People in the UK were not happy about a cinema advert with The Lord’s Prayer prayed by different people across the city. There’s been so much commotion over it, it’s been banned from theaters. There is concern it is offensive to people of other beliefs:
As you would expect, Christians love the advert, while many secularists hate it. But the secularists have one thing right – The Lord’s Prayer is in fact offensive.
I love what Andrew Wilson writes in Think Theology:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Not Allah’s, or anyone else’s: yours. There is only one who is holy, and he is our heavenly Father. May your name be recognised as great by all the nations, including those (like ours) who dismiss, blaspheme, patronise or ignore it.
May your kingdom come. One day, all the kingdoms of the earth will become the kingdom of God and his Messiah. In the meantime, as we wait for you to gather up all your enemies and turn them into your footstool, we cry to you: let your reign be shown here as well. Dethrone the powers. Overturn empires. Destroy everything that opposes you. Rule everywhere.
Let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. May the very content shown on this cinema screen, and the civilisation it represents, be subjected to your will, so that only things which honour you are done. Just like currently happens in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. We are dependent on you – not the markets, the government, our security services or our own ingenuity and talent – for every good gift. Please keep providing them all, because if you don’t, we’re in big trouble.
And forgive us our sins. We have all sinned against you, offended you, transgressed your law and trespassed against our fellow humans, and we are in desperate need of forgiveness. None of us are righteous. Please, in your mercy, wipe out our sins.
As we forgive those who sin against us. Including abusers, manipulators, jihadists, and the rest, since we deserve judgment just as they do.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. There is evil in the world, and it’s both out there (deliver us from evil) and in here (lead us not into temptation). Save us, O Lord! We can’t do it without you. Rescue us from everything which opposes you, and help us not to contribute to the problem in our own twisted fallenness.
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Nobody else’s. No other God but you. No king but God. No Lord except Christ. Your glory shall not belong to another. Amen.
Anyone who thinks that isn’t offensive simply hasn’t been paying attention.”
