IN AN attempt to put the “spirit” back into Christmas, the latest publicity campaign from Britain’s churches is in danger of falling as flat as an old pint of bitter.

An advertisement featuring the face of Jesus as a “miraculous” apparition on an empty beer glass is to be the centrepiece of a campaign to encourage church-going this Christmas.

The image of Jesus in the froth left on the sides of an almost empty pint glass next to the words “Where will you find him?” is the latest in a series of controversial campaigns from the Churches Advertising Network, an ecumenical group that includes representatives of most of the mainstream churches.

Along with a series of radio advertisements in which young people describe their spiritual beliefs, the poster is intended to illustrate the spiritual emptiness of the traditional party season and offer church and Jesus as a credible alternative.

The theme is drawn from the worldwide trend for finding holy images in everyday objects. These have included Christ on a fish finger, the Virgin Mary on a toasted sandwich and even Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun.

The advert prompted immediate criticism from clergy working with young people.

The Rev Tom Allen, a “mission priest” in Oakworth, West Yorkshire, who runs the popular BigBulkyAnglican website, described the campaign as sickening.

He says on his website: “On the day when a Government-commissioned report suggests that rather than focus on drugs education, schools and youth work bodies should be educating young people about drink, ie, drink is much the more serious problem, CAN launch this particularly obtuse poster. And they claim to be the media-savvy ones who know how to communicate with young people.”

Francis Goodwin, the chairman of the network, said that he hoped that the poster and radio advertisements would lead to a national debate about God. The campaign is linked to the youth forum website myspace.com, owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times.

Mr Goodwin said: “The message is subtle but simple — where is God in all the boozing at Christmas? For many, Christmas is just drinking and partying and God is excluded, yet many young people are interested in finding deeper meaning and exploring faith.”

The image of Jesus in a beer glass is the latest in a series of controversial images created for the network, a group of Christians of all denominations working in the media.

Previous campaigns include a poster depicting Jesus as the revolutionary leader Che Guevara and one suggesting that Mary was having a “bad hair day” when she discovered she was pregnant. In response to the controversial nature of some of the campaigns, in 1999 the Roman Catholic Church quit the network.

Richard Johnston and Mark Gilmore, who produced the latest poster at Radioville, the advertising agency for the campaign, said: “We took the traditional silly-season news story, in which people find images of Jesus on trees, on a slice of toast or in bubbles of cheese on a pizza, and developed images showing Jesus’s face in unexpected places.”

They added: “Because of the season, we chose the beer glass, where Jesus’s face is captured in the froth running down the side of an empty pint glass.”

John Carter, a member of the network and a communications officer for the Church of England’s Ripon and Leeds diocese, said: “The aim of the poster is to say simply that Christmas for many people is a time for boozing and partying. We are saying: where is God in that? Is there something deeper or more important?” A spokesman for the Church of England said: “Advertising like this will always upset somebody, but just maybe it will reach the people other efforts cannot reach.”

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