c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The Episcopal Church, in a bid to double its Sunday attendance by 2020, has revamped its Web site, updated its logo and tried to bill itself as open to all at any point in their spiritual journeys.

So you’d think that a prime-time television drama about an Episcopal priest _ with vestments, bishops, sermons and stained glass _ would be a welcome gift worth millions in free advertising.

Except the Vicodin-popping Rev. Daniel Webster and his dysfunctional family in NBC’s saucy new “The Book of Daniel” drama isn’t exactly what the church’s public relations department had in mind.

Some Episcopalians, embarrassed by Hollywood’s image of a mainline Protestant denomination where the theology is lukewarm and a philandering bishop rummages through Webster’s desk in search of drugs, wish the show would simply go away.

But others, sensing that the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity, say the show should be used as a vehicle to introduce people to the real church, warts and all.

“More people are talking about the Episcopal Church today than at any point since the consecration of (openly gay Bishop) Gene Robinson,” said Jim Naughton, who set up a blogofdaniel.com Web site for the Diocese of Washington.

“If we don’t get involved and try to shape (the discussion) and let people know what we’re really like, we’re missing a tremendous opportunity.”

The show, which stars Aidan Quinn in the lead role, airs Fridays at 10 p.m. EST on NBC. Its premiere on Jan. 6 had a mediocre 9 million viewers, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

So far, there has been little response from national church headquarters in New York. The church had no role in the show’s creation, the thinking goes, so it’s best to let the show speak for itself.

“NBC’s new program is fictional drama,” national church spokesman Bob Williams said. “But, as a point of fact, the Episcopal Church is known for taking an open approach to life’s complexities.”

There’s enough sex, drugs and alcohol in the show to warrant its 10 p.m. time slot. The church figures are far from saints. Webster’s father is a pour-me-one-for-the-road bishop who is romancing another bishop (played by Ellen Burstyn) on the side. Webster hides painkillers in his desk drawer under a hymnal, and uses a sermon to suggest that giving in to temptation _ and there’s lots of it _ might not be such a bad thing.

The result is a show that looks like “Highway to Heaven” took a detour and landed in rehab.

Conservatives, who already lament their church’s deep divisions over homosexuality and what they call an anything-goes approach to theology, say Episcopalians have only themselves to blame.

“Here we have culture showing what they think of the Episcopal Church,” said the Rev. Ellis Brust, an Atlanta-based leader of the church’s conservative wing. “And it’s not funny. It’s sad.”

Or, as Jerry Falwell, the outspoken conservative Southern Baptist, put it, “Daniel’s is a church that only Howard Stern and Larry Flynt could love.”

Jack Kenny, the show’s creator and a self-described “unaffiliated Christian,” said he was attracted to Episcopalians’ love of “pageantry” and their WASPy demographics. The church’s impending “possible schism” over homosexuality provided “good fodder for drama,” he said.

But that’s where the similarities end, Kenny insisted. He said people would be foolish to think Episcopalians look and act the way they do on the show.

“This is a fictional church in a fictional town with fictional characters,” he said in an interview. “You’d have to have your head examined if you think television dramas depict the absolute real world.”

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The show does, however, feature several real-time references to the Episcopal Church. Robinson, the gay bishop, is mentioned, as well as the rebuke the U.S. church received from Anglican leaders in “Canterbury.”

But, as Kenny and others point out, “The Book of Daniel” is really a family drama, in which the protagonist happens to be a priest, who happens to serve in the Episcopal Church. The church, he said, “informs them” but doesn’t “define them.”

Indeed, the Rev. Gawain de Leeuw, rector of St. Bartholomew’s Church in White Plains, N.Y., and creator of the “Salty Vicar” blog, said he sees little in Webster’s character that resembles his life as a priest.

“`Grey’s Anatomy’ (on ABC) is not about medicine,” de Leeuw said, “and Father Webster is not about the Episcopal Church.”

That said, some Episcopalians say there’s much to like in Webster, including his one-on-one talks with Jesus (played by Garret Dillahunt), his struggles between sin and redemption, and the idea that clergy are humans with flaws and foibles just like the rest of us.

“We’ve got, in prime-time television, a priest who is striving to live faithfully on a regular basis, and failing on a regular basis, and yet when he fails, where does he turn? To Jesus,” said the Rev. Susan Russell, an associate priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., where the pilot was filmed.

“That’s an extraordinary opportunity that we’ve never had before.”

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Bob Thompson, a television and pop culture expert at Syracuse University, agrees. Thompson said part of the show’s controversy is that TV generally avoids religion like one of the seven deadly sins, but it can only succeed when people on both sides of the screen take it seriously.

“A show that deals with flawed human beings trying to come to grips with a relationship with God is worth doing on TV simply because it’s not done very often,” he said.

Many are urging the church to embrace the show and run with it. On Naughton’s blogofdaniel.com, for example, evangelism materials “have been looked at more in the last three days than in the previous three months,” he said.

The Rev. Daniel Webster, a Utah priest who curiously shares the name of the show’s lead character, said, “Whether good or not, it’s publicity we couldn’t have afforded.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to meet people where they are, to tell them that we are a church … that has always embraced ambiguity, that has always stood up to the challenge of living in the gray areas,” Webster said.

“Which, when you think of it, is what most of life is.”

MO/PH END ECKSTROM

Editors: To obtain photos from “The Book of Daniel,” go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject.

Also: Blogofdaniel.com and Gawain de Leeuw are CQ