In a surprise twist in the ongoing disputer, Christian Protesters has claimed the devastating Tsunami occurred because God was not happy with the BBC’s decision to broadcast the musical, Jerry Springer – the Opera.

The BBC announced in November that it intended to broadcast the controversial show, long before the Tsunami struck south Asia, and despite the protests that the show is offensive to Christianity as well as being generally distasteful the BBC did not withdraw the show from its schedule and the show will be shown on January 8th.

“We warned the BBC the show was not suitable,” Christian Protester Chuck Hankman reflected, “We told them, but they did not listen. Now look what has happened.”

Sceptics of the claim have speculated that it would have been far more efficient of an omnipotent being to simply destroy the BBC headquarters with a huge lightning strike to prevent the show from being broadcast rather than create a huge earthquake that ravaged most of Southern Asia and killed thousands of people.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Hankman explained, “Simply destroying the BBC would not have been enough. These people would never have accepted what they had done was wrong in that scenario. Being responsible for the death and destruction on the scale witnessed in Asia means these people will be genuine when they repent. If they don’t, I can’t see how they can avoid going to hell.”

Keith Wilson, a known atheist extremist, was quick to comment on the Christian Protestors claims:

“This is ridiculous – they say God has acted to stop a few million people from watching a show most of them won’t take seriously… at what price? Over a hundred thousand dead. Sure, the number of people might be smaller, but do you really think all of those watching are going to go out and commit unholy acts. It doesn’t add up.”

Chuck Hankman indicated he believed that the show was evidence of the spiral descent of the quality of television:

“Even without the religious offensiveness the show is generally distasteful. 8,000 obsencities in a 90 minute show? That’s 15 obscenities every ten seconds. British television has fallen to an all time low. They could have easily have broadcast Celebrity Big Brother or 3 episodes of Wife Swap instead.”

Despite the controversy, the producers of the show say they are pleased that the protesters are exercising their right to object. Last week before the show hit the headlines the predicted viewing figures stood at an estimated 2.1 million people. The last estimated viewing figures were over 6.7 million.

“Will I be watching it?” Keith Wilson told us, “I didn’t know it was being screened until I read about the protests on BBCi saying how shows like this are affecting the behaviour and ethics of modern man. But yeah, I’ll be watching it. I’ll probably hate it as it will most probably be shit. But anything to piss those religious arseholes off.”