www.premierchristianity.com Open in urlscan Pro
34.252.9.76  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

POST /

<form method="post" action="/">
  <fieldset>
    <div>
      <p>Premier Christianity uses cookies <a href="https://www.premier.org.uk/privacy/">Read our cookie policy</a>.</p>
      <input type="hidden" name="cookiepolicyaccepted" value="yes">
      <button type="submit" class="continue">OK</button>
    </div>
  </fieldset>
</form>

GET https://www.premierchristianity.com/searchresults

<form action="https://www.premierchristianity.com/searchresults" method="get" id="mastsearch" data-toggle-element="">
  <fieldset>
    <div>
      <label for="search">Search our site</label>
      <input type="text" id="search" value="" name="qkeyword" class="text" placeholder="Search our site">
      <button class="mastSearch" type="submit">Search</button>
    </div>
  </fieldset>
</form>

Text Content

Premier Christianity uses cookies Read our cookie policy.

OK
 * Skip to main content
 * Skip to navigation

Site name


Site name
Mast navigation
 * Sign In
 * Register

Search our site
Search our site Search
Menu
Close menu
 * Home
 * Magazine
   * Back to parent navigation item
   * Magazine
   * 2022
     * Back to parent navigation item
     * 2022
     * January
     * February
     * March
   * 2021
     * Back to parent navigation item
     * 2021
     * July
     * August
     * September
     * October
     * November
     * December
   * Archive
     * Back to parent navigation item
     * Archive
     * 2021
     * 2020
       * Back to parent navigation item
       * 2020
       * January
       * February
       * March
       * April
       * May
       * June
       * July
       * August
       * September
       * October
       * November
       * December
     * 2019
     * 2018
     * 2017
     * 2016
     * 2015
   * Current Issue
     * Back to parent navigation item
     * Current Issue
     * Van life: How Jesus’ counter-cultural lifestyle inspired me to live on
       the road
     * ‘A chaplain saved my life…literally’
     * The ancient prayer that could refresh your prayer life
 * Opinion
   * Back to parent navigation item
   * Opinion
   * Latest comment
   * Reviews
   * Regular columnists
     * Back to parent navigation item
     * Regular columnists
     * NT Wright
     * Chine McDonald
     * Philippa Hanna
     * Chris Llewellyn
     * Tim Farron
     * RT Kendall
     * Jeff Lucas
     * Lois Tverberg
     * David Instone-Brewer
     * George Pitcher
     * Chris Goswami
 * Stories
   * Back to parent navigation item
   * Stories
   * Real Life
   * Testimonies
   * Interviews
 * Features
   * Back to parent navigation item
   * Features
   * Apologetics
   * Christian living
   * Covid-19
   * Culture
   * Family & relationships
   * History
   * International
   * Leadership
   * Mental health
   * Obituaries
   * Politics
   * Prayer
   * Social issues
   * Technology
   * Theology
   * UK Church
   * US Church
   * Worship
 * Podcasts
 * Subscribe


 * Home
 * Magazine
    * * 2022
        * January
        * February
        * March
      * 2021
        * July
        * August
        * September
        * October
        * November
        * December
    * * Archive
        * 2021
        * 2020
        * 2019
        * 2018
        * 2017
        * 2016
        * 2015
    * * Current Issue
        * Van life: How Jesus’ counter-cultural lifestyle inspired me to live on
          the road
        * ‘A chaplain saved my life…literally’
        * The ancient prayer that could refresh your prayer life
    * Cost of living crisis: 3 leading campaigners share how the Church can
      respond

 * Opinion
    * * Latest comment
      * Reviews
    * * Regular columnists
        * NT Wright
        * Chine McDonald
        * Philippa Hanna
        * Chris Llewellyn
        * Tim Farron
        * RT Kendall
        * Jeff Lucas
        * Lois Tverberg
    * * * David Instone-Brewer
        * George Pitcher
        * Chris Goswami
    * Grave sucking and gold dust: I spent 10 years at Bethel. Here’s the truth
      behind the wild rumours

