Are Christians Being Silenced? How about the United Church of Christ? 
The question sounds like the perennial complaint from members of the Christian Right. But in fact, as specious as the Christian Right's complaints along these lines usually are, this one is different. Not only does the complaint originate elsewhere -- but the Christian Right is the beneficiary of the apparent silencing of fellow Christians.
When the Sunday morning public affairs talk shows think about getting a Christian view on public affairs who do they call? According to Rev. Robert Chase, Director of Communications for the 1.3 million member United Church of Christ, over the past 8 years the Sunday network public affairs shows have interviewed political leaders of the religious right 36 times, and leaders of mainline Christian denominations such as the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), American Baptist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Reformed Church in America, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, among others -- exactly zero times.
The UCC's complaint that the networks are silencing mainstream religious voices does not stop there. They are also having trouble with the advertising departments of the networks. The church is currently engaged in a multiyear outreach campaign that includes television advertising. But unless you have cable you won't get to see their new ad -- because the networks won't run them. The ads are part of a $1.5 ad buy that begins on April 3 on a dozen cable networks including CNN, A&E and the Discovery Channel, and in Spanish on the Teledmundo and Univision networks. But ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, reports Religion News Service, deemed them "too controversial."
"The 30-second "Ejector" ad features several people -- a black woman, a gay couple, a Middle Eastern man, an elderly man in a walker -- who are ejected from their church pews. "God doesn't reject people," the ad says. "Neither do we." The new ad, which cost about $1.5 million to make, will debut on April 3, but not on ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox. The three networks rejected the commercial as an inappropriate "advocacy" ad because of its references to homosexuality, race and ethnicity. Last year, the networks rejected a similar ad featuring bouncers behind a velvet rope keeping various people out of a church. "The message of the commercial is simple," the Rev. John Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, said Monday (March 27). "No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here at the United Church of Christ." Thomas said he found it "odd and bewildering" that the ads would be rejected.
Chase says that the exclusion of mainstream religious perspectives in the news media is a "trend we have been witnessing for decades."
When the UCC first sought to buy TV ad time at CBS in 2004 in the run up to Christmas, the network claimed that they could not run the ad because it conflicted with the White House view on same sex marriage. As Pastordan recounts at Street Prophets, the official CBS statement on the rejection read in part:
"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact that the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast..."
I suppose this kind of calculus may go on all the time behind the scenes -- but I had never before heard of a broadcast television network publicly stating that they make their advertising decisions in deference to what the current occupants of the White House might think.
Meanwhile ABC, citing a policy of not accepting religious ads in response to the UCC's first ad buy, then turned around and accepted ads from James Dobson's Focus on the Family. At same time, ABC was incorporating also Focus on the Family's child-rearing dogma into a major network program. "The show was all about Focus on the Family principles," according to Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family regarding the prime time ABC feature "Supernanny."
Max Blumenthal told the whole sorry saga of Supernananny at his blog. Meanwhile the United Church News reported that
"In an Associated Press story (May 2), Focus on the Family's president and CEO, Jim Daly, said the spots were an attempt by his organization to offer 'faith-based' advice on parenting, despite the fact that ABC executives have twice denied recent similar requests by the UCC to purchase network time as part of its national advertising campaign."
"Focus on the Family is clearly a religious organization," Chase told United Church News at the time. 'Here's yet another illustration of how a particular narrow agenda makes up the rules as they go along, while another religious viewpoint cannot even purchase time on the people's airwaves to proclaim an all-inclusive message."
ABC spokeswoman Susan Sewall told Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service:
"The network doesn't take advertising from religious groups. It's a long-standing policy."Apparently Ms. Sewall and the rigorous enforcers of ABC's ad policy didn't read -- or simply ignored -- the Focus on the Family "Mission Statement" -- conveniently located at the top of their web site:
"To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family."
But just in case anyone thinks they didn't really mean it, the next item is Focus on the Family's "Guiding Principles." The first sentence states:
"Since Focus on the Family's primary reason for existence is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes, we have firm beliefs about both the Christian faith and the importance of the family."
Here is the first sentence of what the UCC web site has "About the United Church of Christ":
"Welcome to the United Church of Christ -- a community of faith that seeks to respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed."
If we compare the statements of the two groups, would we say that either of them is not a religious organization? By the standards of the ABC advertising department, if Focus on the Family is not a religious organization, then the United Church of Christ is not a religious organization either.
But on on Sunday, on the same network's public affairs show, This Week with George Stephanopolis, if you want a religious point of view on news and public affairs you are far more likely to hear from James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who has appeared three times (and who by the way, is a psychologist), than Rev. John Thomas, President of the United Church of Christ who has never appeared.
Go figure.
KEYWORDS: United Church of Christ, Rev. John Thomas, Rev. Robert Chase
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