Jason Gardner asks what role does censorship play in today's world?

So where are we heading?

Into the unknown it seems. The certificates given to films, the guidelines operated by television can seem redundant in an age where precious few boundaries are in place. As Raymond Snoddy writes in The Independent:

'.. it is not even clear that it is possible to devise any practical rules or restraints that might hold in a world where children can escape the restrictions of a nine-o'clock watershed by receiving pictures on their mobiles, or simply going to their bedrooms for their laptops.'

For many of our children the world is already uncensored. As Snoddy also comments this means that mainstream TV and Cinema are left playing catch up. If anybody anytime anywhere can see uncensored sex acts and violence then mainstream media has to up the ante in order to appeal. So we get stills and broadcasts of Saddam's live execution, racist slurs and bullying on Big Brother and more and more extreme horror in films and video games.

How do we, then, even begin to address censorship?

Protest? As the 40,000 complaints delivered to Ofcom (the independent regulator of communications media) about Celebrity Big Brother proved if you shout loud enough you can be heard.

So is it time to revive the spirit of Mary Whitehouse and say 'enough is enough?' Perhaps but our role should also be in applauding as well as pointing the finger. Write in to complain by all means but also write in to praise as well - encourage quality.

And in an age where there is an increasingly unlimited choice we can limit what we watch and hopefully influence programming; Television obeys appetites, the more we watch 'good' content TV, whatever that is, the more there will be. I'm not suggesting everyone on masse should tune into Songs of Praise every Sunday evening but hey, it'd be a start.

Also the church has to admit complicity in this area. If we had sought to actively be involved in media instead of often shying away from it then without question we'd have more influence over the airwaves. We have a lot of catching up to do.

So Bond isn't entirely to blame.

What the Church needs to do is to apply its genius and creativity to those things in life that need no censoring: more and more we need to be making our voice heard by telling and living stories of outrageous hope, unbridled passion and a love that truly knows no limits.