This man wants you to Spread.

Just when it seemed like all the good names for Biblically orthodox web sites – ones like Hustler, or Giant Jugs, or Tight Butts – had been taken, along has come someone who proves there’s still plenty of potential for ministry on the old internet. I’m speaking of course of little Charles Raven, who’s interestingly titled movement and site SPREAD proves that even if evangelicals are determined to destroy the Church of England, they are at least committed to preserving the tradition of saucy British double entendre.

Now there’s no denying little Charles has issues. Nor that an illustrated discussion of those issues could probably not be sold to minors. But please, let’s give credit where it’s due: there aren’t many men with the degree of tactlessness necessary to call an organisation devoted entirely to their passion for a heady cocktail of bad theology, misogyny, and homophobia Spread. He may look meek, mild and only reasonably unpleasantly beady-eyed, but there's no denying he's not shy about letting us all know what's on his mind.

Sure it’s an acronym for something (isn’t everything in Conservative Christianity these days?), but a lesser Biblical Christian would have abandoned the name when they realised it makes their crucial contribution to the world of Orthodoxy look like something published by Paul Raymond. Not the Rev. Raven; throwing cultural awareness to the winds he pressed on regardless. Perhaps in doing so he sees himself as standing against the tide of secular colloquialisms? Or perhaps he’s so spiritual he’s never heard of the more profane connotations. Then again, maybe “Spread” just appealed to a part of himself he prefers not to discuss in public.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.