In England, CHURCHADS.NET (previously know as the Churches Advertising Network) has released details of its Christmas campaign for 2012. This is, of course, a waste of time and money as we are all going to die on the 21st. December, according to a programme I watched on TV last week.
As usual the creative, holy trouble makers are going for a shock/horror response from the media, which is about the only way you can get God into the public consciousness nowadays. I understand there will be various takes on the them, but this is the leading ad:
On their website they state:
The striking image of a fictional "Godbaby toy" aims to make the Christmas story appeal to the younger generation and puts Christ at the centre of conversations. The doll represents the baby Jesus and plays on the idea of Christmas being a time when everyone is searching for that 'must-have' Christmas gift. This obsession means we focus too much on the material nature of the festival and miss the point – that Jesus, the true Godbaby, was born human and must never be turned into a commodity.
The Church of England's official trendy bishop, Nick Baines, has given the image an enthusiastic thumbs up.
He says: "It's another strong and arresting image. It will surprise some and disturb others. Which is exactly what the real Jesus did. And it forces us beyond the tinsel to the human reality of 'God among us'."
Personally, I think it's very good. It's certainly a lot less worrying than another toy campaign that I have just been advised of by Amazon. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the toyshop...
Thanks to Adrian Worsfold for sending me this story. You can read his take on the campaign on his blog, THE PLURALIST SPEAKS.
Not the Furbys!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
But where are the blue eyes? I thought Jesus had blue eyes!
This, my friend, is revisionism at its most vile extremity. This is exactly what the preachers at the churches of your youth warned you about. It completely ignores all the references to the blue eyes of Christ in the Old Testament. An unorthodox belief in the colour of our Saviour’s eyes may not seem like a big deal, but it’s a slippery slope downhill from believing such nonsense to believing that Jesus never owned a gun and other such liberal tosh.
That makes perfect sense! First it’s the eyes, then they’ll be saying Jesus was heterosexual and had a wife.
I thought Jesus owned the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch…..
We could learn a lesson from Islam here, about allowing images of our prophets and deities!
What Tracie said! And I like the ad, by the way.
Personally, I miss the swaddling clothes.
On third look, that baby looks a lot like the young man with hat in the picture.