Thought for the Month - February 2005

Blasphemous BBC - By Barry Adair

The BBC, or "British Broadcasting Corporation", is one of the world's finest broadcasting institutions. Well, that is what is usually said and it is what I always thought too.

However, the screening of the controversial "Jerry Springer - The Opera" by the BBC has changed my mind on this organisation.

And not just me!

An astounding 50,000 protests (by letter, phone and email) were sent to the BBC asking them not to screen the programme.

By the way, I believe that for over 500 complaints to be received about a programme is unusual but this "programme" received 100 times that figure! We should also remember that the number of actual complaints received is usually just the tip of the iceberg of people’s feelings up and down the country.

So what is wrong with "Jerry Springer - The Opera"?
Simply put, it is blasphemous to the true Christian faith.
The "show" took the central tenet of Christianity - the Lord Jesus Christ's suffering on a cruel cross for the sins of mankind and turned it into ridicule, even depicting Him in a manner implying sexual perversion.
It also contained a very large number of sexual swear words.

This is what a senior Radio 3 BBC producer, Mr Anthony Pitts, said after watching the programme :-

"I found the experience of watching both the hour-long introductory broadcast (devoid as it was of any editorial balance) and the show itself deeply troubling. …The whole experience was not vastly different from being forced to look down the lavatory for three hours. My wife watched the show with me and we were both staggered. It was like watching one of our closest friends or family being humiliated at length before a Roman circus-like public."

Mr Pitts was able to voice his opposition after he resigned from the BBC over the screening of "Jerry Springer - The Opera".

A few thoughts came to mind about this whole debacle, which I wanted to share with you here :-

I can’t help but wonder how many complaints would have been needed if the Muslim community had been incensed at a programme that was blasphemous to their beliefs.
Did the BBC want to look ‘progressive’, ‘edgy’ and ‘new age’ to bring onboard new, so-called, ‘enlightened’ viewers?
It brought to my memory the following passage of Scripture:
2 Peter 2:1-3 "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not"
I also realised that although born again Christians will be outraged at what the BBC did, it is really God who was mocked, dishonoured and insulted. I would like to remind executives at the BBC of Galatians 6:7: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

The Latin inscription outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House is interesting! It reads:

This Temple of the Arts and Muses is dedicated to Almighty God by the first Governors of Broadcasting in the year 1931, Sir John Reith being Director-General. It is their prayer that good seed sown may bring forth a good harvest and that the people, inclining their ear to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and of good report, may tread the path of wisdom and uprightness

Was "Jerry Springer - The Opera" also dedicated to God?
Was it beautiful and honest and of good report?
Would it instil in it’s viewers the desire to tread the path of wisdom and uprightness?

I have a one word answer for this - not a Latin word but a Hebrew word. It is TEKEL, which is translated in Daniel 5:27 as –

"Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting"

Friends, our faith, the one true faith, is being attacked.
However, any attack on Almighty God will only be allowed to go so far.

Let us not be slack in pointing out error and acting in a manner that would bring glory to our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:13 "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ"

Are you SURE that you have your place booked in Heaven? Read this if you're not!