CBS and NBC Refuse UCC Ads
“It’s ironic that after a political season awash in commercials based on fear and deception by both parties seen on all the major networks, an ad with a message of welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial. What’s going on here?”
– Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC’s general minister and president
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The CBS and NBC networks have refused to run a paid advertisement from the United Church of Christ.
Americans should be concerned. CBS and NBC are categorizing the UCC ad as nothing more than controversial €œadvocacy advertising€.
‘’All ads are advocacy; what else is an advertisement if not an opportunity to advocate for your toothpaste or your cause?” said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, president of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ, the largest Protestant denomination in the state. ‘’The ads are about hospitality and a wide welcome. And how that is controversial — I find that extraordinary. We are stunned.” [quote from Boston Globe story by Michael Paulson].
The ad has been accepted at ABC Family, AMC, BET, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, History, Nick@Nite, TBS, TNT, Travel and TV Land. Potential media buys are still pending with CNN, Lifetime, Comedy Central and MSNBC. UCC church executives said they accepted the ABC network’s position that it did not accept any religious advertising.
According to the UCC website,
“The consolidation of TV network ownership into the hands of a few executives today puts freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression in jeopardy,” says former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani, currently managing director of the UCC’s Office of Communication. “By refusing to air the United Church of Christ’s paid commercial, CBS and NBC are stifling religious expression. They are denying the communities they serve a suitable access to differing ideas and expressions.”Adds Andrew Schwartzman, president and CEO of the not-for-profit Media Access Project in Washington, D.C., “This is an abuse of the broadcasters’ duty to inform their viewers on issues of importance to the community. After all, these stations don’t mind carrying shocking, attention-getting programming, because they do that every night.
According to the NY Times, the commercial offers the message, “Jesus didn’t turn away people and neither do we.” It concludes with a panorama of people, including two young women, one of whom has her arm around the other. It never mentions the word “gay.”
Janet Jackson€™s tit was more likely to see the light of day on CBS than a commercial from this Christian church ever would be.
On ABC, you€™re far more likely to see a scantily clad Desperate Housewife breathlessly humping her neighbor than to see a commercial from this bedrock church.
NBC can show you a Cialis commercial with that incredibly annoying and lame €œblues€ (white man€™s sex) music 60 times a day, but they shirk from showing a welcoming and inclusive ad from a mainstream American church.
It was perfectly fine to air and discuss the radical cleric Jerry Falwell€™s accusation of gays being €œenemies of America€ just last Sunday on Meet the Press:
MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask Reverend Falwell about something and broaden the conversation. We talked about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Something that you said two days after September 11, when you were with Reverend Pat Robertson: “I fear… that [September 11th] is only the beginning. …If, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve … I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle … all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say `you helped this happen.’”DR. FALWELL: And I went on to say in a sleeping church, a lethargic church likewise is responsible.
What has changed, you ask? Why are CBS and NBC turning their backs on a church whose foundations are as old as America itself?
The White House political agenda. It’s the only reason I can imagine NBC and CBS are cowering. They’re under the Bush administration’s careful eye and powerful thumb. They are willing to shut out the UCC’s ad on behalf of assuring their own comfortable market survival by towing the corporate/government line. One hand feeds the other. They know they won’t be able to survive on five loaves of bread and two measly fish. Blessed are the meek, but when it comes to letting them advertise on CBS or NBC, they can take a long walk off a short pier.
The hypocrites at the head of these morally warped networks aim to show American people eating worms and bugs for cheap ratings, and then ban a liberal American church with a message of kindness and unconditional acceptance from advertising on their network. (I direct that toward ABC as well, for why should we allow a major network to shut out mainstream religious advertising, taking into consideration all the crappy and mind-numbing advertising to which we’re now subjected?)
UCC’s Talking Points are here
You can take action here Contact the national offices of NBC and CBS and express your disappointment at their decision not to run the ad
“This is an opportunity for the United Church of Christ to renew its distinctive voice as a people of welcome, justice and passion for the Gospel. This initiative will help us fall in love again with the United Church of Christ, be generous in financial support, and turn our hearts toward a world that needs to experience the presence, embrace, and encouragement of Jesus.”
See Chuck Currie’s blog for additional commentary.
December 2nd, 2004 at 8:55 am
When I was a rightwing dictator, I used to have my minions shut down competing lemonade stands by simply being bigger, and telling them to scram, which, of course, they did with dispatch and aplomb. I was able to get the dispatch back but the aplomb is still missing.
This is exactly like CBS and NBC. They are what scientists call “poopy-heads” and deserve to be farted upon.
Your catechism on Congregationalism, and its relatedness to the chuch in question, I found most amusing and/or informative. I’d love to see you write a followup on this post where you discuss the long and venerable history of the church. I had no idea they were so old.
Once the teleputer is here, I will only watch netshows, blog TV, etc. if I can help it. The networks are becoming as bad as the cable channels, with but a few squeaking out valuable content…and mostly in the form of classic movies.
Prepare for your televisual future. You may be the next to have Blog TV streaming from Iddybud…
HURRY!!
:)
Dave L’anonyMoses
December 2nd, 2004 at 10:42 am
I will take your suggestion into consideration, Dave.
Congregationalism began in England (16th-17th centruy?) in a revolt against the Established Church. Even though the UCC was established as recently as 1957 (the year of my own birth), it stemmed from Congregationalism, which was the very religion that was carried to America in 1620 by the Pilgrims. It’s original document of principles was adopted in 1648 by a church synod at Cambridge, Mass. The underlying principle was that each local congregation has, as its head, Jesus alone. The relations of the various congregations were those of fellow members in one common family of God.
Congregationalists took a leading role in the “Great Awakening” (a series of religious revivals that swept like wildfire over the American colonies) which began in 1734 by the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. *John Edwards-heh
. Edwards would be an interesting person to write about. He was influential to the “New Light” puritanism (as opposed to the “Old Lights”) and was supported in his position by a large group of New England clergy who supported the Great Awakening and opposed the more staid, rational, liberal movement in eastern Massachusetts. A group of moderates stood between both extremes. (Don’t they always?) 
The Boston advocates of free will against Calvinism opposed the revivals, and the path they took would lead in the next century to the Unitarian separation from Congregationalism. Edwards’ influence was seen in the development of the separation of church and state.
In education, Congregationalists were always prominent, but the institutions of their founding €” Harvard (your own alma mater), Yale, Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, and many others €” have been free from sectarianism for the most part.
During the Reverend Samuel Hopkins’ Rhode Island pastorate (1770-1803), one of the most historic votes in the history of American Congregationalism took place - not to tolerate slavery. This was the first individual congregation in the nation to vote that one could not own a slave and be a church member.
The National Council of the Congregational Churches of the US and the General Convention of the Christian Church formed the General Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches of the United States in 1931. A move to unite the Congregational Christian Churches with the Evangelical and Reformed Church was approved by the councils of the two denominations in 1957, forming the United Church of Christ.
December 2nd, 2004 at 10:22 pm
I’M AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE