The BBC once again broadcasts a programme that tears into a Christian Church as Dotun Adebayo presents a programme about the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ Church.
An interesting programme about a Church that I had never heard of and probably one meriting a look at its activities….but as I said…once again the BBC goes for the Christians.
The programme tells us …..
‘The Bible says you cannot serve both God and Mammon but in this programme the BBC explores the rise of a movement within Christianity which turns that piece of scripture on its head…Christianity can make you rich…material wealth is a sign of God’s blessing in the Church that preaches ‘Prosperity Gospel’.
Prosperity Gospel is based upon purity…if you are good and behave as a Christian God will bless you and that blessing will primarily be and fundamentally be economic.
It is a canon within a canon…some parts of scripture are more important than others….and their interpretation of the Bible is based more on the Old Testament than the New with a selective use of scripture that contradicts the overall message of the Gospel.
We are told that Prosperity Gospel began in the Pentecostal Church in 1950’s America before travelling via evangelism and the satellite to Africa and then to Britain via immigration….the migrants being mostly West African who came to Britain looking for a brighter more prosperous future and so are fertile ground for this type of message which for ‘people of faith’ has a unique and powerful appeal promising people what governments don’t dare.
Where there is faith there is hope…but it comes with a price tag.
Dotun says that: ‘I’ve got to be honest, I’m not comfortable with the mantra of Prosperity Gospel…it makes me queasy…maybe it’s the religious fundamentalism of the 7th Day Adventism of my Nigerian upbringing or the cultural modesty of my English side…I just don’t feel comfortable with the bling and the brashness of Churches which make a virtue of cashing in and a fortune from it too….I want to know why the message connects with so many people.’
A couple of things that are of note…firstly a presenter who is personally uncomfortable with the subject….having said that, by the end of the programme he says he sort of gets it…the appeal of the message…and the justification of it.
Secondly Mark Thompson refused to cover Islam in a similar fashion dby elving into its inner workings, critiquing what the preachers of Islam claim and what the message of the Koran is.
First of all he said that you had to be more wary when covering a subject about which its followers might object to your portrayal of it:
‘In a wide-ranging interview about faith and broadcasting, Mr Thompson disclosed that producers were faced with the possibilities of “violent threats” instead of normal complaints if they broadcast certain types of satire:
“Without question, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms’, is different from, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write’”.
But he had another reason to be wary of covering certain subjects:
“The idea you might want to … think quite carefully about whether something done ‘in the name of freedom of expression’ might to the Jew, or the Sikh, or the Hindu, or the Muslim, who receives it, feel threatening, isolating and so forth, I think those are meaningful considerations.”
“It’s not as if Islam is spread evenly across the UK population. It’s almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against and where they may well regard an attack on their religion, racism by other means….it’s not unreasonable to ask what the consequences of broadcasting something, or writing something will be for a particular individual or for a community, especially communities who may reasonably – I think that’s perhaps an important word to use – reasonably take the thing to be an attack, or to be threatening.”
So Thompson suggests that a minority or ethnic based religion should be given more sensitive treatment that say Christianity.
And yet here we have a programme that takes a highly critical look at a Church which has a congregation that is almost totally West African in origin….in other word an ethnic minority.
Once again it looks as if the rules are changed just because it is a Christian Church.
The BBC were quite happy to characterise Buddhism as a religion of violence…..and here our old ‘new friend’ Jake Wallis Simons tells us on R4 that he left Buddhism because of its violence…..its ‘darker side’….other religions the BBC are more coy about.
This is what the Guardian says about ‘Prosperity Gospel‘:
‘For young, healthy, anxious strivers who need reinforcement in the face of discouragement, the prosperity gospel is a much less harmful way of escaping the world than either drugs or gambling, and will not make them nearly as poor as those do, even if it never makes them rich.
But no matter how I argue that these rites may be largely harmless when practised by consenting adults, I still find them disgusting.’
The Guardian finds the message of this Church ‘disgusting’…they wouldn’t dare say that about other religions.
And nor would the BBC.
It’s a much more thoughtful discussion than the “Islam haz gunz and frites us” summary usually given here. And it’s worth noticing that programmes have offended Muslims in the past, it’s just the Mail and Telegraph didn’t notice and also that the largest number of threats of violence against BBC staff came from Christians. http://freespeechdebate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Mark-Thompson1.pdf
What was the last BBC programme that offended Muslims, and when was the last one that the BBC didn’t feel obliged to apologise for afterwards?
Also, were any of these BBC programmes attacking the Muslim faith (as they often do with Christianity) rather than just telling the story about some individuals’ “interpretation” of their religion?
The number of threats referred to are as a result of Jerry Springer the opera, the BBC producer of that artistic master piece admitted, on Newsnight, that the nature of such threats had been greatly exaggerated And that he hadn’t really received a death threat
Regardless of what Minitruth say now I watched it at the time
And those programs that offended Muslims in past. Perhaps you like to tell us what they were and what the out come was
INBBC never mentions morality issues of e.g. Islam and Arab oil billionaires.
“Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.”
New book by Raymond Ibrahim.
(‘Look inside.’)
A presenter openly uncomfortable with the subject of his reporting? Sign him up for the US division of BBC News.
Oh, yes… that dunderhead Jake Wallis Simons of the BBC/Telegraph who said in the Daily Telegraph that a page on Facebook, set up to raise money for Help for Heroes in Lee Rigby’s name was, on no evidence whatsoever, an EDL page. The Telegraph closed comments on his blog but thousands went over to his Facebook page and gave the fool a terrific and well-deserved roasting such that he had to delete his page. The offensive article is still there and should be taken down. I won’t forget your name and what you did Jake Wallis Simons! On a more pleasing note, the RIP Woolwich Soldier Facebook Page has now raised over £110,000 for Help for Heroes.
Peter