MEDIA MATTERS
NBC pulls the plug on 'Book of Daniel'
Creator tells fans controversial show yanked from Friday night schedule
Posted: January 23, 2006
11:59 p.m. Eastern
Read the full article at WorldNetDaily
“Book of Daniel” TV-dysfunctional family, Christians, Jesus
The first viewing of the new TV program “The Book of Daniel” on NBC Friday night, January 6, 2006, simply revealed yet another attempt to discredit God, Jesus Christ, and true Christians.
“The Book of Daniel” first introduces us to an obviously dysfunctional family. Then we are presented with a trivialized “Jesus” who is portrayed as an earthly “buddy” type non-judgmental philosophical confidant lacking in moral authority. This “Jesus” continually mouths platitudes and exudes with tolerance for every human activity that violates the love, grace, mercy, wisdom, judgment and justice of God. More of a personal therapist and good humor man, this “Jesus” is a joke. He appears only to the Episcopalian “priest,” Daniel Webster, who is the “head” of the dysfunctional family. And to the TV viewing audience of “The Book of Daniel.”
The plot then goes on to expose dysfunctional relationships, some within the dysfunctional family and some in outside relationships. “The Book of Daniel” continues to struggle, totally devoid of any humor, towards exploring dysfunctional individuals.
For example, the Episcopalian “priest,” Daniel, is addicted to the prescription pain-killer Vicodin, and “preaches” totally unbiblical sermons based upon his own feelings about happenings in life. Daniel is an apparent failure at home as a father and a failure in his church. His wife copes with stressful situations by drinking martinis. His daughter sells drugs, he has one homosexual son and an adopted son who is having an affair with another clergyman’s daughter.
Hang on, “The Book of Daniel” gets worse ... Daniel's wife’s sister fell in love with her husband’s secretary when said husband started a sexual threesome with himself, his wife, and his secretary. This man absconded with three plus million dollars from Daniel’s church and was subsequently killed. So now his ex-wife and secretary are continuing in their lesbian affair. When the church thief’s body is found the man’s body is naked with “several diverse objects” inserted in his rectum.
Daniel’s mother has Alzheimer’s and announces at a Sunday dinner that her husband is “always showing me his penis.” That same husband, Daniel’s father, is shown to be having a sexual affair with Daniel’s female “bishop” boss.
All the while the plot of “The Book of Daniel” continues to further exploit dysfunctional circumstances of stupidly contrived and contorted dysfunctional situations. There is an early teen-age type of “bathroom humor” preoccupation with dysfunctional “you-name-it” sexual perversions among these many and varied dysfunctional persons and other aberrant behavior. Apparently this sick humor is supposed to make us giggle and snicker like 14 year olds looking at their first pornographic magazines. There are also racial slurs, inferences of the social propriety of homosexuality, tacit approval and endorsement of premarital sex and smoking marijuana, denial of the authority of scripture, and a Catholic priest with influential mob connections.
This two hour first episode of “The Book of Daniel” was absent of any humor whatsoever, grimly intent only upon establishing that this is a “Christian” family with an Episcopalian “priest” and the residual and continuing negativity, immorality and perverted sexual deviations—all effects of being “Christian.” The spontaneous appearances of the trivialized version of “Jesus” apparently is supposed to lend credibility to the thinly disguised attempts to thoroughly discredit the true Jesus Christ of the Bible, and those who are truly Christians, i.e., disciples, learners and followers of the Son of the true and living God.
There is no doubt that the central theme of this TV wreck in which every character of importance is a “loser,” is for the intentional purpose of offending those whose faith is in Jesus Christ. It’s also crystal clear this show is homosexually oriented.
“The Book of Daniel” ridicules and mocks the foolishness and degrading immoral habits and practices of human beings. It does this by showcasing human imperfections and moral weaknesses in excesses of depravity, immorality and the many faults of flawed, frail and fallen humanity.
But ... to make a mockery, a farce and a parody by this caricature of Jesus Christ transcends the bounds of respect and decency for the Son of God, Who came to redeem fallen humanity.
Does the clay now attempt to belittle the potter by cheap shots, crude bathroom humor and glib platitudes?
