The controversy surrounding Jerry Springer: The Opera has reawakened the issue of blasphemy, according to an Oxford Brookes academic, who is writing a book on the subject.

Dr David Nash, of the university's history department, has been studying the topic for 15 years and published Blasphemy in Britain in 1999. His latest work, Blasphemy in the West, deals with the topic on a wider scale and includes a section on the furore surrounding the show, due to come to The New Theatre, Oxford, in April.

Condemned by the Christian Voice group for its portrayal of God and Jesus as talk show guests in Hell, the show prompted scores of complaints when it was broadcast by the BBC in January.

Christian Voice also wrote to 250 theatres urging them to boycott it and warned it would seek to prosecute them for blasphemy if they put it on.

Dr Nash said it was proof that blasphemy is still an issue in modern society.

He said: "When I started work on this whole subject area, I thought it was done and forgotten, but blasphemy is alive and well as an offence and Jerry Springer really brought this back into the conciousness of British society.

"What the show does is suggest that the whole treatment of religion dramatically is a very dangerous thing to do as you will offend someone and the existence of blasphemy makes it likely you will also be prosecuted.

"Jerry Springer can, and might well be, the subject of a court case. All that needs to happen -- and I'm sure Christian Voice will do this -- is to send someone to the New Theatre who will witness the show, find it blasphemous and then bring a private prosecution for blasphemous libel."

Blasphemy -- a contemptuous or profane act, utterance or writing about God, Jesus Christ or the Bible -- is an offence protecting only the Church of England.

No prosecution has been brought in England since 1977 when Gay News was prosecuted for publishing a poem describing homosexual acts involving Jesus Christ.