 * Stories
    * * Real Life
      * Testimonies
      * Interviews
    * 'A vision from God lifted me from the pit of despair'
    * From drug-addicted bouncer to Jesus-loving youth worker
    * ‘Losing my husband to cancer led to us both finding Jesus’

 * Features
    * * Apologetics
      * Christian living
      * Covid-19
      * Culture
      * Family & relationships
      * History
      * International
      * Leadership
      * Mental health
    * * Obituaries
      * Politics
      * Prayer
      * Social issues
      * Technology
      * Theology
      * UK Church
      * US Church
      * Worship
    * Inside the fastest growing religious movement on earth
    * Meet the experts helping your church navigate a PR crisis

 * Podcasts
    * A Mucky Business with Tim Farron
    * Ask NT Wright Anything
    * Unbelievable?
    * The Profile

 * Subscribe
 * More navigation items



Reviews


DID WE GET MARY WHITEHOUSE WRONG?

By Rev Peter Crumpler7 March 20222 min read

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

 * Save article

As a BBC documentary considers whether the Christian anti-porn crusader Mary
Whitehouse was ahead of her time, Rev Peter Crumpler recalls his own
conversation with the often mocked campaigner

Source: Independent / Alamy Stock Photo

Almost 50 years ago, a teenage would-be journalist was sent to interview one of
the most controversial Christian figures of the 1970s.

That aspiring reporter was me. I was dispatched by Buzz magazine (predecessor to
Premier Christianity) to interview anti-porn campaigner Mary Whitehouse.

Although Christians under 40 may not know her name (I recently mentioned her
name in a sermon only to receive blank looks) Whitehouse was a high-profile
figure from the mid-sixties until she retired in 1994. She was often parodied
and mocked in the media for her campaigns against obscenity.

I recalled the interview, and dug out the cutting from my loft this weekend
because the BBC was broadcasting a new radio programme, ‘Disgusted, Mary
Whitehouse’ based on 30 years of newly-available diaries and letters. It has led
some to a reassessment of her impact.

Peter Crumpler’s original 1973 interview with Mary Whitehouse, as published in
Premier Christianity’s predecessor, Buzz

The programme’s presenter Samira Ahmed raises a key question: “Mary Whitehouse’s
name became shorthand for anti-liberal prudery and censorship, but more than 20
years after her death, do her diaries reveal a woman who was ahead of her time
in warning about the corrosive impact of internet pornography on society?”

The documentary reviews Mary Whitehouse’s years of protests and records how she
persistently lobbied MPs and ministers to draft legislation.

Ahmed notes: “Her successes include the 1978 Protection of Children Act, which
criminalised for the first time the making of indecent images of children, the
1981 Indecent Displays (Control) Act which controlled sex shops and the displays
of pornographic material in newsagents, and the 1984 Video Recordings Act, to
regulate the explosion in the sale of extreme content (so-called ‘video
nasties’) in the new Wild West of home video cassette recorders.” She warned
about technology getting out of control, long before the internet was born.

When I met Mary Whitehouse in the plush surroundings of the RAC Club in London’s
Piccadilly, she was about to attend a meeting of the National Viewers’ and
Listeners’ Association, the lobbying group that she chaired and had around
150,000 members at its peak.

In the minutes before Mary Whitehouse arrived, I had been introduced to a Mr
Whitehouse, who was shocked at the idea of my interviewing his wife. Needless,
to say I had the wrong husband.

But there was no mistaking the actual Mary Whitehouse when she arrived, wearing
a brown fur coat, and with a hand outstretched in welcome. I was seeing, I
wrote, “the face that had launched a thousand cartoons.” Although I was
painfully nervous to be meeting such a high-profile person with a fierce
reputation, I found her warm and charming, and patient as I set up my cassette
recorder.

