Mohler: Hallmark movies used as ‘engine’ for LGBT ‘moral revolution’
A prominent evangelical leader has warned that the Hallmark Channel has become an “engine” of the LGBT “moral revolution,” given its decision to feature a same-sex couple as the lede characters in its annual Countdown to Christmas movie marathon.
Albert Mohler Jr., the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, discussed the developments related to the Hallmark Channel on Tuesday’s edition of “The Briefing” podcast. He began Part III of the podcast by describing a “moral agenda, a political agenda, a revolutionary agenda, a revolution” that was intent on “turning morality upside down in rejection of creation order in the law of God” by infiltrating “the mega industry of providing and selling entertainment to the American people.”
“You may remember that the Hallmark Channel has found itself in all kinds of controversy because of a failure in previous seasons to come to an absolute celebration of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages, you could just say the entire array of LGBTQ,” he said.
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“The Hallmark Channel made a decision last year during this season not to portray a same-sex kiss and then had to fall all over itself in surrendering to and paying public obeisance to the moral revolutionaries by saying that it was a wrong decision and that person is out now and they will never do anything like that again.”
Mohler explained that Hallmark, as part of its Countdown to Christmas programming, will feature a movie titled, “The Christmas House,” which features a male same-sex couple. He lamented the film as an example of Christmas-themed romantic comedies being “completely transformed and accommodated to the demands of the new moral revolutionaries.”
“As Christians, we just need to recognize there’s so much going on here. In a fallen world, with a spirit of rebellion and revolution against a biblical worldview and a biblical morality, the fact is that the romcom is now being used as an engine for this moral revolution to turn the world upside down,” he added.
Mohler contended that Hallmark's and Hollywood’s embrace of the LGBT agenda serves as a reminder of “how much culture matters.”
“Culture, made up of the sum total of everything from language and dress to customs and policies, laws, and procedures, architecture, art. But yes, entertainment. It comes down to the fact that those who consume such entertainment are never unchanged by it. Those who inhabit the culture are never unshaped by it to some degree.”
According to Mohler, “If it doesn’t end right according to the dictates of the LGBTQ revolution, then these days the movie’s not going to be made.”
“It’s going to take an enormous amount of biblical conviction for Christians not to be pressed into conformity with this culture,” Mohler concluded. “It’s going to take an enormous amount of biblical conviction for Christians, for Christian parents, and for churches, to stand against this tide and to resist this pressure. It’s going to take standing against virtually everything that Hollywood is going to be throwing at us and throwing at our 10-year-olds.”
Hallmark announced earlier this year that several of its forthcoming projects would include “LGBTQ storylines, characters, and actors.” The announcement came after the channel faced backlash from the LGBT lobby over its decision to pull an advertisement from Zola.com that featured a same-sex kiss.
While concerns from conservative groups that Hallmark was abandoning its reputation as the “country’s leading destination for quality family entertainment” prompted the network to remove the Zola.com ad from the airwaves, the ad was quickly reinstated following an outcry from LGBT activists.
In response to the ad’s reinstatement, the conservative group One Million Moms called for a boycott of the channel. Before the controversy surrounding the Zola.com commercial, Hallmark had come under fire from LGBT activist groups for not featuring “an LGBTQ character taking center stage” during last year’s Christmas season.
