BBC Accused Of Becoming “An Evangelical Tool Of The Churches”

The BBC is accused of planning to breach its own guidelines on religious programming by staging a religious recruitment event in Manchester today. The National Secular Society has written to BBC Director General Mark Thompson demanding that the programme be restructured to take the evangelising elements out.

The BBC describes the programme – The Manchester Passion – as “a re-enactment of the crucifixion story using pop music”. It will be broadcast live on BBC3 and a recording shown later on BBC1. It will be staged on the streets of Manchester, and will include a religious procession.

The BBC website today declares the event “aims to attract people that never go to church”. Local clergy clearly see it as an opportunity for recruitment. Quoted in the Daily Telegraph, local spokesman for the Manchester diocese, Gillian Oliver, said: “We are working with the BBC on this and are very pleased to be bringing the good news of the gospel on to the streets of Manchester”. A BBC announcement of the event ends with “Members of the public who would like to participate are invited to Albert Square in Manchester from 7.30pm onwards”.

Another report in the Church of England Newspaper (3 February), said: “The crowds will be invited to shoulder a 25ft-long white cross through the streets, close to Manchester’s gay village… Locals will also be encouraged to bring along a symbol of their own burden”.

A BBC spokeswoman is quoted as saying: “The churches in Manchester have been really fantastic and very supportive. They have been looking for ways in which they can get involved because I think they recognise that it can bring a new audience to this age-old story. People that never go to church may go along.” (Our emphasis).

In the letter to Mark Thompson, the National Secular Society points out that the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines specifically forbid religious programmes to be used to “recruit”. Terry Sanderson, vice president of the National Secular Society, said: “We feel that this programme will breach the boundary between the reporting of, or broadcasting of, a religious event and actually using licence-payers’ money to create a religious event, which the local clergy obviously see as an evangelising opportunity. This is not the BBC’s purpose. It is specifically forbidden to do it, and for a very good reason.”

Mr Sanderson said that if the event were being staged by, and paid for, by the church and the BBC was simply broadcasting it, it would probably not break the guidelines. “But using the licence-payers’ money to actually stage a religious event that invites active participation from members of the public and which favours one particular religion is not acceptable. It is the church’s business to recruit new members for itself, not the BBC’s.”

In a recent interview with the Roman Catholic magazine The Tablet, Mark Thompson had made clear that the Corporation intended to put more emphasis on religion and give more resources to making religious programmes. “This should not mean that the BBC turns into the evangelical wing of any church. For the Corporation to report on and observe religious events is legitimate, to actually stage them is not.”