There was a row in England when the BBC aired “Jerry Springer – The Opera” because of a humiliating portrayal of Jesus in the farce. The whole thing went to court in an attempt to sue the BBC for blasphemy. The case was rejected and so I guess it is okay to make fun of the sacred on the BBC. This is now, how exactly?Anyway, there’s an opinion piece by Charles Moore in the Telegraph that really grabbed me.

Christians should surely not be upset by this decision. The founder of our own religion was crucified because the high priest declared: “He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses?” The use of the criminal law to uphold a religious belief is normally a power game, not a genuine defence of the honour of God.

Wow, that’s pretty good! I’m not sure that I agree with him that up until the 90s the BBC had been “an unashamedly, though non-denominational, Christian organisation” but Moore weaves in and out of some good comments on religion and the public.

What he aims at and seldom seems to hit in this editorial is how the media feel free to mock Christianity but are very careful of how they treat Islam. Perhaps its justified. With Pullman’s atheistic, anti-Christianity book being made into a film there has been a lot of civil discussion and dialog about what the film/books accomplishes and what it proposes. But no riots.

Yet, when Dawkins book “The God Delusion” gets published in Turkey, there’s the threat of legal action against the publisher because it is “offensive.” No riots yet but it sure seems as if Islam has the Western media pretty intimidated. Jesus doesn’t seem to phase them.