11/24/2004: "UCC advertises self, trashes others"

The United Church of Christ is beginning a new multi-million dollar ad campaign on December 1. A part of their God Is Still Speaking initiative, the campaign might otherwise be entitled, "More Inclusive Than Thou."

It opens with a shot of a generic, unnamed church. As the camera moves in we see people arriving for a Sunday service. But outside the church are a couple of "bouncers"�young men in black t-shirts with shaved heads and earphone-microphone thingies, standing by a rope through which certain people (Aryans, you know) are admitted. Several folks�a young man who actually looks like the bouncers except less muscular, some people of color�are turned away, presumably because they aren't "our kind" of people. The scene fades to black, and we see the words "Jesus didn't turn people away," which are then followed by "Neither do we." We then see a crowd of about 40 people who don't look much like the UCC, because they are about half non-white, and the UCC is overwhelmingly white. We see close-ups of various faces and hear a voice-over saying, "The United Church of Christ: No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey�you're welcome here." The ad closes with a UCC banner.

The interesting thing about this ad is that it seeks to say something positive about the UCC by saying something negative about other churches. Clearly, while no label is placed on the evil church in the first part of the ad, it's meant to be one of those horrid, "exclusivistic" conservative fundamentalist congregations. Aside from the general mean-spiritedness of the approach, it also fails the reality test. While it's certainly true that lots of conservative churches, particularly in the South, used to bar racial and ethnic minorities from white congregations, it's also true that in recent years evangelicals have been far more successful in developing multi-racial congregations than the mainline churches. Over nine million Hispanics are members of evangelical churches, while the vast majority of African-Americans are members of theologically conservative (even if politically liberal) denominations. The idea that minorities will be attracted to the UCC by their liberal theology is just plain wrong. On the other hand, if what they are saying is that minoroties should be attracted by their liberal politics, fine. They should be honest and openly declare themselves a religious annex of the Democratic Party, change their name to "United Church of Tammany Hall," advertise their support of unfettered abortion and gay marriage in ethnic neighborhoods, and watch Hispanics and African-Americans flock to them. Uh huh.

One other point needs to be made about this ad, regarding the line "Jesus didn't turn people away." It's true that Jesus didn't use Peter as a black-shirted bouncer picking people out for admittance to the Holy Club and telling others, "no, not you" and "no way." What He did do is place the demands of the gospel before people and watch some turn away of their own choice. Remember, this was the preacher who said "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it," as well as "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:13-14, 21) When the rich young ruler turned away because he was unwilling to sell his possession, Jesus didn't run after him and say, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to discourage you, come on back and we'll see what we can work out." He let the man go because he was unwilling to obey. He didn't use a rope line, but He sure made it tough for some people to accept the invitation to "repent and believe the gospel." Annoyingly exclusivistic of Him, really.