon winking Jesus and was released around Easter:

Is it actually offensive/blasphemous or is it just cheesy?  Would we get uppity if the same image had been used in the context of a Christian product or event?  Have you ever checked out the 'gadgets for God' section of Ship of Fools?

If I am honest, I think the phone advert was a poor call.  It doesn't offend me, though it would have done in my very pious younger years, but it reflects a failure to appreciate just who Jesus is, at least in the eyes of Christians and, indeed, Muslims.  Jesus endorsing a brand of phone - no, I don't see it somehow.

On the other hand the video coming from within a Christian context is both funny and profound (well relatively) in that it uses humour to challenge something we all know exists but don't have a language to express.

I think that there are kinds of humour that have to come from 'within' to be appropriate, things that insiders can do (however cheesy, naff or inappropriate) and get away with it but outsiders really ought not to attempt.  Is 98 complaints to the ASA a lot?  I've no idea.  I can only assume that the majority of people who saw the advert (I only just found it!) treated it with the level of interest it merited (i.e. none).  And presumably given we don't all have the miraculous deal on an android phone, the 'celebrity' endorsement didn't pay off?!