In the UK, you can no longer proclaim “God can heal”

From here:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had concluded that the adverts by Healing on the Streets (HOTS) – Bath, were misleading.

It said a leaflet available to download from the group’s website said: “Need Healing? God can heal today!”

[….]

The ASA said it had been alerted to the adverts by a complainant, and concluded that they could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.

If all advertising that “could encourage false hope” were banned, then there would be very little advertising at all and the economy of the UK would collapse even faster than it already is.

The fact that these advertisements have been singled out for special opprobrium is yet another example of secularism’s attempt to expunge Christianity from public view.

On purely factual grounds the ban is absurd: if a person believes there is no God, his hopes for healing will not be stimulated by the ad; if a person believes in God, but he doesn’t actually exist, he is already so deluded that one more false hope won’t make much difference; if a person believes in God and God does exist, then there is no false hope in believing God can heal – he can do anything he chooses, including heal.

 

You can’t advertise God’s love here

St. Hilda’s Anglican Church in Oakville has a yearly garage sale; it’s not a normal garage sale, though, because no money is collected for the items. The message to the Oakville community is that, just as the items are free, so is God’s love for us and so is the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

There is a Yahoo Group called oakvillefreecycle where used articles are exchanged free of charge; we thought it would be a good idea to advertise St. Hilda’s free garage sale there. Here is the post as it was originally written (you have to join the group to see it):

Free Market
Join us for our “Free Market”

An expression of God’s free gift to us.

Many items , books, toys, clothes, household items all free!

St. Hilda’s ANIC Church
1258 Rebecca Street
Oakville On.
905-827-3711

Sat. May 15, 2010

9:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m.

The moderator of the group removed the line that I have in bold (it was not bold in the original post). No explanation, apology or reason; just commonplace secular illiberality.