I was pleased to see that the High Court decided not to allow a prosecution against BBC Director-General Mark Thompson for blasphemy to go ahead. I have two main reasons for this position.
First, the history of Christian protest against controversial works of art has tended to involve a complete inability to engage with the works themselves on their own terms. This can be clearly seen in the reaction of Christian Voice to Jerry Springer: The Opera. Their response shows no understanding of the artistic reasons why Jesus appears in this musical while the judges were able to clearly pinpoint the reason in saying that the musical was not aimed at Christianity but was a parody of the chat-show genre.
The target of satire in the show is the kind of reality TV exemplified by the Jerry Springer show and the argument of the show is that such TV degrades human beings. The appearance of Jesus in the musical is a kind of back-handed compliment, as the writers are essentially saying that even someone as wonderful as Jesus would only be allowed to appear on Jerry Springer, the TV show, if he was coming out and dressed in a nappy. The appearance of Jesus in the musical is then entirely consistent with the focus of the show's satire.
I, for one, support that focus and think that many other Christians would too. The protests against the show, however, show no attempt to engage with this focus or with the issues it raises. This refusal to engage with the work and the issues raised by the work also characterises past protests against films such as Life of Brian and The Last Temptation of Christ. A much more effective engagement with Jerry Springer: The Opera would be to say that we support the show's attack on the degradation of human beings inherent in much reality TV, we understand how the portrayal of Jesus in the show adds to the satire directed at reality TV but also ask the writers and those involved with the show to understand that the hurt caused to us when we see our Lord and Saviour depicted as he is shown in the show. Such an approach would show a real engagement with the show at the same time as expressing the hurt that many Christians understandably feel over the portrayal of Jesus contained within it.
Second, this attempt to invoke the blasphemy laws highlights the continuing difficulty that the Church has in shaking free of Christendom. Jonathan Bartley highlights this issue in his article, Unlearning Christendom and Attitudes to Power, in the current edition of The Bible in TransMission. There he writes, that: "In Christendom Christians enjoyed many privileges. In post-Christendom they are one community amongst many. As religious pluralism develops, the Church’s remaining privileges will be increasingly unjustifiable. Their absurdities will become more evident. The calls for governments to address them will become louder."
The blasphemy laws are a case in point and the British Humanist Association has rightly pointed this out: "The blasphemy laws in the UK – which protect Christian beliefs – are clearly contrary to the principle of free speech and probably contrary to human rights laws which protect freedom of expression, and that must include the right to criticise beliefs, religious or otherwise. The blasphemy laws are anomalies in the context of our increasingly diverse and increasingly non-religious society. The UK’s law seeks to protect people and their rights to their beliefs, but not to protect the beliefs themselves." If, as I argued in an earlier post, we need a level playing field in the award of Government tenders that allows faith-based organisations and secular organisations the same freedom to deliver, then equally the Church needs to renounce privileges gained in an earlier age that create an unequal playing field. As Bartley says, "As churches lose these privileges Christians may appear to have far more integrity in their political actions."
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Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come.
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