Did you catch the news -- NBC cancelled the new television show The Book of Daniel after multiple complaints from [Christians].

In case you missed it, NBC cancelled the new television show The Book of Daniel after multiple complaints from [Christians]. I place Christians in [] because while this is probably the audience involved, there is no real way to determine the actual make-up of those complaining about the show. There was a petition campaign, an email campaign, and who knows how many other campaigns.

If you missed the story, one place you may read about the cancellation is on Baptist Press News here.

The articles all speak about the "pocket book effect." In other words, NBC calculated the dollar values involved in showing the air without sponsors, or with below average sponsors and determined they would lose money. Thus, the decision to cancel the show was no different from the decisions to cancel any other show on the air. NBC looked at the dollars and saw red instead of black.

What is sad about this is that in "playing" the game this way, Christians look like any other group. They have forced NBC to remove a program on the basis of money. I have not tried, but I am certain we could find similar situaions in the past where shows have been removed for the same reason when influenced by African-Americans, Jews, and other similar groups.

What would make it great would be if the decision had been made simply because Christians had noted the show was, in their opinion, a blasphemy against Jesus and that NBC removed the show for that reason.

However, in this post-modern world, such a decision looks and feels like intolerance and that is a no-no. So, the Christian community ends up looking like every other group around. We, as Christians, are to be different, not the same, as "the world."

Now don't get me wrong. I am thrilled that the show has been cancelled. Based upon the previews and the write-ups I read, the show clearly placed Jesus and Christianity in a bad light and made Christ too much like a man and not much like God. It is wonderful that the material has been removed from the screen.

On the other hand, the reasons and methods fall far short of God's standards for believers to be different and set apart from the world.  It is admittedly difficult to know where to draw the lines. What might have happened if instead of sending emails and filing petitions, all of those churches involved had set a joint time of prayer and a million or more Christians had fallen to their knees, pleading with God to stop the show?

Who do we trust -- the pocket book or God?

In this case, it looks to me like the "church" trusted the pocket book.

Jim A