The Churches' Advertising Network campaignOn the principle that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, the Churches Advertising Network - the outfit who sparked outrage in 1999 with a promotional poster comparing Jesus to Che Guevara - will be marketing Christmas this year with an ad campaign showing the face of Jesus appearing in a pint of beer.
Keeping up with the times, they even provide Jesus with a MySpace page on which his hobbies are listed as "beards, extreme waterskiing, home-brewed wine". His favourite film is Life of Brian. Crazy, eh?
Unfortunately, at time of writing Jesus was recorded as having "0 friends". (Not even the ubiquitous Tom - perhaps he had doubts.)
The advert references the growing fad for religious simulacra in recent years. We've had the Mother Theresa cinnamon bun, the holy oyster, Christ on an x-ray, and the son of God shrimp tail.
The Virgin Mary has manifested in a dribble of chocolate in a factory and Jesus has turned up in a hot chocolate stain in Colombia.
Much of the hype around such examples of religious pareidolia can be put down to the online casino Golden Palace, who have spent oodles of money buying up such devotional objects as the celebrated Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich, the Madonna and child pretzel, and the faces of Jesus on everything from a plaster stain to a frying pan to a Polish dumpling. Such items inhabit Golden Palace's hall of fame alongside a haunted walking stick, William Shatner's kidney stone and Jerry Garcia's toilet.
Scientists put the fact that people keep reporting these things down to the fusiform gyrus, a part of the brain that is hard-wired to perceive faces in even the most unpromising of patterns. But the dry explanation rather spoils the fun of making money off a casino by flogging them the sorts of religious simulacra you could manufacture in a holy toaster or mock up with butter.
