you are not welcome
The new United Church of Christ ad has been refused to be shown on certain TV networks. What is the message? That Jesus accepts all people, and does not turn people away. You can view the ad here. The United Church of Christ press release is here.
Josh Marshall covers it well and asks “is it that discussing homosexuality is unacceptable?” Which is fairly ironic, as the ad does not explicitly mention homosexuality.
As a side note, I am interested to see that Fox is one of the networks listed as running the ad. On the whole though, as I heard today sometimes “fundemental” just means not much fun and lots of mental.
December 2nd, 2004 at 3:21 am
I’ve had the video for this ad sitting on my desktop for a while. Didn’t realise it hadn’t aired yet. Easily the best ad I’ve ever seen from a church in addressing this…and probably opened up the door for me to make direct contact with Christians again..after leaving the church.
At last someone in the church is giving a direct unconditional message..instead of the ‘love the sinner..hate the sin’ bullshit.
Also congratulations to Archbishops Robin Eames and Rowan Williams…for their recent unambigious denunciations of homophobia in the Anglican church.
Now ….it’s just Churches of Christ….Baptist….Pentecostal…Australian Christian Churches ..which still are yet to be reached with the gospel of grace to the ’sinner’…..instead of grace just for the ‘righteous’.
December 2nd, 2004 at 3:26 am
And at the other end of the spectrum is the church in Perth.
This is the ‘list of shame’…or churches here that supported a rally against gay people at our state Parliament…which turned into an ugly lynch-’em style rally.
http://www.churchinperth.com/site/adetails.asp?ArticleID=102
Unfortunately the video of the rally is no longer available on the site….It was disturbing.
Watch out for Margaret Court…she is the new Fred Nile of Australia.
December 2nd, 2004 at 9:09 am
Actually, there’s a couple of shots of people in there that could be taken as referring to homosexuality - the two men who are first turned away are holding hands, and there’s a shot of two women near the end, where one has her arm around the other.
I think it is mentioning homosexuality directly, and I’m glad. I’ve had it with the intolerance and hate preached and practiced towards gay people, and for a church to explicitly come out (no pun intended) and say that it welcomes gay people is a step in the right direction. I am looking forward to when my church will do that.
December 2nd, 2004 at 11:41 pm
I watched the add, it is a great message to be putting out. But what’s going on in the states? CNN and NBC wouldn’t air it because it’s message of love and tolerance is too controversial??????
December 7th, 2004 at 12:13 pm
I mentioned this as well (see link at end of comment). The ad is relatively benign, all things considered. From the best I can figure, the “love and tolerance” message isn’t so controversial, but the suggestion that other churches are less than welcoming is controversial.
And now that I think about it, it is a bit tacky. I mean turn the shoe on the other foot. How would the UCC feel if a fundamentalist church ran an ad with a preacher practicing the kama sutra with one of the parishioners and a tag line “We believe the bible, unlike some churches.”
So, whatever. I think CBS and NBC would have given the UCC less publicity by just airing the commercials and keeping their money. As it is, the church gets lots of free publicity and the network of “Will and Grace” look like homophobes.
Geez, I’m so cynical.
( http://www.arguewithsigns.net/archives/2004/12/01/god_is_still_speaking_news_and_events/ )
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February 9th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Dear spam bots…..though you would not be welcome at Northern Community….or any other Australian Church…at a UCC church you would receive an extravagent welcome.
However, your blog on restore data encryption would no doubt be as boring-as-batshit self-promotion..like http://theresurgence.com/
Lance.
February 9th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Seeing this post from 2004 reminds me of how far the church hasn’t come on this issue…and how pointless it is discussing it with Christians.
Lance.