Dear Geraldine [the presenter]

July 20, 2010

My name is Rowan Forster. I was an Australian Broadcasting Corporation employee for almost 30 years from 1978-2007. My roles included radio and television news reporter, current affairs presenter with Radio Australia, sports presenter, AFL football commentator, and for seven years, morning newsreader on 774 ABC Melbourne (formerly 3LO). I am currently in temporary retirement after recovering from illness.

I am writing to inflict upon you some impressions in response to Sunday night’s (18/07) broadcast of “Christianity — A History: Part 6”. [In doing so, I realise you would have had no input whatsoever into the content of this series, or others like it from the BBC or from elsewhere.]

The main observation I would make is that Sunday night’s episode (as was the case with many, most, or perhaps all of its predecessors) was so subjective on the part of the presenter/ narrator, and so blatantly selective in its content, as to present a highly distorted and hence substantially unreliable (mis)-representation of its subject matter.

If you were to believe last night’s episode, most — if not perhaps even all — Western or European missionaries were violent, gun-toting [“they arrived with Bibles in one hand and guns in the other”], forcefully and imperially colonialistic, and/or (at least in Africa) slave-trading.

To the best of my recollection, this last claim (of slave trading by missionaries) was not substantiated by the specific identification of a single missionary, group of missionaries, or missionary agency or organisation, who/which initiated, supported, advocated, or engaged in the slave trade. There was much generalisation but little or no substantiation.

What was carefully and conveniently omitted was any reference to the fact that one of the greatest and most famous missionaries and explorers in all history — Dr.David Livingstone — “found, to his indignant horror, that slave traders [not missionaries (-RF)] were using his discoveries to extend their activities.” (Source: Dictionary of World Biography, by Barry Jones, p.461.)

According to another source: “Livingstone was determined to try and stamp out the dreadful slave trade. His hatred of this trade constantly spurred him on to renewed efforts, in the hope that promotion of the right kind of economic activity would eventually replace this evil. Among the last words he wrote were: ‘May heaven’s rich blessing come down on everyone who will help to heal this open sore of the world.'” (Source: “70 Great Christians Changing the World”, by Geoffrey Hanks, pp 191-193.)

Not only did the presenter/narrator omit any mention of Livingstone’s revulsion toward the slave trade (or that of many other Christians who also opposed it, such as William Wilberforce), he didn’t even mention Livingstone at all — a most curious and glaring omission from a program purporting to critique the Christian missionary movement.

Nor — and perhaps by now I shouldn’t have been surprised — did he mention another equally renowned missionary to Africa, Dr.Albert Schweitzer, winner of countless awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. Another, less well known but nonetheless outstanding and redoubtable missionary to Africa who was also conspicuous by her absence was Mary Slessor of Calabar. And there were many others.

Now you would think that a critique of the missionary movement would mention at least a few of the more famous Christian missionaries — that is, at least, the great majority who were not gun-toting, slave-trading, imperialistic colonizers.

But no. To the best of my recollection, there was not a single mention of a single well known western Christian missionary in the traditional and widely accepted understanding of the term (ie, Christian missionary).

You might have expected, for example, that such a program might, at the very least, have mentioned the man widely acknowledged as the father, or founder, of the modern missionary movement, namely William Carey. But no — not a mention. And I repeat — this is supposed to be a critique of the missionary movement.

Other well-known missionaries to India whose omissions were similarly conspicuous included Wellesly Bailey (founder of the Leprosy Mission — no doubt omitted lest any mention of this mission might reveal the truth that Christian missionaries were doing a power of good among lepers whom no-one else would go near), Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, Stanley Jones, missionary-surgeon Dr.Paul Brand, and Australian missionary-martyr Graham Staines, to name but a few.

The great missionaries to China, including J.Hudson Taylor, C.T.Studd (also an English test cricketer), Lottie Moon, Gladys Aylward (the inspiration for the film “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness”) and Eric Liddell (of “Chariots of Fire” fame), were also conspicuous by their absence. And the same could be said for many hundreds of missionaries who travelled to distant lands in all corners of the earth to preach the Christian Gospel without a gun in their hand, without any notion or intention of trading in slaves, and without any notion of imperialistic conquest.

Making such a documentary without mentioning the likes of Livingstone, Schweitzer, Slessor, Carey, Carmichael, Jones, Hudson Taylor, Studd and Aylward, can be likened to making a documentary about Australian Prime Ministers without mentioning Curtin, Chifley, Menzies, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating or Howard. It’s a very precise parallel.

So the question must be asked — why would the narrator/presenter cobble together a so-called critique of the Christian missionary movement without mentioning any of history’s best known western Christian missionaries?

The answer can only be that the facts didn’t suit his highly subjective presuppositions and personal biases, which, incidentally, he made little or no attempt to conceal.

