Billboards have been popping up around London declaring ‘The Messiah has come’. According to Harry Farley in Christian Today, these have attracted a number of objections, and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) are currently investigating.
We like the ASA. They jump in with both feet; bark, intimidate, harass, bludgeon and hassle with reams of paperwork, and then they issue their decree and skulk off with their tail between their legs.
Farley reports that “the campaign has prompted outrage from Christians, Muslims and Jews who all have notions of a ‘messiah’ in their beliefs and find the billboards offensive.”
This is odd. Since when did religious advertisements have to conform to a particular interpretation of messianic eschatology? Since when was it the task of the ASA to discern between mythical symbols and promised realities? If the remit of the ASA now extends to determining theological orthodoxy, what hope is there for billboards proclaiming ‘Jesus is Lord’? [Archbishop Cranmer] Read more
