Don Wildmon
AFA/AFR founder
November-December 1995 – Last month, leaders gathered in a news conference to denounce the talk shows on TV. They loudly and clearly condemned the trend of trash TV. They addressed the talk shows with such trashy topics as “Women Who Marry Their Rapist,” “My Daughter Is Living as a Boy,” “Get Bigger Breasts or Else,” “Housewives vs. Strippers,” and “Is There Life After a Career in Porn?”
They denounced such talk shows as “a case study in rot.” They announced a campaign to pressure the shows’ producers, sponsors and viewers to clean up their acts.
“What is happening today is the pollution of the human environment,” one of them said. “There was a time,” one said, “when personal failure or marital failure, subliminal desires, perverse tastes, were accompanied by a sense of guilt or embarrassment. Today, these are a ticket to appear on the Sally Jessy Raphael show to be broadcast for children to watch.” Another said that trashy TV teaches children that perversion is normal and that shouting matches and emotional cruelty are the way adults solve personal problems.
Well, it is about time that Church leaders addressed the moral rotdown of American society. In fact, it is well past time. With the negative impact the moral meltdown is having on our society, one wonders why these Church leaders didn’t address the problem long ago. After all, they have spoken on nearly every other issue from healthcare to South Africa.
What was that you said? These weren’t Church leaders denouncing trash TV at that press conference? Oh, you must be wrong. What other kind of leaders would venture out in the face of stiff criticism to denounce this filth and announce a campaign to end it?
Would you repeat that? Political leaders you say. Oh, no, you can’t be right. But, lo and behold, you are.
Yes, the group was headed by U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Sam Nunn (D-GA), and former Education Secretary William Bennett. They plan to “shame” the producers, sponsors and viewers into cleaning up their act. Their message was timely, their method very workable. But what hurts in all this is that leaders in the religious community – heads of denominations, bishops, superintendents, others in leadership roles – have far too long ignored this moral decline and basically remained silent in the face of it. That is not to say that all of these officials have remained silent or refused to act. But it is to say that the overwhelming majority of them have. And therein lies the problem.
Surely religious bodies have a genuine concern and interest in this moral decline. Surely they should not remain silent in the face of it. And just as surely, their stock will rise when they assume their rightful role in addressing it.
The tragedy is that up to this point the overwhelming response from the religious leaders – and, indeed, entire bodies of religious groups – has been to ignore it.
Will that change before it is too late? Let us hope, and pray, and act, to bring that change into being. And should the Church continue to ignore this situation, then it must be the one to hang its head in shame. 
