God is still speaking

The TV Commercials

The UCC's first 30-second television advertisement - part of the denomination's new, broad identity campaign - began airing nationwide on Dec. 1, 2004, stating that - like Jesus - the United Church of Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation.

The ad has been accepted and will air on a mix of broadcast and cable networks, including ABC Family, AMC, BET, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, History, Nick@Nite, TBS, TNT, Travel and TV Land.

On the eve before the campaign's launch, negotiations with CBS and NBC broke down, after the networks deemed the UCC's all-inclusive message as "too controversial."

Included below are links related to this campaign and the ensuing reactions - but please be forewarned, that because some of them are Newspaper articles, the links may eventually disappear.

• "God is still speaking" campaign
• UCC news article
• Leonard Pitts article in local News Gazette and Seattle Times
• Faith-Based Communicators React - National Council of Churches
• Boston Globe article

Local churches are speaking out.

Pastor Mike Mulberry of Community UCC along with Pastor Glenn Trost of St. Peter's UCC wrote an op-ed article that was printed in the local News Gazette on Wednesday December 19, 2004. At the same time there was a Letter to the Editor from the Unitarian Universalist church in Urbana in support of airing the UCC add on TV. The McKinley Presbyterian church members have also written CBS and NBC asking them to reverse their decision and air the commercials.