The biggest “buzz” at the various sites I’ve been reading has been a furious condemnation of NBC and CBS for refusing to run an advertisement from the United Church of Christ (UCC) that promotes its inclusiveness. The two networks have been widely lambasted for thus either being evil and exclusive — or else of running scared before the evil and exclusive Bush administration.
A quick Google of headlines shows this: “Message of love nixed while sleaze is embraced,” “Networks running scared,” “Church ad upsets national TV officials,” “Disappointing censorship involving church ad, “Ban of church’s TV ads has rights groups worried,” “Networks Bar Ad Promoting Tolerance,” “Craven networks reject church’s message of love …”
The accusations do not (necessarily) fit.
First, let’s look at the ad. It’s remarkably powerful and effective. At the steps of a stereotypical church, a velvet cord and two (pseudo-skinhead) bouncers stand. The bouncers let through some people (well-off, white, family types) but tell others (poor, of color, gay) that they are not welcome. Text comes up, saying that Jesus didn’t turn away people, and neither does the UCC. Cut to a big happy church family, of splendid diversity and smiling love.
(N.B. Jesus did not turn anyone away, and, in fact, did reach out to those who were excluded by society, including sinners. But he also never said that they weren’t sinners, nor did he not expect them to acknowledge their sin, to be forgiven, and to “go and sin no more.” Jesus did not say there was no sin, rather that there was no irrevocable condemnation for sin, but that the repentent heart would be welcomed back. I note that only because while I may disagree, vehemently, with what some churches consider to be sinful, and would argue on the basis of Jesus’ action that they should never bar their doors to those sinners, I would never argue that they should not identify and preach against sin as they see it, even if it makes some of their parishioners feel “unwelcome.”)
(Jesus — and Paul after him — also taught that we were all sinners and in need of forgiveness. Another message that cuts both ways.)
Anyhow, it’s a very powerful ad. Why was it not run?
NBC and CBS basically say that their policies are against running “controversial” social ads, or ads that proselytize to a given faith or denomination. (Other networks with different guidelines have, in fact, run the ads, including ABC Family, AMC, BET, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, Travel, TBS and TNT. ABC proper rejects all religious ads, and is not directly part of the controversy.). The two questions are, then,
- Do these ads violate those policies?
- Are these policies a good thing?
In the case of the first question, the answer is almost certainly yes. I assert that in two ways.
First off, despite the headlines, this is not just an ad “promoting tolerance.” The UCC ad, unlike a number of other ads run by specific churches (a rare commodity in media markets I’ve lived in), is very much (and ironically) an Us against Them sort of ad. In other words, there are Mean, Exclusionary, Scary, Whitebread, Un-Christlike Churches out there that bar the doors to other people, and there’s Us. It’s not just saying, “Hey, we’re the UCC, and we welcome all,” but adds (in fact, premises it with), “and They don’t.” As put by the NBC spokesman:
“If the church wants to say they are inclusive and open, that’s a very positive statement that we are very happy to have on the air,” said Alan Wurtzel, NBC’s head of broadcast standards. “These folks are giving the impression that NBC is anti-church, anti-religion, anti-gay. It has nothing to do with that.”
The problem with the bouncer ad, Wurtzel said, is that it “throws down the gauntlet at a variety of unnamed other churches” that allegedly do not accept gays or minorities. “It violates a long-standing NBC policy, which is that we do not accept commercial advertising that deals with issues of public controversy,” he said.
NBC is running another UCC ad that simply touts inclusion. And both networks note that they originally rejected the ad back in February, though the UCC was still negotiating with them to run it, so it’s not all post-election Fear of the Bushies driving them.
Is the accusation in the UCC ad true? Arguably so, in fact certainly so. But the ad is an accusation, and clearly therefore a a pro-and-con us-vs-them proselytizing for their particular denomination. It’s not just saying, “Hey, feed the poor this Christmas,” or, “Jesus wants us to love everyone,” or even, “We’re a good place to take a spiritual journey,” but, “Those guys over there aren’t following Christ’s teachings, even though they say they are.”
Remember that. I’ll get back to it.
