A lecture that sets out the argument for:
1) That there has been little reconsideration of the role religious broadcastingshould play since the days of Lord Reith.
2) That, because of an inherited culture, and a managerial patronage, there has been an inadequate development from tradition Christian communication into religious Broadcasting.
3) That, in accepting the intellectual perspective of current gatekeepers - those people who commission and schedule programmes - much religious broadcasting has failed to accept or to take into consideration the role faith plays in the lives of people.
This lecture was chaired by The Revd Professor John Bowker.
Former Head of Religious Broadcasting, BBC World Service
Revd John Bowker was the Gresham Professor of Divinty between 1992 and 1997.
His former positions include a Dean and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster.
Upon his appointment to the Divinity Professorship in 1992, Revd Bowker wrote the following:
Thomas Gresham's concern that the New Learning should be made more widely known is continued now by the College. The speed at which our own 'new learning' increases makes the attempt to mediate its nature and impact all the more necessary. In the case of religion and theology (which together underlie Divinity), I intend to explore the new ways in which both the dangers and the truths of religion have come to be better understood in recent years; and to do this in a way which encourages dialogue with and between the religions.
