Christian Publisher: Google Blocked Our Ads Over Jesus, Bible References

The head of a Lutheran publishing house has claimed Google will no longer accept advertisements related to the organization's website "because of the faith we express."

Bruce Kintz, CEO of Concordia Publishing House — an entity of the theologically conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, took to his Facebook page on Monday to voice outrage after the organization had been told that the Google's online advertising service will not promote the CPH website because of certain religious items on the page.

Kintz's Facebook post explains that he was told by an associate earlier in the day that "Google ads will no longer accept anything related to the cph.org domain."

"They stated that the reason is because of the faith we express on our website," Kintz wrote.

More specifically, a Google AdWords support representative told CPH that references to Jesus and the Bible led to the disapproval of its ads.

"[A CPH staff member] was told, as an example, that things like our bible challenge on our VBS webpage would clearly need to come down before they could consider us for ads," Kintz said.

He argued that the news was "incredibly sobering and disappointing."

"It is an uphill battle but our mission and customers are worth it," he stressed. "It is why we are here."

A Google spokesperson told The Christian Post on Monday night that "Google welcomes advertising from religiously-affiliated institutions, including Christian organizations."

However, in order to "protect user privacy," Google AdWords has policies in place "that restrict how advertisers may use data to show and personalize ads to users."

"We prohibit advertisers from using sensitive data such as race, religious affiliation, political affiliation or sexual orientation to show ads to users," a statement from Google reads.

A review of Google's advertising policies show that the company prohibits the use of "personal religious belief" to target users for advertising.

Read more about Google and Christians on The Christian Post.