Christians working in the media are on the frontline of helping people find faith, says Church of England Bishop Ruth Bushyager.
She told a conference organised by Christians in Media that most of the increasing numbers of people exploring the gospel today are turning to media sources.
Ruth Bushyager, the Bishop of Horsham in southern England, explained, “Lots of you in the media will have a very strong sense of this new spiritual awakening that we’re seeing.
“It has felt like a drought that we’ve had for a few decades, and aggressive secularism has become this dominant story in our land. It’s been a dry environment for mission and evangelism.”
However, she continued, “Now, we are living through this shift, and we are seeing an extraordinary set of things happening that is really exciting. The rising generation is saying ‘I have feasted on the secularism that you have fed me, and it has made me sick. Where can I go to find people who will tell me the truth about who I am and how I can find hope and healing?’
“There is this beautiful openness to the gospel primarily among the young, although not exclusively, and churches are welcoming in all these lapsed atheists. The hunger is just there.”
The seekers, the bishop explained, are responding to their hunger pains by first going online and seeking truth there.
Bishop Bushyager told the delegates from a wide range of media roles, “Most of these people are not hearing about truth from the kinds of pulpits that people like me stand up in. They are hearing it from you in the media. That’s their first experience.
“They are hearing it on a podcast, in a documentary, in a column, in a 30-second clip on their phone at one o’clock in the morning. You are standing at the frontline of this shift.”
She continued, “It’s a pretty tough calling to be a Christian in the media industry. You are doing difficult, costly things all the time, navigating quite complex dynamics when it can be hard to get it right.
“You always open yourselves up to critique and abuse, particularly as a Christian in the current climate.
“I want to speak on behalf of the whole Church and say to you in media, whatever denomination that you are from, thank you.”
The Christians in Media ‘Engage’ conference was held at Sky’s headquarters in Osterley, west London, on October 9.
Rev Peter Crumpler is a Church of England minister in St Albans, Herts, UK, and former communications director with the CofE.
