Last week, it was one retail giant down, one to go.  This week, two of the largest and oldest retailers in the United States have both responded to American Family Association (AFA) by pulling their advertising from NBC’s show, “Saturday Night Live” (SNL).

Late last month, AFA and its supporters notified both Sears and JCPenney that the portrayal of Jesus Christ as a revenge-seeking murderer is an affront to all people of faith, especially Christians. AFA urged Sears and its subsidiary Kmart in addition to JCPenney to pull their advertising from NBC.com’s “Saturday Night Live.” 

As of last week, JCPenney had not responded and AFA urged Christians around the country to petition JCPenney to follow Sears’ and cease advertising on SNL.  These results ensued: 

Sears sent a letter toAFA, stating, “Thanks for bringing it to our attention, it wasn’t supposed to happen and we’re taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Going forward our ads will not run in this form again around SNL.”   JCPenney did not advertise on the next SNL show and removed their ad from the NBC on line version of the SNL episode. 

The “SNL” skit that aired on Feb. 16 portrayed a post-resurrection Jesus Christ as a vengeful killer. The comedy sketch, which aired just four days into Lent, was a mock trailer of a film that its narrator described as “the ultimate historical revenge fantasy” and spoofed popular yet violent Quentin Tarantino films.  

“He’s risen from the dead,” continued the narrator, “and he’s preaching anything but forgiveness,” as Christ, played by show host Christopher Waltz, is shown slaughtering Roman soldiers with a sword.   

Tim Wildmon, president of American Family Association, stated, “JCPenney is a company that markets home goods and clothing to women and mothers like all of those involved with American Family Association’s OneMillionMoms.com,” which brings together mothers who want to stop the exploitation of children, especially by the entertainment media that pushes immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity. “I look at the trash, however, that JCPenney, Sears and others had endorsed and I can tell you that as long as corporations support this kind of offensive material, their sales are going to suffer as shoppers abandon retailers that support blasphemy. I hope folks can reinstate their patronage to these stores and that Sears and JCPenney can stick with the good decisions they have now made. When you embrace television programming with no morals, you can’t possibly embrace the public you are trying to sell to. We applaud Sears and JCPenney for their wise action to stop funding damaging material such as the skit that mocked our Lord Jesus Christ on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ ” 

OneMillionMoms.com is a division of AFA, along with American Family Radio, One News Now, AFA Journal and AFA Foundation. 

JCPenney sales have seen a steady decline, with the clothing and home goods company posting a loss of $4.3 billion in sales in the first year of Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson’s turnaround plan. Sales in the fourth quarter of 2012, which included holiday shopping, slid 28 percent to $3.88 billion. 

Now that Sears and JCPenney have responded to American Family Association and Christians nationwide, AFA says it is in good order to  thank them for taking action.  

• Call Sears and JCPenney’s headquarters to let them know you support them ceasing their financial advertising support of NBC and “Saturday Night Live.” Ask them to continue to not fund the show, both broadcast and online. 
• Visit their facebook pages and leave this comment: “I applaud your action in ceasing funding of the anti-Christian segment on NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live, and your commitment to pull all funding from this program going forward.” 
• Post this message to your Twitter account: “@jcpenney—We applaud your courageous decision to say NO to funding the SNL skit mocking Christ. http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147532531” #jcpenney.  Send the same message to @sears with this hashtag: #sears 

For more information on American Family Association, visit www.afa.net. 

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To interview Tim Wildmon, president of American Family Association, contact Deborah Hamilton at dhamilton@hamiltonstrategies.com, 215-815-7716 or 610-584-1096. 

American Family Association (AFA) a non-profit 501(c3) organization was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was pastoring First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time.  Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of America’s culture war. The original name of the ministry was National Federation for Decency but was changed to American Family Association (AFA) in 1988. 

Today, AFA is one of the largest and most effective pro-family organizations in the country with over two million online supporters and approximately 180,000 paid subscribers to the AFA Journal, the ministry's monthly magazine. In addition, AFA owns and operates nearly 200 radio stations across the country under the American Family Radio (AFR) banner. 

Other divisions of AFA include OneNewsNow.com, an online news provider that is syndicated around the world. AFA maintains activist web sites such asOneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com that rally Christian activists to contact companies asking them to drop their advertising from objectionable TV shows. AFA web sites average over 40 million hits and five million visitors each month. 

AFA uses all these means to communicate an outspoken, resolute, Christian voice throughout America.