They hate you because of me - There's apparently a BBC Cannel Four TV program that tries to be it's worst which has generated a bit of controversy.
Clive Davis reports for The Washington Times that the program,
"Shameless" is something of a cult hit over here ("Packed with sex, drugs, gratuitous violence, love and scams," declares the publicity material...).
Sounds like your typical unreality-reality show.
The controversy is over a spate of Christmas season advertisements that are peppered all over London and other areas of the Great Isle.
The poster features twelve of the cast members re-enacting Christ's Last supper as portrayed by the master, Leonardo da Vinci.
This sample picture is not exactly the one that started the controversy.
James Ducker of Manchester Online reports the more controversial ad this way:
In the Shameless advert, Frank Gallagher, played by actor David Threlfall, is slumped over the table holding a beer can and cigarette in the centre of the image, where Jesus appears in the Leonardo painting.
According to VCS interns weblog one of the adverts appeared right outside of St. Olafs in Rotherdhide.
Mr. Minority of the Mr. Minority - Speaks his Mind!! weblog speaks my sentiment with this comment:
I would ask why the BBC is doing this disgusting program, but then again I have read Revelations and expect it now. Even though I expect it, I am outraged that a TV Network would stoop so low to lie about something that sacred and meaningful to Christians.
Returning to Clive Davis article for The Washington Times, Davis pens something I find discouraging to think about when it comes to the populous in England:
As for why the "Shameless" team associate the Last Supper with Christmas, I don't have an answer. They can't really be that uninformed, can they? I find it less depressing to assume that they are trying to be ironic. All I can say is that this image, ridiculing the most important event in the Christian calendar is plastered all over the capital at the moment. Yet hardly anyone seems to have noticed. It would be nice to think that this was a symptom of Britain's tolerant attitude towards the satirical classes.
The melancholy truth, though, is that most of the population doesn't really care about religion in the first place. As many a church leader has observed in the last couple of years, Britain is well on the way to becoming post-Christian. There's no question that the religious impulse is still alive — the burgeoning interest in the supernatural and the occult is proof of that — but Christianity as a public force has been almost completely marginalized.
Davis goes onto ask, "Is this how [the] future will look?" I think the Bible answer in the affirmative to that question. But that future is brief and ultimately destroyed with death and Hades in the Lake of Fire, ushering in an eternity in the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Great Separation continues.
