Local Episcopalians not happy with "The Book of Daniel"

Local leaders of the Episcopal church don’t buy the dictum that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Some publicity is just plain bad.

Leaders are embarrassed and incensed by the NBC TV series “The Book of Daniel,” about a hapless Episcopal priest and his dysfunctional family. The show’s third episode airs tonight on KGET Channel 17.

“I feel like I’m being slandered by the show,” said the Rev. Jack Estes of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. “If there was a priest in our diocese living the kind of life reflected in that show, he would be removed from the pulpit.”

Eleven NBC affiliates have refused to carry “The Book of Daniel” after being contacted by angry Christians, according to a news release this week from the American Family Association, a conservative Christian organization based in Mississippi.

KGET has received light negative feedback (less than 25 e-mails) about the eight-part series, said program manager Shirley Sanford. The station has no plans to take the show off the air.

“The Book of Daniel’s” debut drew a modest 9 million viewers, a Hollywood trade magazine reported. Advertisers are pulling out of the show, the American Family Association has said.

In contrast to local Episcopal priests, some leaders of more liberal dioceses across the country have applauded the series’ depiction of a man of God struggling with the vicissitudes of life. They argue that the shades-of-gray portrayal humanizes clergy members.

When Kern County residents of other faiths and denominations were asked to stand in the shoes of Episcopalians (How would you feel if a TV show portrayed practitioners of your religion in a warts-and-all fashion?), most said they wouldn’t have a problem with such a saucy program.

“Pastors have problems with their family, finances and health,” said the Rev. Sam Thomas of Solid Rock Baptist Church.

“Their children are under a microscope, so sometimes pastors’ children will deviate from the norm,” he said. “Then you have the pastor’s wife, who has to share her husband with the parish. It doesn’t matter if you are Baptist or Episcopalian.”

“The Book of Daniel” premiered Jan. 6 on NBC. Viewers became acquainted with the Rev. Daniel Webster, addicted to pain killers, giving vaguely secular sermons and having visions of and conversations with a long-haired, white-robed Jesus.

Webster’s wife is a drinker. His daughter sells marijuana. His adopted teenage son is having sex. His sister-in-law is in a lesbian relationship. His son Peter is a gay Republican.

This is a clear case of apostasy — “portraying the church as having thrown away its morals and embracing values that are totally wrong,” Estes said. “That’s really what is being portrayed under the guise of tolerance and working out family problems.”

Others concur.

“The show is an affront to Christianity because it shows the faith in a bad light,” said the Rev. Stephen Nicholls of Redeemer & Hope Episcopal Church in Delano.

John-David Schofield, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, said recent events within the denomination have made it good fodder for Hollywood drama.

In 1976 the church began ordaining women into the priesthood, widening a schism in the church between the orthodox and the revisionists. In 2003 gay Episcopal priest V. Gene Robinson made national headlines when he became a bishop.

Schofield didn’t sound worried about “The Book of Daniel’s” impact on the Episcopalian image.

“It’s going to die of its own accord,” Schofield said of the show. “I don’t think there needs to be an organization fighting it.”

Placed in Schofield’s shoes, leaders of other faiths were as unconcerned as the bishop.

“We Jews long have been willing to laugh at ourselves,” Rabbi Cheryl Rosenstein of Temple Beth El wrote in an e-mail.

Ven Vorachet Somnuek, a priest at the Wat Somdej Thai Buddhist Temple, took the no-publicity-is-bad-publicity approach.

“I think it would be a good thing because it could bring people to the temple,” he said.

Elder Oliver Gibson said Jehovah’s Witnesses wouldn’t watch either “The Book of Daniel” or a hypothetical TV show centered around their denomination.

Such shows are mindless entertainment, Gibson said, and not worth getting in a huff about.

“People view that sort of thing and it’s forgotten soon after.”

Local Episcopalians not happy with new series @ Bakersfield Californian (subscription), CA