The national broadcaster has axed the flagship Wednesday morning Religion Report as part of widespread programming changes across its Radio National arm.

The move, announced internally on Tuesday and backed by ABC Radio chief Sue Howard, was blasted by Religion Report presenter Stephen Crittenden during yesterday’s program in an extraordinary spray as “condemning Radio National to even greater irrelevance”.

This is a national disgrace.

Stephhen Crittendon is an excellent interviewer, honest, knowledgeable and willing to stray outside polite boundaries.

The fact that he wasn’t entirely sympathetic to evangelicals doesn’t in any way detract from his virtues.

Should’ve dumped this programme years ago.

Perhaps they can bring back the daily Bible reading they used to have at about quarter to eight each morning, when I were just a wee lad.

Gordon
Bearing in mind David’s initial comment, it would be of interest to hear why you are not a fan of the programme.
Bob

Well, ‘not entirely sympathetic’, as David puts it, is understatement to the point of inaccuracy. Like the SMH, the RR seems to delight in finding ‘news’ that paints Bible-believers in a bad light. The RR archives are available online and the evidence is overwhelming.

The diocese could quite feasibly do it’s own weekly radio show, and podcast it via this site.

Craig Schwarze - 16 October 2008 01:13 PM

The diocese could quite feasibly do it’s own weekly radio show, and podcast it via this site.

Hi Craig,

That reminds me of the 60’s and 70’s when David Brougton Knox ( whilst Principal of Moore College ) had a fortnightly radio segment.

“THE PROTESTANT FAITH” was broadcast every second Sunday at 9.15 p.m. over 2CH.  Copies of these fortnightly broadcasts could be be obtained by subscription from 2CH ( “$2.00 per year posted” ) - and theological students could buy them ( for the princely sum of 5 cents ) from the college office.

I don’t know if they had ratings in those days - but I don’t think his show was at the top of the listener list.

Cheers, Kevin

Goodness, to be chastised by Gordon is mortifying indeed.

I must confess to not being a regular listener of the Religion Report. My son generally alerted me to segments that he thought I would be interested in and on that basis (and some of the segments involved Sydney Anglicans and Peter Jensen) I made my comments about Stephen. I also applaud his willingness not to allow his programme to become a vehicle for Muslim exceptionalism.

I know that anything the media does on religion will demonstrate ignorance, derision, hostility in some measure directed toward orthodox expressions of religion. That is a given.

Given that assessment I stand by my description of the axing of the programme as a disgrace. Whatever our views of Stephen Crittenden, the ABC has axed its only significant reporting of current issues with a religion bent to them. As a Christian of Reformed and evangelical views I believe religion has every right and responsibility to be in the public domain. I think we ought to be far more active there than we are. Whilst the Religion Report may have been a very inadequate expression of religious thought yet it represented acknowledgement by our public broadcaster of religion’s right to be in the public square.

I listened to Driscoll’s 18 points (or at least read the summary). His analysis is not the last word. Evangelism is not the only task we have. The early Church through the Church Fathers went out into the public domain in apologetic, not evangelistic mode to defend Christianity, to promote the Christian way of life and to answer the pagans and gnostics. Right now there is a determined attempt to silence the Christian voice in the public square.

The Human Rights Commission has just announced the innocuously named National Religious Freedom Review with noted multiculturalists Professors Desmond Cahill and Gary Bouma and Dr Hass Dellal, foes of orthodox Christianity, as principal researchers.

At the launch of the National Religious Freedom Review, we discovered Mr Calma, Race Relations Commissioner noting (and this was reported on ABC News) that there is “evidence of a growing fundamentalist religious lobby in areas such as same-sex relationships, stem-cell research and abortion”. Now just who is concerned about “same-sex relationships, stem-cell research and abortion”. In other words there may be Muslim fundamentalists but there certainly are Christian fundamentalists which means the great bulk of the Church is fundamentalist, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant given the current reaction of the Churches and individual Christians to the Victorian Government’s Decriminalisation of Abortion legislation.

Mr Calma is not a shy man when interviewed on radio:

“Does religious belief influence policies being determined in any country, particularly in our country?” he said.

Mr Calma says there is a balance to be struck between the freedom to practice a religion and not pushing those beliefs on the rest of society.”

So whilst the Religion Report may have been unhelpful yet its demise fits with the attempt to push Christians out of the public square.

Well we won’t be pushed out, but perhaps some of you think it doesn’t matter?

