I watched an interesting programme on TV last night called “Are you having a laugh? Comedy and Christianity” (still available to watch on the BBC iPlayer at the time of writing). I didn’t agree with everything in the programme but I think it raised some interesting points: things do seem to have changed in the past 50 years – Christianity in general seems to be an acceptable target to attack in general now.
One thing which I found particularly interesting was how a lot of comedians assume that it’s just OK to ridicule Christianity in a comedy show because (according to one comedian), Christians don’t enjoy comedy and don’t go to comedy shows. Now clearly that is stunningly narrow-minded, but at the same time it’s just reflective of the way Christianity seems to have been sidelined in society: it’s perfectly OK to be a Christian, as long as you don’t actually let it influence you in public life (see some of the tolerance stuff I was talking about).