This is where 'eat me last' gets you.

The remarkably socialist, one might even say pinko-led Church of England has received an extraordinary rebuke. From the Left!

They can't run a PAID advertisement featuring the Lord's Prayer in English movie theaters the week before Christmas. No, really.

The advert, produced by JustPray.uk, shows the Lord's Prayer being recited by a members of the public ranging from bodybuilders to children, and also features the Most Rev Justin Welby.
A CoE spokesman said it was initially believed that their minute-long advert had been approved and would be played before showings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens from December 18.
They were later informed that, due to a DCM policy not to run adverts which could potentially cause offence, the video would not be shown.
When asked for a copy of that policy, CoE was told there is no formal policy document but that it had been agreed with the DCM's members.
There is now a formal policy on the DCM's website, which states: "To be approved, an advertisement must ... not in the reasonable opinion of DCM constitute political or religious advertising."

Please note this is not a PSA or some other free donated-time thing. This is a bought-and-paid-for advertisement. A one minute spot of people reciting the Lord's Prayer. Can't show it. Too offensive. Running with scissors.

The delicious irony for me is that this kind of thing is exactly what the Lefty minions of the Church of England have been working toward since World War Two ended. The notion that secular theaters SHOULD NOT feature religion in any way, shape or form is one that CoE upper management embraces wholeheartedly.

We have a similar situation in Canada with the United Church of Canada. If you go to certain UCC churches in Toronto, you may be able to go through an entire service and not hear anything overtly Christian the whole time. The gay minister may not even mention Jesus. Because it wouldn't do to OFFEND anyone, y'know. It's all about Social Justice and doing Good Works and all that great lefty stuff.

All of which boils down to a corporation that defines itself as a church but acts like a retail store, changing it's wares to appeal to new customers and begging the ever-more-rapaciaous taxman regulators to eat them last.

The trouble with eat-me-last as a strategy is that eventually, if you wait long enough, you get eaten.

The other thing is that the movie chains are not banning the ad out of some SJW yearning to make everything fair for everyone and Kumbaya. Nuh uh. They're banning it because they are terrified of having their theaters burnt down by hordes of militant Mooselimbs being offended at the very existence of the Church of England in... England.

The movie chain guys are not wrong of course. Their know their audience. If that ad gets shown, theaters in some parts of England will probably get burnt down. At the very least there will be "unrest", as Monty Python says.

More delicious irony, which denomination is number one for "outreach" these days? Church of England! They just love that multi-cultural exchange stuff, makes 'em feel all warm and fuzzy, and keeps the government grants flowing through their coffers. Gotta keep the roofs patched on all those ancient church buildings y'know.

This is why I don't like churches as a general thing. They behave a lot more like a retail real estate investment trust (REIT) than a religious organization that believes in stuff. If I want to see wishy-washy salesmanship I'll go to the mall, thanks.

The Retail Religion Phantom.

Instant update! Superblogger and fabulous short person Kathy Shaidle sent this in a minute ago: Famous Atheist (and all-round dick, IMHO) Richard Dawkins comes out in support of the Church of England.

“My immediate response was to tweet that it was a violation of freedom of speech,” Dawkins told the Guardian. “But I deleted it when respondents convinced me that it was a matter of commercial judgment on the part of the cinemas, not so much a free speech issue.”

“I still strongly object to suppressing the ads on the grounds that they might ‘offend’ people,” he said. “If anybody is ‘offended’ by something so trivial as a prayer, they deserve to be offended.”

Yeah, the "commercial judgement" was that they didn't want their theaters burnt down, and between the lines Dawkins knows it.

Mr. Dawkins, dick though he may be, realizes that an Islamic England is going to be one where he gets hanged, or possibly stoned to death, drawn, quartered, burnt at the stake or suffers some other medieval atrocity simply for being an atheist. He, unlike the CoE, realizes eat-me-last is not a winning strategy. 

Even a blind pig finds the odd acorn.