A cinema advertising company has been criticised on all fronts for banning a Church of England  advert promoting prayer. One of those attacking the decision is David Cameron.

Another critic of the decision is atheist, Richard Dawkins.

According to The Guardian newspaper, the 60-second advertisement, which shows Christians from various walks of life saying The Lord’s Prayer, fell foul of Digital Cinema Media (DCM) which argued that it breached the company’s own practice of not showing ads with overtly religious or political content, and because the advert might cause offence to non-Christians.

DCM controls advertising output for the Odeon, Cineworld and Vue cinema chains, accounting for 80% of screens in Britain.

The decision has now drawn fire not only from the Church of England, which described the move as “bewildering”, but from groups and high-profile individuals from across British society.

Responding to the ban, Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “ridiculous”, a sentiment echoed by his Conservative colleague and Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who called for an immediate overturning of the ban.

Another Conservative MP, Sarah Wollaston, an atheist, criticised the reasoning behind the ban and questioned whether it would, in reality, cause offence.

“As a gentle atheist,” she said, “I’m not offended by Church screening gentle cinema adverts; we shouldn’t reject our deep cultural roots in Christianity.”

Even the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has stepped in to defend the Church of England’s right to have its advert screened.

“I strongly object to suppressing the ads on the grounds that they might ‘offend’ people,” he said. “If anybody is ‘offended’ by something so trivial as a prayer, they deserve to be offended.”

The Church of England has vowed to pursue legal action if the ban is not overturned. The Church’s director of communications, Arun Arora, stated: “In one way the decision of the cinemas is just plain silly but the fact that they have insisted upon it makes it rather chilling in terms of limiting free speech. There is still time for the cinemas to change their mind and we would certainly welcome that.”

The Church of England advert can be viewed at JustPray.uk