Yesterday saw two excellent defences of Christian teaching on the BBC. The Corporation, which is much too eager to forget the Christian ethos it was founded on, had both an Anglican and a Catholic on Radio 4 and they both did admirably.

“The BBC’s Bible”

A few days ago, veteran broadcaster Michael Buerk accused the Beeb of treating the Guardian newspaper “As its Bible.”

But on Tuesday morning, the station’s flagship news programme “Today” was promoting another kind of bible, A C Grayling’s “The Good Book”.

Enter the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, Canon Giles Fraser, who proceeded to demolish Grayling’s silly ideas about the Bible being a set of moral precepts “Handed down by a deity”.

You can listen to the debate here, but the best part came when Canon Fraser compared this modern effort to render the Bible as harmless philosophy to Pelagianism – a masterstroke.

Hats off to him, for doing us all a favour by helping not to give this kind of atheism the importance and fawning respect it has come to regard as its due.

It’s not over yet either

Then, only minutes later, the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols was on Start the Week show hosted by Andrew Marr.

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales spoke about the need for a new kind of localism, and the connections between faith and society.

You can hear it here, but where he really came into his own was when one of his fellow guests attacked the Church on her teaching regarding women and female ordination.

A battle won

Apart from getting the terms ‘Ordinariate’ and ‘ordained’ mixed up, the Archbishop’s interlocutor reiterated a series of accusations against the Church and its teaching on the family and children, that were little more than standard anti-Catholic boilerplate.

The Archbishop responded coolly and calmly on each count and though perhaps his ideas about the direction society should go in were a little less clear, all in all it must be considered a good day for apologists of all Christian colours.

Few, but real defenders

We should take heart from these broadcasts and wonder if these institutions’ aggressive strategy for the propagation of a secular humanism is backfiring before our eyes.

The media’s continuous opposition to public expressions of religious faith may be a blessing in disguise. It will hopefully lead to Christians who, though fewer in number than in former times, will be more able and more willing to stand and defend the faith of our fathers from all forms of attack.

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Of related interest:

	LUMEN The Catholic Gift to Civilisation – In a recent debate, broadcast worldwide by the BBC, over 87% of the audience rejected the motion that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. To set the record straight, this booklet summarises the extraordinary fruitfulness of the faith.
	Catholic Social Teaching – A Way In – The Common Good’, ‘option for the poor’ ‘subsidiarity’- concepts like these have become part of the currency of Catholic teaching, but what do they mean? What are their foundations in scripture and tradition which make them distinctively Catholic? This book examines key aspects of human social relations such as the family, the state and civil society, the world of work and justice.
	Companion to Reading the Old Testament – Catholics have always treasured the Sacred Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments, but the Old Testament can appear difficult and troublesome. This introductory booklet tackles the problems facing readers.

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