By Mike Merritt
Star Wars met Sabbath wars as the first film to be shown on Sundays in a public cinema on the Sabbatarian Isle of Lewis was screened yesterday.
Despite protests, all of the 183 tickets for Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi at An Lanntair Stornoway were snapped-up within days.
Yesterday, two placard carrying protesters mounted a silent vigil outside the arts venue, where the film was aired, reminding cinema goers to keep the Lord’s Day holy.
Marianne Taylor: Island economics will eventually defeat the Sabbatarians
One of the protesters, the Rev David Fraser of the Free Church of Scotland, held a sign that said “repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.”
The 78-year-old said: “This is a serious breach of God’s law. The Sabbath is to be kept holy. People are forgetting about higher things and going against the Christian tradition of our island heritage and culture.
“We are making our convictions clear – we are not trying to block people going in, but making clear what we believe in and that they should be seeking their own salvation and God’s ways. Spending Sunday in a cinema is not God’s way.”
Next month’s Sunday film, Coco, is already more than half sold out.
David Green, chairman of the board of An Lanntair, defended the decision to open and said no staff had been made to work on a Sunday.
He said: “I fully understand the Sabbath issue, but I also understand it is not up to us to impose one view on another. We are committed to diversity.”
Marianne Taylor: Island economics will eventually defeat the Sabbatarians
Therapist Hereward Proops, 37, was taking his two children, aged eight and three.
“I think it’s fantastic. If people don’t want to go to church they should be allowed to go to the cinema. “
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