A FILM crammed with references to sex and drugs and featuring Jesus as a 15-year-old schoolboy and Mary Magdalene as a single mother is the latest ploy to woo young people back to church.
In an effort to curb the decline in young church-goers, a missionary agency has made a 30-minute film on an £8,000 budget with teenagers playing the leading parts.
Called An Absence of Stones, the film will be screened in secondary schools this autumn with the aim of convincing teenagers of the relevance of the Bible to their lives. It contains references to drugs and violence with the Judas figure portrayed as a drug-taking schoolgirl who betrays Jesus for a "hit" of cocaine.
At one point Jesus accompanies Mary Magdalene to an abortion clinic, although he says he "hates" what she has done. In the end she decides to keep the baby.
Instead of a crucifixion scene, Jesus is murdered by a schoolfriend and is resurrected in a Leicestershire beauty spot. Nigel Roberts, scriptwriter and producer for Youth for Christ, said his aim was to defy the Church's "stuffy" image.
Anthony Kilmister, spokesman for the Prayer Book Society, which has the Bishop of London as its patron, attacked the film as "a distortion" of the Bible and "harmful" to young people.