From the Associated Press

Two stations won’t air ‘Book of Daniel’

NEW YORK — Two television stations are refusing to broadcast a new NBC series about an Episcopal priest who abuses painkillers, has a gay son, a promiscuous straight son, a daughter who deals marijuana, and a wife who drinks too much.

Conservative Christian groups have condemned the depiction of Jesus as blasphemous, accusing the writers of portraying Christ as tolerant of sin in talks with the priest.

…

The series stars Aidan Quinn as the Rev. Daniel Webster, who discusses his many troubles in regular chats with a robe-wearing, bearded Jesus. The American Family Association, in Tupelo, Miss., and Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs group led by James Dobson, are asking supporters to lobby their local NBC affiliate to drop the show.

…

But the American Family Association said the series was another sign of NBC’s “anti-Christian bigotry.” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, an anti-defamation group, called the series the “work of an embittered ex-Catholic homosexual.”

The show’s creator and executive producer, Jack Kenny, said he drew on the emotionally guarded family of his male partner for the series. He said his goal was to depict how “humor and grace” help a flawed man struggle with his faith and family. He said the writers never meant to mock religion or Jesus.

However, Bob Waliszewski, of Focus on the Family’s teen ministries, said the show portrayed Christ as a “namby-pamby frat boy who basically winks at every sin and perversity under the sun.”

Just the kind of Jesus it would appear that many in the ECUSA advocate for?  Listen to this:

James Naughton, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., said a California Episcopal church is advising the series.

Naughton has read scripts for eight episodes and acknowledged that viewers could take away a troubling message about people of faith, instead of a positive one about overcoming temptation. Still, he said it was “a tremendous opportunity for evangelism for Episcopalians.” The Washington Diocese has started a blog to comment on the show and invite discussion.

“To me, this is good for us no matter how it comes out because if people are talking about what Episcopalians are like, it creates tremendous opportunities for us to say, `Here’s what we actually are like,'” Naughton said.

And the answer would be —“ yes. 

I think Mr. Naughton has become trapped in a Machiavellian milieu.  Unfortunately for him the ends do not justify the means.  A good intention cannot sanctify, or make right, an action which is wrong.

Now, I will leave to my readers who are better versed in the Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae to argue whether ‘double effect’ allows bad actions for good causes.  However, in this case the point would be moot.

If I am correct, a bad act is morally allowable only when the following conditions are fulfilled:

1. The agent is aiming only at the good effect; the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends; and
2. the consequences of the act are good on balance; that is, the goodness of the good effect outweighs the evil of the evil effect.

As I said, act and cause are a good theological discussion, but moot here because I suspect the agent (writers, director, producer) of not seeking to portray the Jesus of the Gospels, but the phony Jesus of man’s basest instincts.  In addition, there is no good consequence to the show (especially in supporting the ECUSA drive to remake historic Christianity into a modernist playground).  Further, the consequences of continually making Jesus into the kind, dead, philosopher only support man’s denial of God.  It destroys the human imperative to repentance and reform.