April 24, 2000
Does Disney boycott
include animated gospel special?
___If a company under a boycott by some evangelical Christians produces a network TV special for Easter Sunday that positively portrays the Christian gospel, should the boycotters be allowed to watch it?
___That's the dilemma that faced observers of the five-year-old boycott of the Walt Disney Co., which was launched in 1995 by the American Family Association and embraced in 1997 by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.
___ABC-TV, which is owned by Disney, planned to air an animated special called "The Miracle Maker" on nationwide TV Easter night, April 23.
___The animated show, which presents the life of Jesus through the eyes of a sick 12-year-old girl, has been widely praised as a positive and faith-building program.
___ That wasn't enough to get the creator of the Disney boycott to watch it, however.
___"I'll be watching something else. A boycott's a boycott," said Donald Wildom, president of American Family Association.
___ Nevertheless, "I hope a million pagans watch it, and I hope a million pagans get saved," he added.
___ Two prominent Southern Baptists pastors called for a suspension of the boycott in order to suppor the TV special.
___ Jim Henry, pastor of First Baptist Church of Orlando, Fla., and SBC president from 1994-96, said he had screened "The Miracle Maker" and "found it to be a true depiction of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This two-hour made-for-TV movie could impact millions of people, especially children."
___ Jess Moody, well-known former pastor of Baptist churches in the Los Angeles area, said: "We should be grateful to ABC for having the courage and integrity to run a film aimed at children that clearly presents Jesus as the Savior of the world. ... If a Disney company is extending an olive branch, shouldn't we reach back with gratitude?"
___ One key spokesman for the SBC, however, said the SBC boycott of Disney never was meant to include a wholesale ban on ABC-TV.
___ "The boycott never meant not watching ABC Television," said Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
___ "It has always been my contention and my understanding, articulated numerous times in print and interview, that this boycott means you don't take money out of your pocket and put it in Disney's coffers to help subsidize that which ridicules and attacks our biblical beliefs and convictions," he said.
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