Now let me be clear. I’m not suggesting the Christian missionary movement has always been perfect in every way. There were certainly some manifestations of it that were driven, at least in part, by colonialism, particularly in the earlier years; and there were undoubtedly regrettable instances of misguided cultural insensitivity. (Having said that, I must say I was more than a little surprised when the narrator of Sunday night’s episode sounded as if he was actually lamenting the loss of the ancient Mayan practice of ritual human sacrifice to appease the gods. Did I really hear that correctly?)

The point I’m seeking to make is that there wasn’t the slightest shred of any attempt at anything remotely approaching balance. And, to the best of my recollection, this has been the case with most or all of the previous episodes.

And having seen the “teaser” for next week’s episode on Christianity and science — including a pithy and punchy quote from devout atheist Richard Dawkins — I have every expectation that next week’s episode will be no different.

[I’m reminded of a three-part BBC series that was broadcast on Compass in November 2001. It was titled “Son of God”, and one of its remarkable features was that at no point throughout its entire duration did it make the slightest attempt to address the question of whether Jesus was actually the Son of God. It totally ignored its own title. Go back and watch it again if you don’t believe me. (I had an article on it published in the Faith column of the Melbourne Age on December the 8th of that year, titled “More Than an Angry Revolutionary”.)]

So Geraldine, I guess my question is: What recourse does the average viewer have, if she or he perceives that gross distortion and/or misrepresentation has been perpetrated, and allowed to pass entirely unchallenged, with not even the semblamce of presenting a different or opposing or balancing position?

And secondly, what responsibility does, or should, the producers of Compass have in terms of ensuring at least some attempt is made at approaching something resembling balance?

I realise this is difficult with pre-packaged programs coming direct from the BBC (or elsewhere). Perhaps one option would be, at the end of such a series, to devote an episode of Compass to a panel discussion, with the panel being comprised of articulate and credible holders of a range of viewpoints and at least a modicum of expertise in the relevant subject area — ably and charmingly moderated, of course, by your good self.

What do you think?

Warm regards and best wishes,

Rowan Forster.

****

More… [Part 2]:

Dear Geraldine,

There’s one important element I omitted from my previous email, and one which was most certainly omitted from Sunday night’s program, and that is the martyrdom of the many missionaries who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the Gospel. It’s been said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”, and that’s certainly true of missionary martyrs in particular.

Both the sacrifice of missionaries who were put to death, and the sacrifice of missionaries who lived to keep on spreading Christ’s Gospel of love and forgiveness, make complete and utter nonsense of the summary in a local TV guide which said “the spread of Christianity as the world’s most prolific religion had very little to do with missionary zeal”.

I did mention in passing [in my previous email] the martyrdom of Australian missionary Graham Staines. I know you are well familiar with this story, having narrated the excellent documentary “Death of a Missionary”. (I will never forget the profoundly moving moment when Graham’s widow Gladys emerges from their missionary compound to welcome the leaders of the travelling cavalcade of Indian religious leaders and academics, and quotes to them the words of Jesus, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” in reference to the Hindu extremists who had murdered her husband and two sons.)

I do not have immediately to hand an estimate of the number of Christian missionaries who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of the Gospel, but I suspect the number would be in the many hundreds, if not thousands. Yet anyone watching Sunday night’s program could have been forgiven for thinking it was the missionaries who did all of the killing, when in fact it was they who did most of the dying.

I will mention two examples in closing. Firstly, the death of Australian-born missionary Stan Dale, whose martyrdom in [Papua-]New Guinea is recounted in Don Richardson’s amazing book “Lords of the Earth”.

And secondly, the deaths of the so-called Auca five, who were killed by Auca natives in Ecuador on January 8th, 1956. Their names were Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming and Roger Youderian. They were armed with guns, but apparently did not defend themselves when attacked by tribesmen with primitive wooden spears.

The martyrdom of these men, and the fact that the wives and families of some of them (most notably Jim Elliot’s widow Elisabeth) stayed on to minister to the very natives who had killed their loved ones, resulted in many or most of the Auca tribes-people becoming Christians, and many more besides as a result of reading Elisabeth Elliot’s books.

And there are countless similar stories from all over the world, over many centuries.

The failure of Sunday night’s program to give even a token acknowledgement of the massive impact of the missionary martyrs throughout history, serves to further reinforce the inescapable conclusion that the presenter/narrator had a very subjective and blatantly biased agenda that no amount of objective, historical fact was going to get in the way of.

One last small point. I missed the first five or ten minutes (due to switching over a bit late from the Bob Hawke telemovie), so if any of these matters was covered near the start, I am happy to stand (or sit) corrected. [And I can’t help repeating my amazement that the presenter/narrator seemed to be lamenting the end of the time honoured practice of ritual human sacrifice for the appeasement of the gods.]

Best wishes,

Rowan Forster.