It’s heartwarming to see that Hillsong TV has been getting cracking on virus-related product development during the Covid-19 emergency. The channel is offering a ‘Not today’ face mask if you’re prepared to cough up $15. The dynastic head of Hillsong, Brian Houston, popped up a few days ago on Instagram to promote the strange black mask with an even stranger remark: ‘Devil no, not today’.
‘Not today’ is a quote from Game of Thrones, where a fencing master asks his young pupil, Arya Stark: ‘What do we say to the god of Death?’ The answer, he tells her, is ‘Not today’.
Houston’s post invoking the medieval idea that the Devil comes for us when we’re dying is maybe not the most intelligent thing for a religious leader to say at a time when a lot of people are doing just that.
The best response we’ve seen has come from Martin Saunders of Youthscape, who said, ‘Sometimes I imagine I’m Basil Fawlty, and Hillsong is Manuel, and I smack it around the back of the head.’