Welsh Bishop Censures TV Star Noel in Easter Message

A senior Welsh bishop has used his Easter message to attack TV star Noel Edmonds for promoting the new-age cult of ‘Cosmic Ordering‘. The Bishop of St Davids, Carl Cooper, says the idea of a ‘divine room service, a heavenly shopping trolley’, is nonsense.

Edmonds says his surprise comeback - his new gameshow Deal or No Deal is a huge hit nearly six years after he left the BBC - followed an incident when he wrote down his wishes on a piece of paper and waited for the cosmos to deliver.

Viewers of Deal or No Deal have seen a series of mysterious symbols drawn on the presenter’s hands which are understood to relate to his Cosmic Ordering beliefs.

But Bishop Cooper said, ‘Noel Edmonds’s talk of Cosmic Ordering has caused some, such as the Today programme’s John Humphrys, to liken it to prayer.

‘This is nonsense. It may be laudable to set goals in life, but we don’t need to dress this up in spiritual language. Intercessory prayer is part of our Christian tradition, however it is not divine room service, nor is it a heavenly shopping trolley.

‘Even Jesus asked that he be spared the cross, but came to accept its inevitability.’

But he compared Edmonds’s new show, on which contestants guess where the big prizes are based on what they think is most likely to be true, with the challenge of believing in the resurrection of Jesus. He said, ‘At Easter God challenges us with the question of faith. What do you think is most probably true? Deal or no Deal? Life or no Life?’

Bishop Cooper, 45, has been an outspoken critic of aspects of celebrity culture. He criticised the ‘pipe dreams’ offered by reality TV shows and said the Church has done more for the Third World than Bob Geldof.

But a spokesman for Edmonds said the former Swap Shop presenter had only ‘played around’ with the Cosmic Ordering system.

‘It is all a bit out of context. Noel Edmonds has said he is a man of faith. But he hasn’t been gripped with some L Ron Hubbard faith. ‘What Cosmic Ordering did was trigger in his mind that we have to be positive and he just started making more positive decisions. ‘He wrote a list of achievements but not in the way set out by this system. It was part of life changes which happened to him after his split.’ Edmonds disappeared from our screens when his BBC contract expired in 2000 and split with his second wife, Helen, last summer.: FROM PAGE 3: ‘Forget Noel Edmonds’ cosmic comeback: Just celebrate Jesus Christ, the ultimate comeback kid’:The soundbite culture of modern Britain would in all likelihood nickname Jesus Christ, the ultimate comeback kid, according to one of Wales’ most thought-provoking public figures. But the Bishop of St Davids, Carl Cooper, has warned against comparisons between Noel Edmonds’ comeback and the resurrection of Jesus, which is marked in the Christian calendar this weekend.

‘In today’s soundbite culture, it would be very easy to caricature our Lord’s resurrection as ‘Jesus - the comeback kid’,’ says Bishop Cooper.

‘However, this would do a grave injustice to Christian belief. Jesus of Nazareth is not simply a good person, resurrecting his failing career, but Almighty God dealing with the broken-ness and fallen-ness of our world. He lived, died and rose again in order that we might share his risen life.’

His attack on the ‘cosmos’ belief system of the game show host is just the latest foray into celebrity culture by the Bishop Cooper.

One of Britain’s youngest bishops at 45, he has in the past criticised the ‘pipe dreams’ offered to reality TV contestants and argued that the church had done more to help the Third World than Bob Geldof’s Live Aid.

The father-of-three has also criticised President George Bush’s rhetoric in likening his ‘war on terror’ to a crusade by the West.

In his Easter message this year he attacks Edmonds’ belief in the ‘cosmic ordering’, to which the former Radio 1 DJ has attributed his television comeback.

Having presented BBC entertainment shows ranging from Top of the Pops to Noel’s House Party, Edmonds struggled for work when his contract ended in 2000.

But he made a return to the small screen last year with a surprise hit, Channel 4’s daily afternoon quiz show Deal or no Deal. He says he wrote what he wanted - a TV comeback - on a piece of paper, placed it under his pillow and waited for his wish to be granted.

Bishop Cooper says it is ‘nonsense’ to see this as a substitute for Christian prayer.

He uses the rest of his message to say Easter is a time when God challenges Christians to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

He says, ‘It is generally accepted by historians that Jesus lived, headed a messianic sect, was crucified and buried. It is also accepted that his body disappeared.

‘The crucial question is ‘What happened to his body?’ Would you choose to suffer and die for something you knew to be untrue? Consider the lives of those first disciples: Stephen and James were martyred; John was exiled to Patmos; thousands were persecuted? Would you go through that had you engineered a hoax?’

Bishop Cooper, originally from Wigan, is a Welsh speaker and sits on the Broadcasting Council for Wales.

He is in overall charge of the Church in Wales’ communication strategy, and recently had to launch an investigation when the Church’s Welsh-language magazine Y Llan printed controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said in his Christmas message that the resurrection of Jesus was ‘not the end of the story but the beginning’. He said resurrection was not just about life with God after death, but about ‘trying to live out the life and values of God in our everyday lives now as Jesus’s followers and disciples’.: Edmonds’ ‘mail-order’ cosmos:Noel Edmonds believes his successful return to the entertainment world is linked to his faith in ‘Cosmic Ordering’. The belief system involves writing down your wishes and waiting for the cosmos to deliver. Edmonds recently said in interview that he had made six requests - including asking for a hit TV show - and had yet to be let down. The theory was popularised by a German ex-journalist named Barbel Mohr, who says on her website that the cosmos works like a mail-order company. Edmonds says he was introduced to the theory by one of Mohr’s books. Viewers of Edmonds’ new show can clearly see various symbols scrawled on the presenter’s hands. These range from flowers to a rain cloud, and although these are thought to be linked to his belief in cosmic ordering, it is not clear exactly what they mean.

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