The United Church of Christ has produced another clever commercial to illustrate their welcoming stance toward all.
UPDATE: For some reason, YouTube is dropping about 75% of the frames from the clip. The UCC site has it in much better Flash 8, QuickTime, and WMV formats.
(video page on YouTube | original | via Signposts)
Like their 2004 commercial, this one has been banned by CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. It’s too issue-oriented to meet their advertising policies (which apparently don’t apply to political campaign commercials).
The message, of course, is that God doesn’t reject anyone. While I appreciate the need for a message like this to counteract centuries of self-righteousness and judgmentalism, this simply isn’t true. God may not reject people based on the criteria that churches do, but in this attempt to change the UCC’s image, they are introducing (in the abstract) a huge theological error. Even if they got the specific instances right (e.g. being Arab or having a crying baby isn’t going to bump you out of the Kingdom), the underlying message is that Christianity is 100% inclusive, which is impossible.
It’s the old bait-and-switch. Can you really tell people in no uncertain terms “God’s cool with whatever!” and then expect them to live lives of self-denying discipleship? You might get them in the door, but what’s the point if you’ve already made it impossible for them to become faithful followers of Christ?
So does this commercial do more harm than good, or is it useful in correcting the public perception of Christians and churches as too exclusive?
but what’s the point if you’ve already made it impossible for them to become faithful followers of Christ?
Why do we attribute to man that which God did? Or was Paul wrong here:
Rom 11:32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
Selah
Grogee
[...] Justin Baeder at Radical Congruency makes some good points about its underlying over-reaching message: that God is positively OK with everything. Or if God isn’t OK with something, we’re not going to talk about it. It’s the old bait-and-switch. Can you really tell people in no uncertain terms “God’s cool with whatever!” and then expect them to live lives of self-denying discipleship? [...]
Um… does anyone else see what is missing?
REPENTANCE
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. – Luke 24:46-47
More on this at this link
Did I miss the part where the other church ejected the tax cheat and a philanderer and the UCC promised to accept them?
Or did the other church just eject a single mother, a gay couple and an arab guy?
“God doesn’t reject people based on demographics” was not obviously stated, but I took it as the strong implication.
CC
Chalicechick-
I think you’re right - I mistook the message a bit.
Jamie in the comments over at Boy in the Bands makes a good point. I did make an unfair leap because of my particular feelings on this matter. The ad is probably not conveying as big a misconception as I took it to.
Scott, I think you’ve grasped the problem better than I did in my post - advertising is a poor medium for sending accurate messages about our faith. There are deep issues that need to be considered, and simplifying them enough for a 24-second TV spot. Just for starters:
-What is the proper use of a worship service - for welcoming in non-adherents, or for conducting necessarily “insider” activities that won’t make sense or be appropriate for outsiders? Or somwhere in between?
-What are the implications of saying that no one is an outsider?
-Is sitting in pews without fear of r/ejection the best people can hope for when visiting a church?
-Should it even be possible to visit churches (without some sort of a priori commitment) in the first place? Does scripture ever anticipate (or appear to allow for) this type of ecclesiology or outreach model? The Eastern Orthodox have an interesting approach in this regard.
I know the gay couple gets the most attention, but I think this would be an equally questionable ad (though less controversial) without them. If it had said “We take discipleship seriously, and we welcome gay Christians,” that would send an entirely different message. My critique is more about ecclesiology and discipleship in general.
Thanks for your thoughts. Jamie, feel free to chime in here if you’d like.
I most comfortable with a faith (and I life I guess) that doesn’t try to offer easy answers, but instead is all about holding seeming opposite things in balance. And I LOVE this question “What are the implications of saying that no one is an outsider?” I don’t want to try and answer it, but only to say that I’m enjoying rattling it around.
In the demographic studies that were conducted before the national UCC started doing these ads (and whatever else they’re doing, these ads are sure getting people talking about the UCC, and I bet you weren’t doing THAT before….) the marketing firm found that more people were actively hostile about church in general than any other “product” they had run focus groups on. So they had to spend a big part of every focus group just letting people vent before they could even get to their questions about what would be appealing.
If you think that some organized church is the way to get to spiritual community and spiritual community is the way to get connected to God, then overcoming that first hurdle (”I hate church because church hates me”) is actually pretty significant as a first step.
Well said. I can see the value in that.
The UCC is setting a great, holy example for the rest of American Christianity. Discrimination based upon an identity that does no harm to another human is evil.
Christians need to put the logic of their ethics in order.
Evil is *not* determined by arbitrary pronouncements without any logical defense, but by the effects it has one the individual and community. One need only visit my small town in Massachusetts to know that gay-marriage, and homosexuality itself, is a HUGE benefit to the community.
Indeed, it’s self-righteous, illogical text-only-based biggotry that we in America should fear the most. From such are holocausts and pogroms created.
G-d truly loves homosexuality, just as much as heterosexuality. Homosexuality is part of G-d’s plan.
G-d Loves Homosexuality
Look at His Creation for the proof
rob@egoz.org