Don Wildmon

AFA/AFR founder

Editor’s Note: In light of recent events, and the increasing hostility toward Christians expressed by the media and other influential entities in our society, we reprint the following article. It is a presentation given by AFA President Donald E. Wildmon to the National Broadcast Association for Community Affairs meeting in Vail, Colorado, eighteen years ago on September 24, 1981.

November-December 1999 – Years ago we decided that certain forms of discrimination are unacceptable in this country. It was a decision which did not come easy. Discrimination which has become rooted in society is difficult to eradicate.

Our country decided that discrimination based on race, religion or national origin was unacceptable. As a nation we said such discrimination is ugly and unfair and out of place in a democracy.

To our credit, our society has come a long way in helping correct such discrimination. Gradually we are working our way toward a society where racial discrimination is a thing of the past. We are doing the same thing in the area of discrimination because of national origin. And, as a society, we have made strides toward eliminating discrimination because of religion.

But one very important institution in our society still practices religious discrimination. That institution is network television. It takes no genius to notice the treatment religion, religious people, and religious values receive on network television. It is one generally of exclusion. When religious people are depicted, it is too often negative. In the past we have expressed concern about the sex, violence and profanity on television. While our concerns have been valid, they have been too narrowly defined. During the past few weeks I have been looking deeper into the problem of television. It is not a problem of sex, violence, profanity, etc. These are only symptoms, not the disease.

The disease is, basically, one of perspective and values. The disease is in the value system that dominates and controls network television. That value system is basically one of secular supremacy. It places the secular person over the religious person, and secular values over the religious values.

This secular supremacy value system has practiced discrimination against religious people, culture, values and traditions in their programs. The networks have discriminated against religious people by excluding them from their programs. When religious people are depicted on television, they are too often presented in a negative light.

To my knowledge, there is not a single current continuing series on network television which shows anyone who has a continuing, meaningful relationship to a religious body which is set in a modern-day setting. Nor has there been such a series in some time.

Religion on network television is depicted as being something meaningful in the past which is not relevant in today’s society. In the 19th century, network television says, religion played an important role as witnessed in Little House on the Prairie. Early in this century religion, according to network television, played a partially relevant role as witnessed in The Waltons. However, the closer you get to a modern day setting, the less relevant religion becomes to everyday life. This is witnessed in M.A.S.H. where religion is depicted as funny and naive and harmless.

Methodically network television has excluded Judeo-Christian religious characters and culture from their programs. All too often, when persons are identified as Christian in programs which air on the networks, they are characters only to scorn, prompt revulsion, and to ridicule.

More than 50,000,000 Americans go to church regularly – but rarely on television! People make decisions based on Christian principles, but rarely on television. People pray, but rarely on television. Every community in America has local churches and synagogues which contribute to the good of their local communities and this country. But they don’t exist on television. About the only time one hears the name of God on network television is when His name is used in a profane manner.

The Christian faith has healed the alcoholic, rehabilitated the criminal, rejoined the broken home, helped the teenage drug addict find purpose and meaning in life and undergirded the ethics of business people. But you would never know this by watching network, commercial television.

Recently I was in the office of a very fine Christian gentleman in El Paso. His wall was covered with pictures which I assumed were members of his family. When I asked, he explained that they were his children and grandchildren. I noticed one of a small boy who was very dark skinned. He stood out amid all the white faces. “My son and his wife adopted him,” the gentleman explained. “They got him from the adoption agency. They were told by the agency that because he was part black and part Mexican no one wanted him. So they adopted him.”

Christians, because of their religious values, adopt children no one else wants. But rarely does network television show that side of Christianity.

Christians have built hospitals, schools, and other institutions of help and compassion. Christians have fought and died for this country and for the freedom of all –including non-Christians. Christians have served at all levels of our government. Our laws are rooted in the Christian concept of justice. But one would never know all this by watching television.

The closest network television comes to accurately reflecting Christians in a modern day setting is found in the Xerox commercials! To air Jesus of Nazareth or Peter and Paul is one thing. To properly depict Christian people, their values and culture in a modern day setting is another.

I cannot remember seeing a program on network television set in a modern setting which depicted a Christian as a warm, compassionate, intelligent or gifted human being. Most of the programs dealing with Christians, Christian values and Christian culture set in a modern setting deal with the occult – Carrie, The Exorcist, Damien, etc.

One is left to assume that current television programs result from the value system of the producers and network officials responsible for what is on the air. This value system can best be described as secular supremacist in nature. The secular supremacist believes that the secular man is inherently superior to the religious man. It is a view which seeks to exclude the religious man, or treat him as inferior. It believes that secular values, such as materialism, are superior to religious values, such as humility.

The reason for this patent discrimination against Christians in network programming is stated by Ben Stein in his book View From Sunset Boulevard: “By definition, the people who write TV shows and produce them are not at all devout.”