Gordon Cheng - 16 October 2008 11:51 AM

Perhaps they can bring back the daily Bible reading they used to have at about quarter to eight each morning, when I were just a wee lad.

I’m sorry to disagree Gordon, but this is a totally inadequate response.

There, I’ve broken our friendship!

There is no doubt that Stephen Crittenden does not favour strongly held orthodox belief, and I have often been frustrated by the program’s one sided reporting of stories (e.g. when he covered our synod debate on women’s ordination this week, MOW’s voice was the only one heard, there was no attempt to provide any balance). I was also annoyed by the over-emphasis on Roman Catholic stories.

However, I’m not happy about the show being axed (along with the Media and Sport reports).

I think it’s a short sighted decision by the ABC and I agree with Stephen’s statement that it’ll make Radio National even more irrelevant - I’ll have no reason to listen to it any more.

Have they managed to keep Rachel Coen’s “The Spirit of Things” while axing the Religion Report?  If you were comparing the two I would rather they kept the Religion Report rather than the other.

While they are at the staff cuts could some one please take Phillip Adams’s show out to the woodshed?  It is self-indulgent twaddle!

At his best he is okay and has a good radio voice. But at his worst - which is most of the time he is self serving and pompous. Mind you if you want religion on RN why not tune into our own Dr Phil? For a setlled atheist he is always banging on about Christianity to the point of tedium.

Crittendon is first and foremost a journalist and because of that he often attacks an issue to find a controversial edge, which may not necessarily be what you want to hear.  He called me one day shortly after the National School Chaplaincy Program was announced and when I said there wasn’t any great dissent here in WA he went looking in other states until he found dissent, then ran that as the story.

I strongly support David Palmer’s position that Christians, as a large sector of society, should have a place in the public domain for the discussion of matters that concern them.  Since the inception of the ABC it has been agreed that religious matters fall within its special brief to reflect the diversity of Australian life.  Yes, there have been periods of controversy, but it has always been there.

The Religion Report was the flagship but The Ark, the Spirit of Things, the Rythm Divine, For the God Who Sings, Encounter and Compass were all worthy constituents of the Religious Broadcasting Fleet.

What I’ve always objected to about the ABC’s coverage of religion is that it focusses only on the controversial, and not on people’s practice of their faith as a part of everyday life.  Imagine if Sport was reported in the same way religion was:  there’d be an excessive focus on people who want to tinker with the AFL rules, and don’t agree with them; there’d be programmes in which AFL and Rugby were given equal time with say - Lacrosse or Curling (minority sports in Oz); all you’d ever hear about the West Coast Eagles was the Ben Cousins drugs scandal - you’d never actually got to see the Eagles playing a football game.

Even though hundreds of thousands of Australians attend churches, this aspect of our national life is simply ignored, until one of them does something out of the ordinary - only then does it get reported.  We need an Australian version of “Songs of Praise” in which religious faith is treated as an authentic and regular part of national life - perhaps the ABC could visit a different church each week (and occasionally a temple or mosque I guess) and report what they are doing and how they worship.

Programmes like The Religion Report faithfully stick to the “religion is newsworthy only if controversial” script - you only get in the news if you buck the system.  A parish which is winning souls for Christ and preaching the gospel - not reported at all; one where the Bible is trashed, and any tom dick or harriet ordained - front page headlines. 

I don’t see that we aren’t better off without this kind of coverage.

David Palmer - 16 October 2008 07:08 PM

Gordon Cheng - 16 October 2008 11:51 AM

Perhaps they can bring back the daily Bible reading they used to have at about quarter to eight each morning, when I were just a wee lad.

I’m sorry to disagree Gordon, but this is a totally inadequate response.

There, I’ve broken our friendship!

A cup of tea when we’re in the same city will make all amends, David. ;-)

For the sake of completeness, here’s Hendry Wan’s letter in the Age…

Or no great loss…

IT WOULD be fair to say that Christianity has been reported to death, even if sometimes inaccurately or prejudiciously. The world views of other religions, whether on private or public affairs of the day, continue to be under-reported by the secular media. Then again, taking lessons from how Christianity is often pilloried, adherents of other faiths may be relieved to stay under the radar.

If the public is to know anything about the views across various religions, then those views need to be publicly articulated. The media can assist by giving space for their articulation and by reporting more widely on religion.

ABC Radio National’s The Religion Report was so obsessed with the Judeo-Christian tradition that the program should have been more appropriately titled Christianity Watch. The ABC’s cancellation of the program is no loss to our greater understanding of religion in Australian society.

Hendry Wan, Matraville, NSW