Some of you may recall recently seeing advertisement for NBC’s series The Book of Daniel. Controversial as it was, it was also cancelled “effective immediately” after just three weeks of broadcast. The reason why? An effort spearheaded by the American Family Association conjured up a lot of advertising campaigns to rip the show to shreds. In addition to the AFA, Dobson and his legion at Focus on the Family also berated the show because of its portrayal of a pill-popping Episcopal clergyman and his extremely dysfunctional family. They claimed it to be ungodly and not Christian-like. Well, before the show was officially cancelled, local stations started pulling it from their lineup before its doomsday. Additionally, the organisations campaigning to remove the show quickly pulled all of their ads, leaving a huge void in local station’s ad slots.
The creator of the series retaliated by calling the AFA’s practise un-Christ-like and evil. They claimed it was “the power of the pocketbook.” i have a few responses to these events:
(1) The show was not made to be Christian…just like Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and The End of the Spear. Christians cannot expect non-Christian productions to live up to Christian “standards.”
(2) Using economics to gain leverage over something–anything–is deceitful. i’m not going to call it “sinful” or “un-Christ-like” (there’s enough of those words already being spewed that more doesn’t need to be added), but i will call it wrong.
(3) People have a choice as to which shows to watch. If one doesn’t like a particular show (e.g. i don’t care for Desparate Housewives and i hate The Sopranos), one doesn’t need to watch it. Conversely, if one does like a particular show (e.g. i do like the original CSI: and Numb3rs), one can watch it. Wanting to restrict another’s choice of what to watch is a violation of that person’s freedom (provided that the person is at his own home with his own television).