Another look at the situation by Stein reflected on the attitude of Lee Rich, one of the leading producers in Hollywood. “The church has been narrow-minded. It hasn’t grown with the times. It’s been lumbering along and hasn’t taken cognizance of what’s going on in the world. It hasn’t made the changes it’s got to make. The church brought us up to believe that things were the way they made them out to be. As we’ve become wiser and more educated, we’ve started to challenge these implanted beliefs.”

Mr. Rich obviously has all the answers about what is wrong with the church. And he knows quite well the answer to what is wrong despite the fact that he admits he hasn’t been to church in approximately 40 years and has said that he doesn’t know a single person who goes to church!

The attitude toward religious people was further reflected by Gene Mater, VP of policy, CBS-TV, in a debate with me at Los Angeles earlier this year. Here is the dialogue:

MR. MATER: Again, I think I’ll come back to what I said earlier, Mr. Wildmon. The difference – I think what sets you apart – your organization apart, particularly since you have been linked with the Moral Majority, is the fact that you are, as I say, cloaked in this self-assumed aura of religious respectability. I think that’s what I said before.

WILDMON: You mean if I was not a Christian, it would be okay to complain?

MR. MATER: I didn’t say that at all.

WILDMON: Well, in essence, that’s what you said.

MR. MATER: No, I did not say that.

WILDMON: Well, tell me what you did say.

MR. MATER: I’m sure that people in other organizations, just as ACT and other groups, are also Christian. I think it’s the church relationship that’s involved.

WILDMON: If I wasn’t a minister, I’d be okay?

MR. MATER: I didn’t say that either.

Mr. Mater did not explain what he did say. But it was quite clear that the fact that I am a Christian was quite disturbing to him.

The networks are quick to point out incidents of racial discrimination in their news, while practicing equally repugnant religious discrimination in their entertainment programs. One reaches the assumption that there are no Christians, or very few, among that very small group of network officials and producers who determine what we see on television. The value system being depicted on television is basically reflective, not of America as a whole, but of that small group.

All television is educational television. And this small number of people has used television to effectively educate the viewing public to the image and perception they want the public to have toward religious people and religious values. We need to remember that nothing we see on television is there by accident. Everything is there for a purpose.

Network television has taken the religious values of marital fidelity, hard and honest work, the rejection of violence, clean speech, love of God, stewardship, etc., and ridiculed and belittled or ignored them in their programs. Network television has been quick to present programs such as the one by CBS on Jim Jones. But it has neglected to present programs on people such as Mother Theresa.

No one denies that any Christian and all Christians have their faults and failures. But to continually present Christians, their values and culture in a negative light is a gross injustice.

Network people continually are telling us they are only reflecting life as it is. Such an excuse for religious discrimination is no longer acceptable. What they are reflecting is either life as they perceive it or life as they desire it to be. While crying censorship when the viewing public expresses concern, the networks have carefully censored Christianity out of their programs.

This discrimination against Christians, Christian values and Christian culture in network programming is no longer acceptable. It is repugnant to all fairminded people. It is an insult to people of all religions because, in essence, they are being discriminated against. No longer will those of us who cherish our religious heritage and values accept being treated as non-people or continually in a negative light by the networks.

This ugly, intentional and patent discrimination against Christians must end. Christian people are patient people. It is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. This patience, born of agape love, is not understood by the secular supremacist attitude of the networks. It is interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Our patience is exhausted. We can no longer accept this situation. Christians provide more than three billion dollars a year to network television. What do we get in return? Precious little other than exclusion, scorn and ridicule.

Fred Friendly, professor of broadcast journalism at Columbia University and former president of CBS News, once said: “Broadcasting is going to determine what kind of people we are.” I feel that Mr. Friendly’s statement carries a lot of validity. That being true, the kinds of role models currently being offered us by television are not acceptable. As religious people we are not going to subsidize the discrimination toward religious people which is apparent in too many of the network programs.

Let me say to the networks that they can either stop this discrimination on their own because it is wrong and unacceptable to all fair-minded Americans, or they will eventually stop it because it is economically unattractive. Using Christian money to belittle and demean the Christian faith is not good business.

The networks are free, of course, to continue this ugly discrimination against religious people and values. At the same time, we are free to call to the attention of Christians and other religious groups this discrimination. We are equally free to ask Christians and all fair-minded people to withhold their financial support from advertisers, networks and production companies which continue to practice religious discrimination.

Perhaps what we have in this situation is a very, very small minority of people strategically placed, who are basically anti-religious, certainly non-religious, using their positions to undermine the traditional Judeo-Christian value system and change it to one more reflective of their secular supremacist viewpoint. These people are of the opinion, if their programs are to be accepted as the standard of interpretation, that Christianity is an inferior way of life and Christians are inferior by nature. this is, basically, anti-Christian bigotry and anti-Christian bigotry has no place on television.

It is time for a change and we expect it to be made quickly.