Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

June 1998 – Michael Eisner, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Co., has once again blasted the Southern BaptistConvention (SBC), this time comparing their efforts to evangelize Jews with the Nazi effort to exterminate them in the Holocaust.

“Such an outrageous statement demonstrates that the boycott is wearing on Eisner’s nerves,” said Donald E. Wildmon, president of AFA. “Otherwise he would be ignoring it, not making inflammatory comments.”

According to the Washington Times, in two separate speeches Eisner has remarked that the SBC voted to step up efforts to reach Jews with the Gospel at the same meeting that the denomination voted to boycott Disney.

Voting on the conversion plan “was something that hasn’t been recommended since the ’40s in Europe,” Eisner told Katie Couric on NBC’s Today Show.

Rev. Richard Land, head of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said, “Mr. Eisner’s thinly veiled reference to Southern Baptists’ commitment to evangelize those of the Jewish faith as reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s horrific persecution of Jews is an outrageous, shocking and offensive statement.”

Land also said, “Evangelization is not extermination. Evangelism is truly the supreme act of love and obedience, not one of hate.”

Wildmon asked, “Where is the liberal media in reporting this outrage? When Reggie White stood for the Bible in calling homosexuality a sin, he received a verbal scourging from the left-wing press. But when Michael Eisner equates preaching the Gospel with executing millions of innocent people, the liberal media ignores it."