How we’re implementing our Religion Review

Last Monday, I spoke at the launch of Morality In The 21st Century, which ran last week on Radio 4 and is available on the BBC iPlayer Radio app.

In it, presenter Jonathan Sacks asks whether we still have space for morality. It’s a big idea and a complex subject, so we’ve taken time to explore it in depth.

The Telegraph’s Jemima Lewis called it “terrific” and said “exactly what I want from a public service broadcaster – a huge can of difficult questions prised open by a determined mind”.

When we reviewed our religious output at the end of last year, we said we wanted to help people celebrate, interrogate and understand the world around them through the lens of different beliefs and religions.

We’ve always done this – through programmes like Pause for Thought, The Big Questions, Thought For The Day and the Moral Maze.

But our review committed the BBC to doing more, and we’ve started implementing its recommendations.

We’ve appointed Martin Bashir as the BBC’s Religion Editor. He’s already having an impact, whether accompanying the Pope, examining President Trump’s links to American evangelicals or returning to Manchester to see how faith leaders are helping the city heal.

We’re recruiting a new global religious news team, funded by the World Service.

Religion and ethics has been a strong area of focus for TV too with programmes like Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago, Stacey Dooley: Face to Face With ISIS and We Are British Jews.

We’re trying to reach younger audiences too. Every survey tells us they care about spirituality. That’s why we’ve experimented with CBeebies animation Treasure Champs; Radio One documentaries for BBC iPlayer like Gangs, Drill & Prayer and the BBC Three comedy Man Like Mobeen and the BBC News Crossing Divides series.

And there’s more to come in 2019 – watch this space…