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Christian Voice and Premier Radio

When the BBC decided to show "Jerry Springer: The Opera" a few months ago Christian Voice campaigned with Premier Christian Radio to have the programme banned. However, these two Christian groups now seem to be on opposite sides.

Peter Kerridge Chief Executive of Premier Radio has issued a Press Release indicating that they had written to the BBC expressing concern about the groups 'fundamentalist' views and that they were being allowed to communicate these via Stephen Green's, National Director of Christian Voice, appearance on the BBC programme "Question Time" last week.

Peter Kerridge said:

“From previous experience, the BBC are aware of Stephen Green’s reputation for making inflammatory comments and we are concerned that the motivation to have him as a panellist on Question Time is to provoke further provocative and extreme comments which BBC viewers may assume represent mainstream Christian opinion."

Two things seem to come out of this to me:

1. The BBC seemed to be setting up Stephen Green in order to 'get their own back'. As the chairman kept saying, "There was no question on Jerry Springer: the Opera", but that did not stop them dealing with it in a hostile way for 5 minutes or more.

2. Surely Premier checked out the fundamentalist views of Stephen Green before they campaigned with him? They should therefore not be surprised now. As Peter Kerridge challenged the BBC at the start of the Press Release, he:

"... called on the BBC today to clearly define the opinions of individual Christian leaders as their own and not allow an individual’s views to be perceived as the views of the majority of Christians."

May be Premier needs to look at their own programming though and decide who they are prepared to give a voice to and what a weeks programming would lead its listeners to believe. I am not sure that they are giving a clear lead in this area; there are a number of programmes that we regularly get complaints about and of course there is always the factor that unless you can afford it you do not have a voice.

Stephen Green also seems to be upset and said in his own Press Release:

"I can't see any evidence of any love or unity of Spirit whatsoever in the Premier Press Release. Christian Voice has always supported Premier in their various battles, simply because they are fellow believers. We would defend and unite... if they came under fire. To have Peter Kerridge... reward that support by condemning us out of hand, with no prior warning, in public, in this unbecoming way, certainly feels like a betrayal."

He later goes on to say:

"To be honest, I am still shocked by the attack. I had no idea there was such animosity to me and to Christian Voice festering in the Premier Radio headquarters. Evangelical Christians are used to attacks from the world (John 15:18), but to be hated and stabbed in the back by one's brothers is very hard to take.".

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