Frankly, “The Book of Daniel” is not very good and it tries too hard to succeed in making Christ and Christians look and act like buffoons.
Having said all that, it makes you wonder where the writers got all their ideas, doesn’t it? Now comes the embarrassing part ...
It appears that those who write this stuff are not “saved” according to biblical definition. In fact, I would wager that the writers contributing their efforts have probably been “unsaved” for more years than many of you have been “saved.”
Huh?
The unsaved of this world have been taught much better than the saved. The unsaved don’t have to attend church services to hear preachers and teachers, nor do they need to attend Sunday School or Bible Studies. In fact, they don’t even need to read or study anything to get a doctorate equivalent in world events and human behavior.
All they have to do is watch TV news and shows and specials and listen to cassettes and CD’s and DVD’s. And go to movies, or watch them on DVD or VHS cassettes.
After years of such involuntary “study” they know all about Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, the Dan Strader-Karl Strader-Carpenter's Home Church saga, John Wesley Fletcher, Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton, Larry Lea, Morris Cerullo, Jim Whittington, Arthur Blessit, W. V. Grant, Jr., Jim Jones, David Koresh, Earl and Don Paulk, Roberts Liardon, Paul Cain, the several TV programs exposing fake “healer” Binny Hinn by NBC, pedophile Catholic priests, the judgmentalism of more than several TV evangelists, ad nauseam.
And they understand all this stuff comes from people who claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So ... they create a fictional “Jesus” character that to them represents the (mis-)behavior they have seen through the years of the followers of Jesus.
Now, you find a talented person who has a cause—an agenda—that wants to make their point and who has influence with the media world, and they have all the research material they need. And so they write a TV series called “The Book of Daniel.” Don’t they? (There have been others, and there will be more).
(Yes, I know the creator of the series is a practicing homosexual and got many of his ideas from his homosexual partner. So what? Anybody who has writing skills could have written the plot. They would have simply advanced a different agenda—but—would still use the ingrained religious research material, wouldn’t they?)
If those who claim they follow Christ would put forth some effort and read and study the Bible instead of listening to the flawed wisdom of men, and then make an attempt to apply what they learned to their lifestyle, and encourage others to do so, then these agenda-driven anti-Christian writers wouldn’t have much to write about, would they? What’s that saying about sowing and reaping?
This whole issue really asks “Which is the real dysfunctional family?” Doesn’t it?
OK, you have several choices:
(1) If you want “The Book of Daniel” and other types of programs like it to be removed from TV, it would help if you would read your Bible, especially the parts spoken by and written about Jesus. (In most Bibles, that’s the print in red lettering in the New Testament.) When you have questions about what you read there, then read the letters (epistles) starting with the Book of Acts through to the Book of Jude—and the Book of Revelation—for an explanation. And keep doing it. Then when you are totally saturated with the written word and the
Spirit of the Living Word, you can pray and ask God what the stuff you read and don’t understand means. And quit listening to these jerks [read: religious wackos who think that God has “revealed” to them, and them only, what God left out of the New Testament] who think they can teach you better than the Bible and the Holy Spirit of God can. I know that’s a tough one, folks, because it requires a change of lifestyle. And, oh, how we humans hate change!
(2) If you want “The Book of Daniel” and other types of programs like it to be removed from TV, it would help if you would add your voice of protest by sending an e-mail to corporate NBC (nbcshows@nbc.com) and your local NBC TV station.
You have more choices if you do that:
(a) You can continue to do what you’ve been doing, which has allowed the social system to put on shows like “The Book of Daniel” and shut your eyes and hope it goes away.
Or,
(b) After having sent a protest e-mail to NBC about “The Book of Daniel” you can attempt to follow the advice in (1) above.
Or,
(c) You can allow your silent vote of approval of “The Book of Daniel” to stand by simply doing nothing.
With more such silent votes of approval the TV networks will be more than glad to accommodate the public with more of these “The Book of Daniel” types of programs trivializing and vilifying Jesus Christ and His followers.
And aspiring writers with agendas will thank you for continuing to add more research material for them to utilize in writing programs like “The Book of Daniel” when you don’t follow the suggestions in (1) above.
And ... you can explain to Jesus some day why you chose to take the course of action you will take when you have finished reading this article.
Selah ...
