THE Rev Ernest Rea, who resigned as head of religion and ethics at the BBC in December, has launched a bitter attack on his former employers, accusing them of sidelining religion and "dancing to a secular agenda".
The controllers of British television are "children of the 1960s and 70s" who think that "the notion of God is a nonsense", says Mr Rea in his first public comments since his departure. They dislike religious broadcasting because it diverts funds from their favoured projects, and they "often mistakenly" believe it will not draw big audiences, he adds.
He is particularly critical of Jane Root, the controller of BBC2, who he says has failed to commission a single religious programme in two years, a "failure that deserves an explanation". The decision of the 55-year-old Presbyterian minister from Northern Ireland to resign reignited a long-running controversy over the BBC's commitment to religious broadcasting. Senior Church leaders have often criticised the corporation.
Mr Rea's scathing comments, in this month's Reform, the magazine of the United Reform Church, come at a particularly sensitive time because the BBC is expected to announce his successor within a fortnight. He says that whoever gets the job "has to be given teeth, so that when the channel controllers seek to renege on their commitments - and believe me they will - he or she can send them packing".
Mr Rea, who oversaw the BBC's religious output for 12 years, praises the state of religious broadcasting on radio, describing The Moral Maze as one of "the jewels in Radio 4's crown". He asks: "Why is there not a similar success story to be told in television? Why is Songs of Praise the one religious programme in British television which regularly plays in peak time?
"Why do serious religious documentaries like Everyman find themselves playing to insomniacs in the dying hours of the evening? Why was Heart of the Matter - a much loved programme which flew the flag for serious discussion of ethical issues on BBC television - banished so late in the schedules that it was incapable of winning any sizeable audience until the only decent thing to do was to chop it and put it and its production team out of their misery?
"The people who control the television industry in this country are, for the most part, children of the 1960s and 70s, secular people who accept as a given that the notion of God is a nonsense, and who regard religion as little more than an amusing but outdated phenomenon. I fail to know why it is that radio produces a breed of senior management that can recognise the importance of religion in British cultural life, while television dances to a secular agenda."
He warns that the BBC's religious broadcasting department in Manchester is in danger of becoming "an undervalued and neglected resource, with its staff suffering from lack of morale". Concern has been growing for years in the churches that the BBC has been marginalising religious programmes, scheduling them for "graveyard" slots and preferring "New Age" or fringe subjects to mainstream faith.
Mr Rea's departure followed that of the presenter of Heart of the Matter, Joan Bakewell, who left after the show was pushed into a late-night slot. Bakewell complained that priorities had changed within the BBC. When Mr Rea resigned, the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones, said that his departure was "a disaster for religious broadcasting and a triumph for Philistines".
The Church of England's General Synod has set up a monitoring unit to scrutinise the quantity, quality and scheduling of religious programmes. A report will be published in the autumn. BBC executives are thought to want to appoint an "ambassador" as the new head of religion and ethics, who can mount a charm offensive on their critics.
Church leaders are more concerned about the power and status of the role. Among those who are believed to be in line for the job are Roger Bolton, who presents Channel 4's Right to Reply and the BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme, and Christina Rees, a former member of the Church of England's Archbishops' Council and a Thought for the Day contributor.
A spokesman for the BBC dismissed Mr Rea's criticism of Ms Root, saying that she had recently commissioned a new series of religion-based programmes. She also pointed to recent successes such as Son of God, the BBC1 series broadcast over Easter in the primetime slot of 9pm.