{"id":3287,"date":"2006-04-09T12:47:57","date_gmt":"2006-04-09T12:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/ejector-pews.html"},"modified":"2006-04-09T12:47:57","modified_gmt":"2006-04-09T12:47:57","slug":"ejector-pews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/ejector-pews.html","title":{"rendered":"Ejector pews"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Church of Christ’s newest ad campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

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The liberal-controlled United Church of Christ (UCC) has unveiled its latest television ad, which features an intolerant and presumably conservative church ejecting an "African-American mother," "a gay couple, an Arab-American, [and] a person using a walker," according a UCC news release news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This ejection is quite literal. Each person rockets up from an ejector seat after attempting to sit in a church pew. The ad<\/a> contrasts the inclusive UCC with the ejecting church: "The United Church of Christ — no matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here."<\/p>\n

UCC President Rev. John Thomas promised about the ad: "No one will look at a church pew again in the same way!" According to Thomas, the ad showcases the "extravagant" hospitality of the Christian gospel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(The major nets have rejected the ads. Now, for the "heh" moment in the article)<\/p>\n

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Helpfully, the UCC has launched www.rejectionhurts.com<\/a>, for those who have felt "rejection" from these churches to record their anguish. The UCC website refuses to allow stories from UCC members who have felt "rejection" from their own denomination. So a caucus group of conservative UCC members has started up their own "Fellowship of the Ejected" campaign, which can be found at www.biblicalwitness.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Church of Christ’s newest ad campaign The liberal-controlled United Church of Christ (UCC) has unveiled its latest television ad, which features an intolerant and presumably conservative church ejecting an "African-American mother," "a gay couple, an Arab-American, [and] a person using a walker," according a UCC news release news release. This ejection is quite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nEjector pews - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/ejector-pews.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ejector pews - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The United Church of Christ’s newest ad campaign The liberal-controlled United Church of Christ (UCC) has unveiled its latest television ad, which features an intolerant and presumably conservative church ejecting an "African-American mother," "a gay couple, an Arab-American, [and] a person using a walker," according a UCC news release news release. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}