THE infant Jesus appears as a baby Santa Claus complete with red and white bobble hat in the Christmas advertising campaign from the country’s mainstream churches.

The Churches Advertising Network, which includes representatives from most churches, except the Roman Catholics, has adapted a work by the 17th-century Flemish painter Gerrit van Honthorst that is often used for Christmas cards. Instead of gazing down lovingly at an infant in swaddling clothes, Mary is looking at a representation of Jesus in a red and white Santa suit.

The poster, to be displayed on billboards and church noticeboards throughout the country, bears the caption “Go on, ask him for something.” A similar theme runs through advertisements aimed at young listeners to local and music radio stations.

Non-religious carols such as Good King Wenceslas and Deck the Halls have been rewritten to describe the commercialisation and stress of modern Christmas. The network also wanted to recapture Christmas from the high street.

The campaign was launched early to give parish and other churches time to order posters, duplicate them and pin them up on their noticeboards.

Francis Goodwin, chairman of the network and director of corporate development for the Maiden Group, said: “The shops start doing Christmas ever earlier and they are always trying to steal Christmas, so we are fighting them here on their own territory.”

He said that using an image of Santa Claus — in the so-called traditional red-and-white outfit originally designed to promote Coca-Cola in the United States — as Jesus was not intended to confuse children but to start a debate. “Having four children, I know that children today are increasingly cynical and they are disabused of the notion of Santa Claus early on in life,” he said.

The aim was to make a link between Santa Claus and Jesus in terms of being able to ask for something. “We are making a play on children asking their parents for something and perhaps leaving Jesus out of the picture, and encouraging them to go and ask Jesus for something this Christmas.”

In commercial terms the campaign would be worth about £250,000 but sponsorship from Jerusalem Productions has helped towards the costs. The designers and producers, members of Christians in the Media, have worked without charge and poster sites are also being donated by Maiden Outdoor.

Churches are being encouraged to group together to buy advertising space on their local radio stations. Research has shown that Christmas advertising campaigns increase churchgoing over the period by 17 per cent more in those dioceses that use them.

Some campaigns in the past have aroused controversy, causing the Catholics to leave the network, even though many local Catholic churches still use the advertising material. Recent campaigns have been less deliberately provocative and the volunteers from the network will meet Catholic church officials before Christmas to see if they can be persuaded to return.

A poster last year showed one of the Three Kings leaving the price tag on his gift to the baby Jesus and featured a radio commercial with a Goon-style sketch of a grandmother at a family gathering blowing a raspberry.

An earlier campaign by the network suggested that Mary was having a “bad hair day” when she discovered she was pregnant. Another used an adapted image of Che Guevara to represent Jesus.

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