Looking back, my questions were predictable. As a young, evangelical Christian,
I wanted to know about her faith and how this motivated her. I asked about how
she felt young people regarded her, and I asked whether she was obsessed with
sex.

> I don’t take any notice of mockery

About her faith, she told me: “It’s basic. I can’t say any more than that. I
couldn’t have stood up to what I have if I didn’t have a sense of commitment
that God wanted me to do this work. I don’t take any notice of mockery. I’ve
known for a very long time that ridicule is one of the most powerful weapons
those who are opposed to what we stand for can use.”

On young people, “When I go to universities they’re always packed out. Some come
to seriously hear what I’ve come to say, others think they’re coming for a joke.
But they hear what I’ve come to say, which is very forward-looking and – in the
best sense of the word – revolutionary. We are not going with the tide.”

On an obsession with sex, “The reverse is the case. It’s society which is
obsessed with sex. Sex is the most exploited thing in our society. It’s being
used in every way, degraded and denigrated and what we’re concerned about is
putting it back into its own perspective, and if you’re going to do that you’re
going to have to expose the way it’s being misused.”

Many people saw Mary Whitehouse as a campaigner seeking to return Britain to
‘Victorian values.’ In fact, in many ways, she was warning about the increased
sexualisation of society that the internet – then many years in the future –
would bring. Today, she would be campaigning for increased protection for
children  on social media, and controls on how the internet makes obscene
material easy to access.

As journalist Samira Ahmed concludes: “Although some of Mary Whitehouse’s
religious beliefs were very out of step with modern Britain, she would see the
impact of internet pornography on the young as exactly what she’d been warning
against and support the current efforts to finally get it under control.”

Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse is available now on the BBC Radio 4 website

Rev Peter CrumplerRev Peter Crumpler worked as a journalist, before going into
corporate communications. He was communications director with the Church of
England, from 2004 to 2011, when he left to become a CofE priest.




TOPICS

 * BBC
 * evangelical
 * Mary Whitehouse
 * Swearing
 * TV

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

 * Save article


MOST POPULAR

 * Did we get Mary Whitehouse wrong?
 * ‘I’ve been a church leader in Ukraine for 30 years. I’m not going anywhere’
 * Why the politicians applauding Russian protests are guilty of hypocrisy
 * Skillet has ‘declared war’ on deconstruction. But I think questions are
   healthy
 * This is going to hurt: What the hard-hitting medical drama means to me as a
   Christian doctor


LATEST

 * Why the climate threat is bigger than Brexit, Covid and even war in Europe
 * Pat Robertson thinks Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a fulfillment of end
   times prophecy. Is he right?
 * Boris Johnson’s response to Ukrainian refugees is blasphemous
 * Tim Montgomerie: The Christian Conservative on why he no longer supports
   Boris Johnson
 * ‘I’ve been a church leader in Ukraine for 30 years. I’m not going anywhere’





SUBSCRIBE TO PREMIER CHRISTIANITY

Special offer




PAY MONTHLY £1 A MONTH LIMITED OFFER

With Premier Christianity you can go deeper in your faith and be inspired by
real life stories of what God is doing in the UK and beyond. Our special limited
offer means you can enjoy £1 a month for the first three months of your
subscription (£4.95 after this period).

*Offers and promotions are subject to availability. Annual subscriptions only,
in the UK

Find out more



Close



RELATED ARTICLES

 * Reviews
   
   
   THIS IS GOING TO HURT: WHAT THE HARD-HITTING MEDICAL DRAMA MEANS TO ME AS A
   CHRISTIAN DOCTOR
   
   28 February 2022
   
   Adam Kay’s BBC drama deals with serious themes. But a supportive church and
   the help of God can make all the difference, says Rosalind Revans

 * Interviews
   
   
   GENELLE ALDRED: ‘JESUS WOULDN’T FIT IN MOST OF OUR CHURCHES’
   
   23 February 2022
   
   The journalist and activist was just 19 when an unplanned pregnancy ended in
   the stillbirth of her daughter. It was an experience that still drives her to
   tackle inequality wherever she sees it

 * Opinion
   
   
   WHAT CHRISTIANS CAN LEARN ABOUT COURAGE AND TRUST FROM STRICTLY’S ROSE
   
   27 January 2022
   
   Rose Ayling Ellis is an inspiration. As Strictly goes on tour, what lessons
   can Christians learn from her example?  

