Demi Lovato’s anti-Christian album posters removed by ASA

Artwork advertising American singer Demi Lovato’s most recent album has been taken down in the UK for profaning Christ.

Posters advertising the album displayed Lovato lying provocatively on a crucifix-shaped mattress with her legs and feet bound to one side in a manner reminiscent of depictions of Christ on the cross. The name of the album also combined a misspelled swear word with religious language.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) received complaints and banned them, ruling that the poster was “likely to be viewed as linking sexuality to the sacred symbol of the crucifix and the crucifixion” and therefore of serious offence to Christians.

‘Over-sexualised culture’

Graham Nicholls, Director of Affinity, said: “It is deeply unpleasant and upsetting to see a crucial part of the Christian gospel mocked and made light of in this way.”

He added that the blasphemous artwork is “a symptom of a much wider and deeper disregard for the God I love, and disdain for the saviour who gave his life for me on that cross”.

Nicholls added that he hoped Christians would be able to use the artwork to point to Christ, saying: “We need Jesus, the saviour who was actually bound to a wooden cross and who gave his life for ours, so much more than we need an entertainer who lies on a padded cushion in pursuit of her own need for self-glorification.”

Pray

Dr James Emery White, a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, called for Christians to pray for the singer, given her traumatic past.

Lovato has a history of sexual abuse and struggles with drug and alcohol addiction and mental health issues.

In a blog post for Crosswalk, Dr White noted that Lovato had grown up being taught the Bible, but stopped following its teaching. She was later baptised and returned to church, speaking of how she had “never felt more renewed” by God in her life but in her recent album sang “I met god / Just for a minute / Sat in his house / Took a look around / And saw I didn’t fit in”.

This prompted the professor to write: “So join me, won’t you, in offering a prayer for this precious young woman so beloved by God? A prayer that she really meets God, and for more than a minute, sits among His people, and finds that she – like all prodigals – … fits in just fine.”