NBC'S lame-duck series Book of Daniel kicked up a lot of controversy during its brief run, but perhaps not for the right reasons.

Starring Aidan Quinn as Daniel, the program centers on an Episcopal priest in a posh Connecticut suburb. His wife is infatuated with martinis, one of his sons is homosexual, the other is sleeping around, his daughter is selling dope, the Jamaican housekeeper is smoking it, his brother-in-law has stolen $3.5 million from the church (after having a threesome with his wife and his secretary), and the lady bishop is having an affair with Daniel's father, who is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal church. Meanwhile, Jesus periodically appears to Daniel to dispense non-judgmental advice, except when it comes to Daniel's addiction to pain killers.

Sleeping around. Homosexuality. Thievery. Ecclesial chaos. Abuse of prescription drugs. Lots of people with more money than common sense. Is this what the U.S. Episcopal Church really looks like?

The American Family Association, an evangelical group, organized a boycott against the program because of its perceived smarmy stance towards Christianity. The AFA helped persuade 11 NBC affiliates not to broadcast Daniel. And three of the show's four major sponsors also withdrew.

Daniel director Jack Kenny was enraged by the "bullies" at AFA and went public with his outrage. He made his plea on blogofdaniel.com, a blog set up by the liberal Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.--without any apparent sense of irony--to exploit the show as an evangelistic tool for the church.

"Ordinarily, I would never ask anyone to do this, but the AFA and bullies like them are hard at work to try and prevent you from seeing these beautiful shows, and that is censorship--pure and simple," wrote. "And that is both un-Christian and un-American."

According to Aidan Quinn in an interview on Beliefnet.com, Kenny deliberately chose to set the program in the Episcopal Church. "His being impressed with the Episcopalian church and their inclusiveness and the conflict that's going on within it as far as social issues, I think, is what attracted him to set this family in the midst of that church," said, Quinn, who is Roman Catholic, but who professes admiration for the Episcopal Church's "inclusiveness."

Kenny told the Washington Times he may join the Episcopal Church, to which his male partner of 24 years belongs. His partner's WASPish family was in fact a model for Daniel's repressed and dysfunctional household. According to Kenny, he got guidance for the program from a leader of the Episcopal Church's homosexual caucus and from other members at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California.

All Saints Church was recently flagged by the IRS for a strongly-worded anti-war sermon there that ostensibly threatened its tax-exempt status. The IRS threat seems silly, but the congregation is far-left even by Episcopal standards.

CLEARLY, Kenny did not cast a wide net when looking for insights about Episcopalianism. Despite his ideological myopia, Kenny's product does seem to encapsulate some of the most common stereotypes about the denomination.

Everybody in Daniel is well dressed and white (except for the maid and Daniel's adopted son); they live in huge and exquisitely furnished colonial houses, belong to the country club, and are slightly snobby. When Daniel's adopted teenage Chinese son has sex with a parishioner's under-age daughter, the girl's mother is upset not because of the sex but because the boy is being Asian. Daniel is upset that the boy landed on his Jaguar when he jumped from the girl's bedroom window. Discrete racism and the snooty materialism . . . how Episcopalian!