The PBS network has announced that it will next year present three documentaries exploring faith and the varieties of religious expression in the United States.
Andrew Graystone says that the new Head of Religion could be a Muslim or a Methodist, a Hindu or a Humanist - as long as they believe something and believe it with a passion.
Calls for the BBC's new head of religion and ethics to be a Christian as if by right or necessity are wrong, says Sunny Hundal. Public broadcasting should be open to all and not beholden to narrow lobbies.
In what is being heralded as a breakthrough, an important new committee at the BBC that will consult on religious broadcasting is to include a humanist.
BBC chief Mark Thompson has given a robust defence of the Corporation's engagement with religion. Those who say the BBC is anti-Christian, or alternatively that it is broadcasting religious propaganda, are wrong, he says.
Two Bishops yesterday suggested that without 'strong and vibrant public service content', broadcasting after the digital switchover could 'sow confusion and mistrust rather than aid public enlightenment and social cohesion'.
A Church of England and a Roman Catholic Bishop have called on the BBC to 'include religion' on Radio 1, saying that the current state of affairs is the 'most striking exclusion of religion from the BBC 's output'.
Ekklesia has responded to the suggestion made today by the Anglican Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Senior Church of England spokesperson on Communications and Bishop John Arnold
While the Catholic Cardinal and the Church of England, or at least its two archbishops, are perceived to be at war with the government over one set of public services, in relation to the equalities agenda, yesterday (25 January 2007) they set their face in favour of a public service ethos in relation to broadcasting.