By Jim Brown and Fred Jackson
January 31, 2003

(AgapePress) - A report says CNN, Fox, and NBC are refusing to run a series of anti-war ads sponsored by the National Council of Churches (NCC).

A liberal United Methodist bishop is featured in the new anti-war ad airing this weekend. In the 30-second spot, Bishop Melvin Talbert claims the United States has no right to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Talbert appears in the commercial with Hollywood liberal Jeneane Garafalo, and claims U.S. military action against Iraq "violates God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ."

Conservatives have denounced such charges. They say rather than the Bible, the real source of the NCC's philosophy is worldly humanist thinking that refuses to recognize that there is good and evil in the world.

The NCC has a long history of representing the liberal left of the religious community. So the fact that their ads denounce the Bush Administration's threat of war against Iraq is not all that surprising.

The Council had hoped to run their ads on major cable and broadcast outlets like CNN and NBC. But according to The Washington Post, the networks turned them down because of their controversial content. The ads will run, however, in some local TV markets across the country.

NCC Spokesman Pat Patillo hopes the ad causes Christians to ponder what he calls the "unintended consequences" of war.

"We hope that it will make thoughtful Christians and others in society think twice about the rush to war, in the true prophetic tradition of the Old Testament prophets who called their governments to be accountable and to look for other alternatives to violence," Patillo says. "There are many unintended consequences to war -- and we think war should be the very last resort after we have tried everything else."

According to Patillo, the ad is based in biblical teachings. "It is a way of our calling the nation to prayer and to concern for what we may be unleashing here, [such as] the deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq who have done nothing except suffer under a tyrant. They've done nothing to our country," he says.

Patillo includes among those unintended consequences the possible launching of a new wave of terrorism against the United States. "We think there may be a better way," he says. "In fact, we know there must be a better way than this."

Patillo says the commercial is not related to a similar anti-war ad featuring actress Susan Sarandon and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ed Peck.

Bishop Talbert recently visited with Iraqi government officials in Baghdad and called on the U.S. to negotiate with Saddam Hussein.

© 2003 AgapePress all rights reserved.

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