The decision by cinemas to ban an advert featuring people praying the Lord's Prayer for fear of offending people, unspecified, who it is feared may be offended has, as is the way of these things, proved counterproductive - social media is flooded with 'shares' of the video (above) and some very clever and incisive comment, such as this by a Baptist minister friend in London:

"If the Cinema won't show any adverts relating to any faith, and have refused to show the CofE "Lord's Prayer" advert before the new Star Wars film; what are they to do about the 176,632 people who declared themselves Jedi in the 2011 Census?"

There is any amount of nonsensical "poor me' Christianity out there, that sees persecution at every turn, and I certainly don't see what the cinemas have done as persecution, just decidedly disappointing, given the BBFC and cinema adverstising board had approved the ad.  Some good comment online, and also a BBC article here.

A prayer - or plea - for a society characterised peace, where basic human needs are satisfied, where mutual forgiveness is exercised, where people escape cycles of temptation and evil.... is that so terrible, so offensive to people who might not have a declared faith...

And if Jedi is a faith, and the cinemas are studiously ignoring that, isn't it as a minimum a little rude and insconsierate of them....?

So, we can have adverts for sugary drinks when the incidence of diabetes is rising; adverts for consumer goods that simply fuel consumerism, adverts for films whose values we may not agree with... but not one that simply expresses hope.... hmmm, sigh, hmmm some more.

Here endeth the rant!



EDIT some other responses, and different opinions...

Nick Lear
Archdruid Eileen

Last year, like lots of other people, I gave chocolate advent calendars and selection boxes to the local foodbank. I have done the same today.

I know foodbanks aren't the answer to food poverty.

I also know what it is like having to choose between buying food and paying utility bills - and not because I was on benefit but because mortgage interest was over 17% and wages frozen (late 1980s).

And I know what it is like to depend on handouts because state benefits just won't cover everything... from free school meals to WVS clothes parcels, and even, if memory serves half a hundredweight of coal from an anonymous benefactor, my family was glad to receive help from others back in the 1970s when long term sickness prevented my Dad from working.

An advent calendar or a choice of chocolate bars won't solve the problems of food or fuel poverty, but it might just bring a smile to someone's face and restore a teeny bit of hope.

Cross-posting from social media....

... someone was asking about favourite images of Jesus, and I shared this one, which I often turn to at this time of year. It is a sculpture at St Martin's in the Fields, London, and was done for the millenium. The person I shared it with said it brought to mind the images of refugee children washed up on beaches... and I can see that.

Whatever belief system (or none) we follow, this is a striking image... the hope that is born in every child and that, with the right conditions, will bring joy and love to this world.

For me, the idea of a divinity who would do something so utterly ridiculous as to become a human infant, entering the messyness of human sin and finitude is a incredibly powerful. Historical fact, myth or mystery, frankly I'm not bothered too much - the truth of hope revealed in vulnerability, risking everything in the cause of love... that is worth telling again and again.

Lots of sadness, anger, bewilderment and more being expressed on social media... and also lots of love, kindness, courage and hope. Advent is a complex and often misunderstood liturgical season but at it's heart is the refusal to give up hope, to trust that one day, one day, the waiting will be over and peace and love will fill a renewed creation.

It has become something of a personal tradition to take as one my leave Sundays the final one before Advent.  Sometimes I have taken the opportunity to go on retreat, sometimes I have done some reading, sometimes I've just taken a break to relax.  This year it will involve lots of sitting on coaches as I travel to visit my mother for a couple of days.

Unusually, I have done the majority of my Christmas shopping, have ordered or bought most of my cards - and yesterday even received the first of the season!  Advent is a busy kind of waiting and, in the northern, hemisphere at a dark, damp and weary time of the year.

My first Advent sermon (yet to be pondered let alone written) has the working title 'Waiting, waiting, waiting...' and will, I hope, enable me explore some of the tensions that this season, and indeed any experience of waiting, can hold for us.

But first - a pause, a few days of deliberate blog-silence, and a few with zero internet connecting simply to be.

This morning I have been invited to be the guest at a class looking at factors around leadership and gender, or gender and leadership, in the context of Christian leadership.  This isn't the 'can women be leaders and if so of what' deabte, this is more along the lines of 'what difference does it make to be a woman or a man'.

I'm happy to go along, to share my story and to engage in a Q&A session, but I'm not so sure I've ever got my head around the extent to which, if at all, leadership styles are gendered.  Is my preferred style collaborative because I'm female, or because I have a personality that lends itself to that approach?  Does making cupcakes fall prey to gender stereotypes, or is it just something that I actually quite enjoy?  Am I 'unfeminine' because I'm not a cuddly, mothering sort?  The more questions I ask myself, the more complex it all becomes.

What kind of leader am I?  One that worries she is not a good leader, one that really dislikes confrontation, one that can be passive-aggressive and defensive, one that can be bossy, one that wants everyone to be happy and like each other (unrealistic idealist then!), one that has workaholic tendencies, and so on.

What has made me the kind of leader I am?

I owe a huge debt to the Brownies, where I was a Seconder and then Sixer of the Pixies at the age of nine!  And an even more huge debt to the Girls' Brigade where I began Young Leader training at the age of 14 and was leading first groups, then whole sections, of girls aged 5-8, 8-11, 11-14 and 14-18 by the time I became an Officer at 18.  Organising Camps and outings, managing accounts, planning programmes, serving at Districe, Division and national level... I learned loads and had lots of fun.  It was also the place where from the age of 14 I regularly led devotions, developing my love of for what is now referred to as 'multi-sensory worhsip' and 'messy church'.

And another huge debt to the church, where from the age of six when I first stood behind a lectern to read Psalm 100, to being entrusted with Sunday School classes of all ages, to taking on roles such as 'envelope secretary' and very-much-after-a-fashion pianist/organist.  Being given a voice in church meetings, and, in my thirties, being elected to the Diaconate.

Industry too, is significant.  Opportunities to lead small then large projects, to liasie with sometimes difficult customers and demanding regulatory bodies.  Lots of baking of cakes and buying of shortbread to keep my teams content during protracted periods of 70+ hour weeks on crazy projects.  Lots of teaching and mentoring others.  Lots of training courses in leadership, mentoring, customer relations ... and more to the point the day to day rough and tumble of pastoral and line-management responsibility for people often older and more highy qualifed than myself.

All of this has shaped and formed me.  All of this, and more, is a mix of formal training, practical experience and personal preferences.  How much is down to being female, or single, or straight, or English, or shy, or an ISTJ/ISFJ borderline, or an Enneagram 'loyal' or 'perfectionist', or liking cats, or any other identifiable trait, I'm really not sure.

Above all, I guess it is life in all its fullness that has shaped me - my parents and siblings, my friends, my successes and failures... the list could be endless.

But it will be fun to meet the students today and participate in their class.  And I hope, I really hope, that they find it helpful too.