An Evident Cultural Cringe
Charles Johnson
Tue Feb 7, 2006 at 7:24 pm PST • Views: 360
BBC site guilty of ‘cringeing’. (Hat tip: Van Impe.)
The BBC said last night that it would review a religious website after being accused by a former head of the corporation of an “evident cultural cringe” in a section on Islam.
Will Wyatt, the chief executive for three years until 1999, examined the site on religion and ethics and found that it was “written as fact” that Mohammed met an angel.
The site states: “One night in 610 he was meditating in a cave on the mountain when he was visited by the angel Jibreel who ordered him to ‘recite’… words which he came to understand were words of God.”
The site, seemingly written by a devout Muslim, stated without reservation that Mohammed was “generally accepted as the true, final prophet of God”.
Mr Wyatt, an atheist, said that he had no axe to grind, and was struck by how much more different - “and accurate” - the BBC’s description of Christianity was, where the birth of Jesus was mentioned as being “believed by Christians” and that Jesus “claimed” that he spoke with the authority of God.
A BBC spokesman said: “We will have a look at the wording on the site.”
Frank says: