BBC Criticised for Offering Misleading Christian Views on Leading Debate Programme

Premier Christian Media Group and Christianity Magazine have joined forces to call on the BBC to give a clearer definition of the opinions of Christian leaders. The two Christian groups have criticised the BBC for allowing an individual Christian’s opinion be perceived by the public as the views of a majority of Christians.
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In a Premier Christian Media Group press release the call has been stated to have been prompted after Stephen Green, the National Director of the “fundamentalist movement” Christian Voice was asked to attend the BBC’s political programme Question Time.

In light of the BBC’s premium reputation of news coverage, the press release expressed fears that the general public would take the BBC’s decision to bring Green on the show as evidence that his views were the opinions of a majority of Christians.

In an open letter to the BBC, the Chief Executive of Premier Christian Media Group, Peter Kerridge said, “There are currently 41 million British citizens that consider themselves Christians (according to UK 2001 Census). Around 4 million of these attend church (according to Religious Trends 2005). Various organisations seek to represent practising Christians such as Churches Together and the Evangelical Alliance who speak on behalf of millions while the Christian Voice, is a fundamentalist Christian organisation with only an estimated 1500 followers (Premier state that the Christian Voice were unwilling to divulge membership numbers, but at a recent protest against Jerry Springer; The Opera 1500 supporters were present).

|QUOTE|Kerridge continued, “Stephen Green has a right to speak freely about his views and the views of Christian Voice, but we believe it is only fair that the public be made aware these are not the views of the majority of Christians in the UK.”

Kerridge continued, “From previous experience, the BBC are aware of Stephen Green's reputation for making inflammatory comments and we are concerned that the motivation to have him as a panellist on Question Time is to provoke further provocative and extreme comments which BBC viewers may assume represent mainstream Christian opinion.

“We believe that the BBC and the Mentorn Television Corporation have a clear responsibility to make sure viewers appreciate that Stephen Green and Christian Voice are a small group and not necessarily representative of the Christian community as a whole.”

Backing this view, John Buckeridge, the editor of Christianity Magazine also wrote to the BBC stating, “We consider the BBC would be unlikely to invite a panellist onto Question Time who held extreme fundamentalist Hindu, Muslim or Sikh views. If this were to happen in the first instance, the broadcasters responsible would face justified criticism if they failed to put their views into the context of the wider and more moderate faith group they claim to represent. As Christians we are asking for similar treatment”

Christian Voice’s Stephen Green will appear on BBC’s Question Time on Thursday 29th September being broadcast from the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. The programme will be broadcast at 10.35pm BST on BBC One.