The Atheist Blogger

So a Times Online article, written by religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill, broke the ‘news’ over the weekend that the children featured in the new BHA billboards are ‘evangelicals’. This article has so many falsehoods and misrepresentations (not to mention completely missing the point of the adverts) that I’m afraid I’m going to have to go through it a paragraph at a time.

The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage. With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”, the youngsters with broad grins seem to be the perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted by Professor Dawkins and the British Humanist Association.

It boggles the mind as to how Gledhill managed to come to the conclusion that this is the “perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted”. Come on Ruth! In the same sentence you describe the adverts as “new atheism”, you wrote the slogan of the campaign: “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”. Tell me, how on earth does that slogan have anything to do with belief or disbelief in God?

Except that they are about as far from atheism as it is possible to be. The Times can reveal that Charlotte, 8, and Ollie, 7, are from one of the country’s most devout Christian families.

So? Like I said before, this isn’t an advert about atheism, this is an advert about calling children “Christian child” or “Muslim child” when they are clearly too young to understand and make a rational decision for themselves on what they believe. When I was Charlotte’s age, I could too be described as a “Christian child”, except I really wasn’t. I believed in God and Jesus not because I had considered the subject, but because my parents told me that’s what we believed. Indeed, it wasn’t until later that I started considering the issue for myself, and first described myself as an atheist.

My personal story aside, there isn’t anything wrong with featuring children of religious parents in this advert. In fact, the whole point of the advert is to show that all children are equal, free, and shouldn’t be called by the religion of their parents. A religious couple’s children would be perfect for such an advert.

Their father, Brad Mason, is something of a celebrity within evangelical circles as the drummer for the popular Christian musician Noel Richards. Now a web designer and photographer, Mr Mason has been supplementing his income for years by providing photographs to agencies who sell them on to newspapers and advertising campaigns.

I say ‘perfect’ a bit more timidly now. Evangelicals are a different kind of religious believer, more intent on proselyting that having an active discussion about anything concerning their beliefs. Still, the fact that the children in the photo are the children of an evangelical Christian has nothing to do with the advert itself, which is, afterall, asking parents not to label their children.

He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

Yes, I suppose it’s kind of ironic that the children chosen for an advert about not labeling children were in fact, children who have been labeled by their father. The again, it adds a little humour to the advert from a humanist perspective; these children are now ‘asking’ their father not to label them, and to let them decide for themselves. I wonder if he’ll listen?

He said that the children’s Christianity had shone through. “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.

I reckon it does show that the children have been brought up in a good way, and they do look very happy. Nobody has said that being brought up by Christian parents (or any religious parents for that matter) means that you will be unhappy. I was perfectly happy as a child of religious parents, and I’m sure many are. The only thing shining through here is the happiness of the child, which has more to do with their upbringing than the religion they most likely do not understand.

Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of churches, which Mr Mason and his family used to attend before they moved to Dorset, said: “I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.”

The only thing ‘hilarious’ about this is that it has revealed how needed the advert is. Both the journalist who wrote this piece, the father, and the church leader quoted above have referred to these children as ‘Christian’ when they are not. They are children of Christian parents, they come from a Christian family, but you cannot expect an 8 year old and a 7 year old to understand the complexity of the Christian belief system. These are children who in all likelihood still believe in Santa Claus (if their evangelical parents do that sort of thing that is), and the Easter bunny. You can tell a child of this age anything and they will believe it; they have not yet developed the reasoning skills or the understanding that adults can be wrong.

The British Humanist Association said that it did not matter whether the children were Christians. “That’s one of the points of our campaign,” said Andrew Copson, the association’s education director. “People who criticise us for saying that children raised in religious families won’t be happy, or that no child should have any contact with religion, should take the time to read the adverts.

“The message is that the labelling of children by their parents’ religion fails to respect the rights of the child and their autonomy. We are saying that religions and philosophies — and ‘humanist’ is one of the labels we use on our poster — should not be foisted on or assumed of young children.”

Finally, the voice of reason appears in the form of Andrew Copson. It’s a shame that it took the entire length of the article before reaching some actually truthful comment, but I guess you don’t sell newspapers any other way. Luckily, in only two paragraphs, Andrew dispels all previous misinterpretation, ignorance, and blatant lying that the previous six contained.

So, are the children in the advert ‘Christian’? No.

Are they children of Christian parents? Yes.

Does it matter that such children are appearing in an advert? Not really, no.

Problem solved, crisis over. Let’s see who can misinterpret the billboard next! I can’t wait, but to fill the void, here’s a lovely quote from writer Philip Pullman, who supports the billboards and actually bothered to read them.

It is absolutely right that we shouldn’t label children until they are old enough to decide for themselves.