The Power to Change campaign will "more than likely" return to court seeking to have an RTE ban on its advertisements overturned. The High Court yesterday refused to grant the organisation a mandatory injunction compelling RTE to show the advertisements.
Mr Basil Good, chairman of the campaign's Republic of Ireland committee, said last night that they favoured seeking a full hearing of the case as they felt RTE had acted unreasonably and had damaged the campaign.
It was officially launched in Dublin yesterday, and the 30-second advertisements were due to be broadcast on RTE and TV3 for the first time last night.However, viewers in the Republic still saw them on UTV and Channel 4. They were also rebroadcast by the NTL cable service in Dublin, Galway, and Waterford.
Mr Good said RTE had behaved "quite disgracefully" in the matter. The campaign had co-operated every step of the way in preparing the advertisements with the broadcaster since it was first approached last June, "but it wasn't until the eleventh hour they decided not to go ahead", he said.
The station could have sought legal opinion at any point, rather than leaving it until last Monday, and after it had already agreed to broadcast tghe advertisements and been invoiced for them, he said.
A spokesman for RTE said the station had "successfully resisted the injunction" yesterday and would not be carrying the advertisements tonight.
At the Power to Change campaign launch yesterday Mr Good said they had bent over backwards so as not to be seen as selling one particular brand of Christianity. The person of Jesus Christ was, sadly, becoming forgotten.
"We see the church dying. The nation is suffering. There is a need out there. We're not trying to reinvent the church, but we are not going to roll over and die," he said.
It was clear people were looking for change, he said. Many had rejected institutionalised Christianity and were seeking answers to their life questions in many places and philosophies. Campaign members had found, as had millions, "that a personal relationship with Christ is the only real starting point to finding answers that work,' 'he said.
The campaign was not trying to force anyone to look at the facts, he said, but there was "a huge amount of evidence" to say the Resurrection actually happened. This was being ignored by science and archaeology. "We are here to point to the living saviour," he said.
The $1.8 million fund for the campaign came from businessmen who wished to remain anonymous. When asked whether the money could have been better spent helping the poor, Mr Good replied that it was Christian values which led to the poor being helped in the first place, and what the campaign was about was the promotion of those values.
The four controversial 30-second advertisements were shown, featuring golfer Bernhard Langer, Mr Michael McGoldrick, whose son was murdered during Drumcree 1996, student Ms Clodagh O'Connor, and a former drug addict, Mr Noel Kenny, all of whom say their lives have been transformed since turning to Jesus.
Prayers were led by the Rev Ken Wilson, former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland; Father John Hassett of the Dublin archdiocese; the Rev Ian Coulter of the Church of Ireland; and the Rev Frank Sellar of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The all-island campaign has the backing of the four main churches.