Load more articles




MORE REVIEWS

 * Reviews
   
   
   EYES TO SEE - TIM MUEHLHOFF
   
   23 February 2022
   
   The goal of Eyes to See, as Muehlhoff states, is to recognise that “all good
   gifts come from God”, to paraphrase James 1:17. His argument is that God’s
   handiwork is all around us and, if we can see and better appreciate it, it
   will enhance our faith ...

 * Reviews
   
   
   THE DA VINCI FRAUD: DID DAN BROWN GUILTY OF THEFT?
   
   23 February 2022
   
   Dan Brown’s popular novel The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction which sets
   the hero, Robert Langdon, on a knight’s quest to find the holy grail – a
   supposed last descendant of the “marriage” between Jesus Christ and Mary
   Magdalene. You might expect The Da ...

 * Reviews
   
   
   NEED TO GIVE YOUR PAIN TO GOD? SHEILA WALSH'S ENCOURAGING BOOK WILL HELP
   
   23 February 2022
   
   To be human is to want to give up when life gets too much; to be a Christian
   is to cling to the promises and the hand of God when life feels overwhelming.
   This is the encouragement of Scottish songwriter Sheila Walsh in her latest
   book. It ...

Load more articles





MOST POPULAR

 * Did we get Mary Whitehouse wrong?
 * ‘I’ve been a church leader in Ukraine for 30 years. I’m not going anywhere’
 * Why the politicians applauding Russian protests are guilty of hypocrisy
 * Skillet has ‘declared war’ on deconstruction. But I think questions are
   healthy
 * This is going to hurt: What the hard-hitting medical drama means to me as a
   Christian doctor
 * ‘Stop the war’ Russian Orthodox leader on why hundreds of ‘brave’ priests are
   joining his campaign
 * Behind the headlines: Inspiring stories of faith in Ukrainian cities under
   siege
 * Watch: Ukrainian Christians pray Psalm 31 from bomb shelters
 * Boris Johnson’s response to Ukrainian refugees is blasphemous
 * Time out


LATEST

 * Why the climate threat is bigger than Brexit, Covid and even war in Europe
 * Pat Robertson thinks Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a fulfillment of end
   times prophecy. Is he right?
 * Boris Johnson’s response to Ukrainian refugees is blasphemous
 * Tim Montgomerie: The Christian Conservative on why he no longer supports
   Boris Johnson
 * ‘I’ve been a church leader in Ukraine for 30 years. I’m not going anywhere’
 * ‘When the women arrive, you can see the sadness, the pain in them’
 * ‘Stop the war’ Russian Orthodox leader on why hundreds of ‘brave’ priests are
   joining his campaign
 * Skillet has ‘declared war’ on deconstruction. But I think questions are
   healthy
 * The media won't celebrate these inspiring Christian women. But I will
 * The religious dimension of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine explained



 * Advertise with us
 * Donate
 * Jobs at Premier
 * About us
 * FAQs
 * Privacy Policy
 * Contact us


 * Subscribe to Premier Christianity
 * Follow us on Twitter
 * Follow us on Facebook

 * Issues
 * Topics A-Z
 * Writers A-Z
 * © 2022 Premier Christianity

Premier consists of Premier Christian Media Trust registered as a charity (no.
287610) and as a company limited by guarantee (no. 01743091) with two
fully-owned trading subsidiaries: Premier Christian Communications Ltd (no.
02816074) and Christian Communication Partnership Ltd (no. 03422292). All three
companies are registered in England & Wales with a registered office address of
22 Chapter Street, London, SW1P 4NP.

Site powered by Webvision Cloud