Letter: BBC helps us forget why we mark Easter

By Letters
Published 10th Apr 2023, 06:52 BST
Updated 10th Apr 2023, 06:52 BST
Does the corporation feel safe to discard Christianity knowing the church will be silent? As at Christmas, it seems that most of society has forgotten the reason we have a holidayDoes the corporation feel safe to discard Christianity knowing the church will be silent? As at Christmas, it seems that most of society has forgotten the reason we have a holiday
Does the corporation feel safe to discard Christianity knowing the church will be silent? As at Christmas, it seems that most of society has forgotten the reason we have a holiday
A letter from Rev Paul Burns:

We are in Easter and there are bank holidays and everyone is in a happy mood. The US president arrives tomorrow to celebrate 25 years of the Good Friday agreement, however many will be sunning themselves in European destinations. The media is talking about holidays, plane flights and ferries the hotels and pubs are celebrating being able to stay open with no restrictions and making thousands of pounds on Bank Holiday Friday.

No one knows or seems to care what time of the year it is, and why it's a holiday. The church seems afraid of opening its mouth, yet Good Friday represented the greatest agreement ever, when Jesus Christ was crucified to break man's chains of bondage to sin and restore his relationship to his Father God. Only 30 years ago the BBC covered Easter with a week of films/documentaries, that was followed with a blockbuster film eg The Robe; Jesus of Nazareth or The Greatest Story Ever Told. The BBC did this as part of their requirements laid out as the national broadcaster, paid for by the licence fee, covering religious broadcasting.

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Despite declining attendances at established churches in the UK, there has been increased attendances at independent churches, with those claiming to be Christian still numbered in the millions. Yet our national broadcaster the BBC this year did not mention Christianity in Holy Week with programmes/documentaries. On Good Friday BBC2 carried a small 50 minute journey visiting monasteries with no change to its broadcasting on BBC1.

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Are millions who pay a licence fee to the BBC to be alienated at Easter? It’s as if the BBC has made a deliberate decision to not recognise the very meaning behind the bank holiday, to eradicate Jesus from Good Friday, and cause us as a nation to forget what it is about. Saddest of all is that no one seems to protest against this deliberate position taken by the BBC, or is it that the BBC feels safe today to discard Christianity in the knowledge that the church and Christians will remain silent, afraid of further persecution by liberalism/ secularism?

It seems that the BBC and most in business and society are happy to celebrate Easter as a holiday, but just like Christmas have forgotten by choice to recognise the reason they have a holiday in the first place. I contacted the BBC to be given a reply “that's programming, not the individual regions”. I ask the people of Northern Ireland/ North of Ireland have you forgotten the meaning of Easter and are you content for the BBC to ignore its true meaning?

Rev Paul S Burns, BTh (Hons.) Dip Theo, Kings Christian Fellowship Church, Sandy Row, Belfast

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