Closing the "Book of Daniel"

We haven't seen the controversial television program Book of Daniel, and it looks like we probably won't get the chance. NBC stopped short of saying the show had been cancelled, but said it has been "removed from the schedule."

You'd think Christians would be happy to have a show about churches and ministers and Jesus and how they all deal with life's ups and downs on network TV each week. It's sort of, uh, a free commercial for Christianity. We don't understand why the American Family Association and Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family and other Christian conservatives have made such a ruckus over it. But a ruckus they made. At their websites they're high-fiving each other over their success.

Unless... wait... maybe NBC was concerned about copyright issues with the Vatican! Yeah, that's it.

Regarding the show's "cancellation," American Family Association founder Donald Wildmon said, "This shows the average American that he doesn't have to simply sit back and take the trash being offered on TV, but he can get involved and fight back with his pocketbook." Hey... whatever happened to just turning off the bloody TV if you don't like what's on?!

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Addendum, three minutes later: We just looked up the American Family Association's URL to provide the link above, and discovered that on our own, without any influence from them whatsoever, we used almost the same headline as they did in their boasting about how they'd rallied to have the show pulled. Rut-roh! Hope they don't come after us for copyright infringement!

On a lark, we typed in "freemasonry" on Dr. James Dobson's website to see what he thought of us. After a disclaimer saying that Dr. Dobson isn't a real pastor and has no formal training in the ministry and that he refuses to answer theological questions, we saw the link to a review of National Treasure, the Nicolas Cage adventure film in which Freemasonry plays a pivotal role. The Dobson group doesn't come right and say it — there were no other Masonic references on his sites — but reading between the lines would get you to thinking, well, just maybe, we're a bunch of bloody-oathed occult ritualists walking on shaky spiritual ground. Hey... didn't the Pope say that about us, too?

Their movie-review section dissects films for postive elements, spiritual content, sexual content, violent content, crude or profane language, drug and alcohol content (Warning! Party guests sip champagne in National Treasure), other negative elemeents, and then presents their "conclusion" on whether you should let your family see the film.

Here follows their review:

Foundational to the back-story of this treasure-hunting adventure is The Knights Templar (further popularized in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code), a group that inspired the influential fraternity known as Freemasonry. Much is made of the fact that America’s Founding Fathers were Freemasons, and the story supposes that they hid a vast fortune in a subterranean vault so that it wouldn’t corrupt their new nation or its leaders. Freemasonry is portrayed as a noble sect full of mystery and intrigue. Most modern members claim that the organization is not a “faith” in itself, but merely a club committed to good works and a moral code that make it a natural complement to Christianity. Others disagree on that last note, pointing to blood oaths, secret rituals, curses, and writings by early leaders that contain occult philosophy and unsound doctrine.

James Dobson | Donald Wildmon | Intolerance