Advocates of “public broadcasting” often point to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a role model for other television networks. I wonder if it bothers them that the BBC is hysterically anti-Christian.
As The Telegraph reports, “The BBC uses ‘derogatory stereotypes’ to portray Christians while marginalizing older women, according to the corporation’s own research.”
Staff and viewers alike have aired concerns about the derogatory stereotypes as well as the BBC’s overall liberal bias — and with good reason. You only have to watch this dribble on satellite television to taste the Christophobia. From campaigning reporters to cartoon-villain priests, the network’s subtle and not-so-subtle anti-Christian snobbery is hard to deny.
Many BBC heads demonstrate what I call “entitlement theology.” Basically, they see themselves as intellectually superior to the average Briton and therefore feel entitled to push their liberal politics on the ignorant masses who don’t know what’s good for them. Perhaps by showcasing the right thoughts they can liberate television viewers from their Biblical worldviews.
But the BBC’s propagandists have a double standard when it comes to Islam, “the religion of peace.” As the Mail Online’s Harry Phibbs has observed, “BBC executives have admitted that although they would show a scene where a Bible was thrown away, they would never do the same with a copy of the Koran. We have had the BBC TV series Spooks portraying evangelical Christians as terrorists seeking to murder Muslims.”
Another fine example: Last year, the BBC’s “Eastenders” soap opera introduced unimpressed viewers to an African Christian preacher, Lucas Johnson, who just happened to enjoy murdering people. Perhaps the establishment feels threatened by the evangelical ethnic-majority churches in London.
And the Spectator’s Nick Cohen is correct to point out that “instead of acknowledging radical Islam’s existence, the BBC politely ignores what was in front of its nose and implies that to oppose radical Islam is to incubate a racist hatred of all Muslims.” The BBC searches high and low for imaginary or non-representative American Christians with mad theologies while ignoring the elephant in the room. Mysteriously, Islam became a “race” after 9/11 but Christianity remains a punching bag for the cognoscenti.
So, how could BBC evangelists and their enablers — as well as watchdog journalists — misread the public mood? Are they genetically incapable of hearing two or more sides of an issue at once? Where’s their professional passion for balance and fairness? And do the great unwashed even have a right to question them?
Honoring intellectual diversity doesn’t come easy to the BBC. After all, the reason entitlement theology is such an attractive moral system is because it absolves people from ever having to admit they’re wrong. If only those Fox News simpletons understood how many British-African pastors were murdering vulnerable citizens, they’d see the secular light too.
Ben-Peter Terpstra is a freelance writer based in regional Victoria, Australia. He has lived and worked in the Northern Territory, Melbourne, Kyoto and London.