The second way this runs afoul of the network policies is that it is controversial. Much has been made of the internally leaked memo from NBC that suggested one reason for not running the ad was the Bush Administration’s pushing forward of the (ick) Federal Marriage Act. But the memo doesn’t say (as it is being widely interpreted), “We’d better not run this because the FCC is liable to yank our licenses, and John Ashcroft will delay his resignation just to come down and ship us all off to Gitmo.” The FMA, and the controversy about it (in which quite a few people, sadly, do see it as a good thing, while others do not) is demonstrative that issues of inclusion and acceptance are controversial in some quarters, for different sorts of groups (included and includers). The FMA is used as evidence that this is not simply a widely-accepted and straightforward reminder to charity and loving families and Mom & Apple Pie issues like this, but an advert that makes an assertion — gays ought to be welcomed and embraced at all churches — that is not held by the majority or consensus of the populace.
If NBC and CBS have a policy of this sort, then this ad is clearly in violation of it, whether you believe in its message or not.
As has been noted, ads in the recently ended election were at least as provocative and inflammatory and controversial as this ad. But political campaign ads work under a different set of rules, and it’s much more difficult to limit what they’re going to say, unless you’re going to reject all such ads. (And it’s worth noting that some networks did, in fact, exclude some ads, to loud howls of censorship from the affected parties.) Non-election social issues ads, explicitly religious ads, are, I think, another matter, and I believe I can see how the networks could draw the line there.
The second question I raised was whether such a policy is, in fact, a good thing. I’m a believer in the open marketplace of ideas (while also believing that there’s not an obligation for the private owner of every such marketplace to stock everyone’s ideas). I’d like the questions of inclusion and exclusion and sinfulness and how churches behave toward various groups (and vice-versa) to be part of the ongoing national conversation — and, in fact, they are.
What I really don’t want to see on my TV every night are “duelling churches” ads. Because remember, if it’s okay to run one advert that says, “Those folk over there don’t follow Christ’s teachings, but we do,” it has to be okay to do the same with others. So when, then, will we see the ad that shows a church full of licentious debauchers, smoking pot and fondling each other regardless of gender, and littering on the floor, with the tag line, “Jesus got angry over people despoiling his Father’s house. We’re angry about it, too. We think church should be a place where those who follow Christ’s laws come together to praise God. We’re [FILL IN NAME OF DENOMINATION HERE].”
Or, perhaps, the same church exterior, the same thuggish bouncers on display, but now it’s someone walking forward saying, “In Leviticus, the law says …” and the person is cut off and told they’re not welcome, and then, “The Apostle Paul argued that …” and that person is informed they can’t come in, and, finally, “Our Lord Christ taught …” and that person, too, is turned away, with the tag line, “The Bible says that everything in it is the Word of God. Some churches don’t believe that. We do. We’re [FILL IN NAME OF DENOMINATION HERE].”
Ick. It makes my skin crawl to contemplate it. It’s grotesque sound-bite distortion of profound theological debates. But while it differs philosophically from the UCC ad, it is functionally just the same. “We’re virtuous, they’re poopy-heads, come join us.”
Is that what we want to see happen? Is that the sort of national dialog, fomented in 30-second TV ads, we want to have? Granted, there are a lot of other things I don’t want to see on my TV every night that show up there anyway. That doesn’t mean I’d like to see that roster expanded.
I don’t want to see that sort of hate speech given a formal forum, or any network cajoled into running it. And, yes, it is hate speech. I could even see the argument, by extension, that the UCC ad is hate speech. You begin to get into thorny rhetorical bits about to what degree one must tolerate intolerance, but all sides in this debate get spattered.
And, to add to the debate:
“The ad isn’t indecent and doesn’t violate F.C.C. standards,” said the leader, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. “I’m stunned they’re not running it. They might not want the grief.”
Those who think this ad is the cat’s whiskers are many of them, I suspect, not friends of the AFA. One might then say, “Hey, this is so obviously a wrong-headed move by these networks that even a conservative like Tim Wildmon thinks the ad should run.” Or one might then consider what sort of ads the AFA has waiting in the wings …
To the end of not finding out, I tend to support the CBS/NBC policies here. While it may mean that powerful (and, in a sense, powerful because it is controversial) ads such as the UCC’s don’t get run, it also means that equally powerful and controversial (and less palatable, at least to me) ads don’t get run, either. If other networks do run it (and they have), that’s their decision.
And I say all of the above as someone who wants to be part of a church that is welcoming to all, and someone who disagrees strongly with the beliefs of many (even, probably, most) Christians who consider homosexuality as a sin and gays thus as sinners. The more I consider it, though, the less I think a thirty-second ad is the best way to put forward that debate, especially when it opens the door for a lot of other similar sound-biting of equally thorny issues.