Ian McKellen - bigger than Jesus?

Famously, the Beatles lost a lot of customers when John Lennon said that they (the group) were "bigger than Jesus" (meaning they had more fans than Jesus did at that particular moment). British litotes and irony failed to register with Americans, and so there were the famous LP burnings (and damn, aren't the people who kept their original LPs in good order happier now).

Ian McKellen nearly got himself into similar hot water just recently in this interview. From beginning a sentence with "The Bible ought to have a disclaimer that it is fiction" he got to "it takes an act of faith" - great save! Every so often the rest of the English-speaking world has to realise there are gaps in the rhetorical education of Americans...

[From the commenter cm on Pharyngula]