Normal sized Andrew Collings and me seem to be back on a level footing again after a couple of slight bumps earlier in the year and it was almost a pleasure to have him around this morning to record two podcasts.
The first one, number 151 was up before we'd even finished the second, which we have to put in the bank for when I am on tour (confusingly it will probably be 153, as we're recording 152 on Monday - are you keeping up?) Sometimes it's a struggle even to get to our traditional 1 hour 6 minutes 35 seconds (though most podcasts are longer these days), but they flew by today. The Oxford Times had been in touch to tell me that my production of "Chris on a Bike" (if only I had called it that) had caused some controversy as a local preacher wsa accusing it of belittling his faith. It gave me a chance to run out the usual arguments, which I am getting pretty good at now.
"The show is about my atheism, but fascination with Christ having been brought up as a Christian. It is not overall derogatory to Jesus (in fact you might argue the opposite), but looking at why i am obsessed with Him and trying to work out if it is possible to discover the true historical Jesus. Presumably this preacher has not seen the show, so I don't see how he feels qualified to assert that it is belittling the Christian faith. Pretty much all of the Christians who have actually seen the show (including clergymen) have enjoyed it and found it an interesting discussion. I think Jesus said "Judge not lest ye be judged" rather than "Judge things you haven't seen". As an atheist I am obviously as opposed to every religion as I am to Christianity, and do mention other religions in the show, but it seems odd that Christians often seem cross about people having a go at them when they have chosen to embrace a religion which has turning the other cheek as its core basic tenet.
I think comedy is an excellent way to promote discussion about all manner of serious subjects and thus God and religion are just as fair game as anything else, but again I would ask how this person knows that I am mocking God if he hasn't seen the show. And in any case surely God, as all powerful supreme creator of the Universe can surely withstand a couple of gags from a confused atheist comedian. Personally I would say if there is a God He would have to have to have a sense of humour. The quote that he is alluding to in Galatians says that God will not be mocked and that we reap what we sow. So surely all that means is that if there is a God and He feels I have mocked Him then in return He will mock me.
If anyone who has actually seen the show would like to take issue with what is in it then I will happily discuss it with them, but it seems odd to be giving time to someone who is imagining what I say, and is being offended by the show that he has created within his own head. And is thus being offended by himself.
All the best
Richard Herring"
Although it is quite good fun pointing out the inadequacies of people getting upset about something they haven't seen, I do find such protests a bit tedious and unhelpful. Obviously my old cohort Mr Lee had things a lot worse, when the complaints of some extremists got whipped up and actually had an impact on the feasibility of putting on the show. For me, aside from the one date in Wales that got cancelled because it was on in Easter Week, I don't think these mild protests are going to have any impact on the tour (but it just takes one lunatic to act upon the veiled threats, I suppose). Luckily we live in a country where, for now at least, free speech and differing opinions are broadly speaking welcomed. It'd be nice if people bothered to listen to what you have to say before they weighed in with complaints, but you can't have everything.
I hope the preacher doesn't go and see the film "Paul" which remarkably for a fairly mainstream comedy film has a witheringly disrespectful and correct attitude towards evangelical Christians. Although it's in the periphery of the film really even I wondered if the dismissal of these admittedly arcane views was somewhat harsh, but I thought it was pretty brave to rubbish religion in this way in a movie that will be shown in America. I presume they are expecting more custom on the east and west coasts, rather than in the heartlands of America.
I am managing, for now at least, to keep up with a regular exercise regime and it suddenly seems to be paying dividends. I seem to have lost a couple of kilos since I got back from holiday (and I had only put on a tiny amount of weight while I was away). Andrew and I had been flicking though the 150+ photos that we have taken over the last three years to accompany our podcasts. It's quite an interesting accidental record of the aging process and my own fluctuating weight. I look surprisingly thin and healthy in the first one (given that I had only been dieting and exercising for a month back then), then get thinner and thinner, until in Edinburgh 2008 I look like I might have a wasting disease and then get fatter and less healthy looking up to summer last year, when things take a turn and I start to head back in the other direction. We have met up pretty much every single week in the last 150 weeks which is an astonishingly regular (working) relationship. We look so happy in the early pictures, neither of us knowing what horrors are to come. If nothing else we have the material for a terrifying flick book of the ravaging effects of age and alcohol. I wonder if we'll manage another 150 before Collings snaps and caves in my skull.
