During my childhood I grew up watching the classic black and white Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. In a series of 14 movies released between 1939 – 1946, these familiar films contain various adaptations and re-inventions of the original Conan Doyle stories of which 12 movies were set in the 1940’s. Sadly this series did not portray Watson quite accurately.

In the 1980’s – 1990’s we saw an excellent return of Holmes and Watson in the series made for TV starring Jeremy Brett. For me, and from a viewpoint of the acting alone, the Jeremy Brett series is the cream of Conan Doyle adaptations and is greatly admired by many who know and have read the original stories.

However, what we find today with the more recent Sherlock Holmes adaptations is a somewhat confused re-interpretation of Holmes which is about as accurate to Conan Doyle as Braveheart was to William Wallace.

Over the last 2 years or so there has been a number of modern re-interpretations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s private consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes on both cinema and television.

In 2009 the cinema was hit with a blockbuster version of Sherlock Holmes re-interpreted as played by Robert Downey Jnr. Downey played Sherlock as a somewhat comical, messy Chaplinesque type character. In 2011 the screen was hit yet again with a Downey playing a Sherlock who was this time more like ‘Iron Man’ than Holmes. Thus, Sherlock moved from Chaplinesque to Iron Man.

In the recent BBC series, ‘Sherlock’, and distinctly throughout series 2, we saw a Sherlock who is somewhat cold and aggressive and lacks the quality of respect of the character within the original writings. Though well acted and well made, the stories moved a little and were often unclear and a little more far fetched than the original Conan Doyle stories, likewise we also find a Watson who is now distinctly and repeatedly guilty of blasphemy against the name of Jesus Christ.

This blasphemy can be found in all three episodes of series 2.

Likewise, in episode 1 of series 2, “A Scandal in Belgravia” we find a distinct atheist influenced statement from the script, in which Watson while in conversation with a very odd interpretation of Irene Adler, made a distinct atheist statement. In a response to a comment concerning mobile phone texts, we heard Watson say, “Sherlock always replies to everything. He’s mister punchline, he will outlive God trying to have the last word”.

This statement is odd, since Sherlock does not actually exist so how can he outlive God?

The series concluded with episode 3 “The Reichenbach fall” which contained an out of character portrayal of a suicidal Moriarty who near ruins Sherlock and then commits suicide by putting a gun in his mouth and firing it without any sign of armed police showing up? But still, a surprising event concluded with Sherlock appearing to commit suicide by jumping off a building and crashing to the floor, yet within moments and yet again another blasphemous use of the name of Jesus, it became apparently clear that Sherlock had actually faked his own death.

I watched the episode and compared it with the original Conan Doyle ending and I could not help but regard the original ending far better and more realistic than the modern. However, I noticed from the modern version a distinct paralleled mind game complete with a simulative subliminal reference to the death of Jesus, which in this case Sherlock appears to have died and is soon resurrected and stands watching his closest friends visit his grave. This comparison was also made a little more evident when ‘Radio Times’ published a review by David Brown on 15th January 2012, in which Brown said, quote, “Even Jesus took three days before His miraculous resurrection”. Thus containing a very immature and distinctly poor reference to the resurrection of Jesus as though it took Jesus 3 days to rise again and thus Sherlock rose from the grave quicker than Christ. The difference is that Jesus did actually die as history proves and He did raise Himself from the dead which is also a historical fact. He did not merely appear to make a careful plan to jump off a building with restricted landing view and apparently into a padded parked van on the road?

However, the problem is that the Sherlock BBC TV series was created by two modern atheist screenwriters, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and it is apparent when considering modern atheism in Britain that the screen writers are inwardly using Sherlock as a spokesman for modern atheism and I am curious to know if there is a larger game afoot? After all, Conan Doyle was a spiritualist and not an atheist.

Likewise we not only did we hear the Watson of this series make such a dogmatic atheist statement that Sherlock will outlive God, but we also hear Watson blaspheme the name of Jesus more times than I care to mention.

Which begs the question; how is it that we hear so much blasphemy these days and why is so much of this blasphemy directed against the name of the Christian God?

Why is blasphemy against Jesus Christ permitted on screen yet we do not hear the same for Mohammed or Allah?

Is this fair?
Is this right?
Is this moral?
Is this acceptable?

Don’t take me wrongly, for my faith is very strong and I am not offended by blasphemy, for people merely bring destruction upon themselves, and likewise, I am good with re-interpretations of classic stories but maybe the BBC should stop playing the coward and maybe next time the scriptwriters for Sherlock series 3 should try adding the name of ‘Allah’ or ‘Mohammed’ in their long list of blasphemies, if they dare!

We like Sherlock and maybe people may make more accurate versions once again, but until then the question remains; is Sherlock now being made a spokesman for modern atheism which thinks it will outlive God?
I leave the matter for the moment in Conan Doyle’s own words from the familiar and intellegent Sherlock we all know;

“There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”

Sherlock Holmes
His last bow