The latest cancel culture victim of woke media corporations is the well-known Christian organization, D. James Kennedy Ministries (DJKM), which since 2017 has paid to air its cable program, Truths That Transform, on the Lifetime cable channel. Lifetime is owned by A&E Networks.
Recently DJKM was contacted by Lifetime and told that it would no longer air DJKM programs if they contained “controversial topics.” The program that caught Lifetime’s attention was an exposé on Planned Parenthood’s alleged selling of fetal baby parts obtained from abortions, a practice brought to light several years ago by David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress.
The network objected to the Planned Parenthood program and required DJKM to submit any future programming for approval before it could be aired. DKJM then submitted a program on financier George Soros and another on the spiritual life of George Washington, both of which were rejected by Lifetime. The network then removed DKJM’s program from its cable lineup.
In a recent op-ed for The Christian Post, DJKM president and CEO, Frank Wright, explained what had happened to the ministry and the larger issue affecting the gospel message in general.
“At the same time the Lifetime Channel is giving us the back of their hand, we received reports from others in the community of Christian broadcasters that other major cable television channels and networks are cancelling entire blocks of religious programming,” Wright wrote. “This is the new face of corporate responsibility in America — viewpoint discrimination, prior restraint, and outright censorship.
“This spitting in the face of those with viewpoints differing from the new woke orthodoxy by broadcast and cable television is bad enough, but it gets worse. Others providing business services to those holding non-favored viewpoints are falling all over each other to demonstrate their woke bonafides, by denying services to those with the heretical temerity to hold views diverging from those permissible under Progressive woke-ism.”
DKJM, originally called Coral Ridge Ministries, was founded by pastor, evangelist, and Christian broadcaster D. James Kennedy, who passed away in 2007.
The ministry is looking for a new media avenue to reach the 105 million households it currently serves, Wright told CBN News in a recent interview.
“We are extremely grateful to our partners who are praying for us and standing with us by their much-needed financial support now,” Wright said. “But this is not just about us. We are at a critical turning point in our culture. The cancel culture is in high gear and coming after anyone who speaks with courage and candor to the great moral and cultural issues of our day. With God’s help, we will not bow.”
The First Amendment’s free speech guarantee does not prohibit private censorship, only government censorship. That’s why the current spate of Big Tech’s de-platforming of those with whom it disagrees, and private censorship of Christian organizations, including Focus on the Family, pose an ominous new threat to the spread of the gospel message.
That message of hope, however, has been opposed and oppressed for a couple thousand years, yet remains resilient. Christians need to pray for continued freedom to speak the truth to this culture, and we must exercise that freedom with boldness as ambassadors of Christ. We also need to support and defend those who encounter the inevitable opposition to that message.
Related:
YouTube’s Silencing of LifeSite is Chilling Example of Censorship
The Censoring and Silencing of Conservative Speech
Twitter Censors Focus on the Family’s The Daily Citizen
Photo from Fandom