Four Church of England parishes are trying to boost their congregations by offering free cinema tickets to watch Mel Gibson's controversial movie "The Passion of Christ."
Four churches in the Archbishop of Canterbury's diocese in the southeastern county of Kent have block-booked 20,000 pounds ($37,020) of tickets to give away for the graphic film depicting the torture and death of Jesus Christ in an effort to drum up new recruits.
"Gay bishops being thrown out of the Church is not the sort of publicity we need," Russ Hughes, director of worship and prophecy at St Luke's -- one of the four churches involved in the scheme -- told the Times newspaper Tuesday.
"Hopefully this will put the emphasis back on Christ. We are competing for people's attention with things like the 9/11 disaster and Kylie Minogue's rear end, so we are not going to get people in by running a jumble sale.
"This is the greatest opportunity for the Church in the last 30 years and if we did not use it we may not get such an opportunity again."
The film opens in Britain later this month and the free tickets are being offered to selected non-churchgoers.