Updated and enlarged July 26, 2007 (first published October 24, 2001) (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) -

I live overseas and in 2001 I purchased a shortwave radio to get some international news. The area in which I am located has poor reception, and ordinarily the only English-speaking network I receive clearly is BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). After listening to BBC each morning for a couple of weeks, I now consider it the Bad Broadcasting Corporation.

Consider some of the topics that have been featured:

** A report on homosexuals in sports, which emphasized the alleged normality of homosexuality and which stated that it is erroneous and hurtful to treat homosexuality as a moral perversion.

** A report on evolution, which stated dogmatically that the universe is 13 million (or billion, I am not sure which – both are equally silly) years old, that it is continuing to evolve since the time of the “big bang,” and which completely contradicted and ignored the Bible’s teaching on man’s origins.

** A report on women’s rights, which stated that making abortion illegal is anti-woman because it supposedly forces them to kill their unborn children in back alleys.

** An interview with the author of “God: A Biography,” in which he stated that the doctrine that Jesus Christ is God is “rubbish” and that he believes that God himself is not perfect, but makes mistakes and grows. The BBC interviewer treated all of this blasphemy with great respect and tenderness, agreeing with the author that the Bible can be “true” even though its history and theology is (allegedly) fictional.

** A report on the worship of the goddess Durga in India, the goddess of blood and violence, in which that abominable Hindu idol is treated as just another legitimate and innocent way to serve God.

** Almost daily reports implying that Israel is the culprit in the Palestinian situation.

** Many reports implying that America is wrong for not stopping the bombing in Afghanistan to allow aid to move freely and for otherwise questioning America’s attempt to defend itself against a fierce enemy that has vowed its destruction.

Other examples of BBC’s extreme liberal bias are as follows:

In December 2002, on the Sunday before Christmas, the BBC aired a documentary questioning the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. The program proposed three alternatives to the virgin birth: that Mary and Joseph had sexual relations before their marriage, that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier, and that she became pregnant by an unidentified man. The blasphemous program was mis-titled “The Virgin Mary.”

In March 2004 the BBC aired a television program that denied the biblical account of Noah and the worldwide flood. The program “Noah’s Ark” claimed that it would have been impossible for Noah to build the massive boat described in Genesis. The program presenter Jeremy Bowen said, “The traditional notion of the Noah story does not pass any sort of rational or historical test. Maybe it was not meant to; maybe it was made up.” Bowen interviewed various “experts” who supported his liberal view. In fact, there is nothing difficult to believe in the biblical account of the flood. There is geological evidence of such a flood, as has been documented by scientists affiliated with the Institute for Creation Research and other creation science organizations. It has been shown that the ark described in Genesis was large enough to contain all of the animals that were necessary to preserve the various species. To deny the universal flood of Noah’s day is to deny the Bible and Jesus Christ. In Luke 17:26-27, Jesus mentioned the flood of Noah’s day and said that it destroyed all men, just as Genesis says. Noah and the flood are also mentioned in Hebrews 11 and in 1 Peter 3:20 and 2 Peter 2:5 and 3:5-6. When I have a choice between believing the BBC and believing the Bible, the decision is simple.

In November 2004 the British Broadcasting Network’s Governors Complaints Committee ruled that a program called Cyderdelic was blasphemous. The comedy show included “a sexually explicit reference to Jesus” and a crucifix covered in dung. Reflecting the humanistic liberalism of the BBC today, the complaint was originally rejected by the BBC’s complaint department. It was only admitted to be blasphemous when considered by a review board.

In January 2005 senior BBC radio producer Antony Pitts resigned in protest of the broadcast of the blasphemous musical “Jerry Springer--The Opera.” In his resignation letter he said: “Having now watched the show in its entirety and the hour-long introductory broadcast, my conclusion was that the blasphemy was far, far worse than even the most detailed news reports had led me to believe. ... I feel a corporate responsibility for what has happened -- aggravated by the fact that the BBC did not give sufficient attention to the overwhelming level of listener protest in advance.” Examples of the blasphemy included “the ridiculing of the figure of Jesus on the cross, dressed to imply sexual perversion” and “the repeated mockery of the wounds of Jesus, linked to acts of crudeness.” Pitts quoted legal authorities that defined blasphemy as “contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, or the Bible” (“BBC Producer Resigns,” The Guardian, Jan. 12). We applaud Mr. Pitts’ courage of conviction. The hypocritical BBC would not dream of broadcasting something along these lines dealing with Mohammed.  

In October 2006, in fact, senior figures in the BBC admitted in an internal memo that it is “guilty of promoting left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment” (“BBC Confesses Bias on Religion, Politics,” WorldNetDaily, Oct. 23, 2006). “Most executives admitted the corporation’s representation of homosexuals and ethnic minorities was unbalanced and disproportionate, YnetNews.com said. The British news agency, the report said, leaned too strongly towards political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism, anti-Americanism and discrimination against the countryside.”

On April 4, 2007, just in time for Easter, BBC Radio 4 aired an interview with Anglican priest Jeffrey John, who said the idea that Jesus died in our place is “insane.” John, the dean of St. Albans, is a homosexual who was “married” to his male partner in August 2006 under the new British law. He rejected the traditional Bible doctrine of “substitutionary atonement,” that says that Christ died on the cross as the substitute to pay the price demanded by God’s law for sins. He called it “repulsive as well as nonsensical,” saying, “It makes God sound like a psychopath” (“Idea Christ Died for Sins ‘Insane,’” WorldNetDaily, April 1, 2007).

The British Broadcasting World Service in Arabic on the radio is very anti-Western. Frank Stewart, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, warns: For example, a 50-minute BBC Arabic Service discussion program about torture discussed only one specific allegation, which came from the head of an organization representing some 90 Saudis imprisoned at Guantanamo. This speaker stated that the prisoners were subject to horrible forms of torture an suggested that three inmates reported by the United States to have committed suicide were actually killed. Another participant insisted that the two countries guilty of torturing political prisoners on the largest scale were Israel and the United States. The authoritarian regimes and armed militants of the Arab world get sympathetic treatment on BBC Arabic. When Saddam Hussein was in power, he was a great favorite of the service, which reported as straight news his re-election to a seven-year term in 2002, when he got 100 percent of the vote. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria enjoys similar favor. when a State Department representative referred to Syria as a dictatorship, his BBC interviewer immediately interrupted and reprimanded him. The Arabic Service not only shields Arab leaders from criticism but also tends to avoid topics they might find embarrassing: human rights, the role of security forces, corruption and censorship. ... If the BBC models its Arabic television service on its Arabic radio service, yet another anti-Western anti-democratic channel will find its place on the Arab screen” (“Bad News for the US,” Frank Stewart, New York Times, March 2007).

My friends, beware of the Bad Broadcasting Corporation.

Of course CNN and most other mainstream news agencies are guilty of the same gross bias. Consider how they portray America’s war against terror (or America in general) or the abortion issue or the Bible or Jesus Christ or Israel or environmentalism or homosexuality or animal rights or communism or any of a number of other issues.