20 July 2001, 01:07am IST
MARGARETTE DRISCOLL.
The appointment of the bbc's new head of religious broadcasting has been generally greeted with derision. alan bookbinder, a gentle, soft-spoken man, is not a churchgoer nor even (heavens!) a believer. it has been suggested that his contribution to "religious" output might be to replace songs of praise with songs of healthy scepticism or produce the amoral maze. he has been lambasted by simon jenkins in the times, who damned his lack of religious conviction as a weakening of "the british cultural gene". the church of england has given him a lukewarm welcome, proclaiming itself "moderately relaxed" at his arrival. the man himself is quietly amused at this furore. he was cheered up by the chief rabbi, dr jonathan sacks, who told him that being roasted by the times was a badge of honour. his reply to sceptics is robust. to paraphrase bill clinton: it's the programmes, stupid. bookbinder, 45, may not be a dog-collared traditionalist but he does have a track record of producing award-winning bbc blockbusters, including brain story and the human body, presented by lord winston. he believes the only way religious broadcasting can reassert itself in the schedules is by producing material that can "punch its weight" at 9 pm, the holy grail for programme makers. though religious affairs have been turfed off to bbc2 (except for songs of praise), bookbinder's aim is to wrench them out of the graveyard slot and back to prime time. to do it, he says, they must produce programmes that "touch, delight, stimulate and sometimes annoy the audience". he points out that the recent series son of god ran at 9 pm and that everyman is being returned to the slot after a brief exile to the late-night gulag. though bookbinder is not a religious man, faith played a key part in his upbringing. he is the son of a jewish father and roman catholic mother who married in manchester in the 1950s when such liaisons were frowned upon. both his grandfathers were opposed to the match and, though they came round in the end, "i was aware of religion being a troubled area, an area where dilemmas and conflicts could occur". bookbinder says his parents never lost their sense of identity - "that travels with you" - but they gave up active practice of their respective religions. he describes himself now as an "open-hearted agnostic", sympathetic towards religious belief but without it himself. "i have not ruled out the possibility that one day it might come to me but religious belief is a gift, not a choice," he says. "we can't choose our gifts." he and his girlfriend of 17 years have two children, aged six and eight, neither of them baptised. "though only 10% of us are churchgoers, in a broad sense britain is still a christian country," he says. "as far as the children are concerned it's important to me that they know the bible stories, the christian calendar and the main beliefs and festivals of other faiths. i would like them to learn consideration, tolerance, patience. "in terms of religious belief i am happy that they have a broad-minded education that gives them a perspective on different religions." in some senses, he believes his lack of religious conviction will be an advantage. "it's good that i can stand back and be sure to treat all faiths with equal empathy," he says. "but i do accept that when people say faith gives you a particular perspective on life, i don't have that." bookbinder was the man behind the poignant episode of the human body that showed the last hours of a man's death from cancer. it led to bookbinder being made the bbc's chief adviser on editorial policy, where he oversaw the eastenders' storyline of dot cotton deciding whether to help her ailing friend ethel commit suicide. "every night 14m people watched dot's ethical dilemma between her catholic conscience and her wish to help her friend. "we've just shown eyes of the detective, about the senior police officer in the bulger case. he is a committed christian, which gives him a particular outlook. so the thread of religious and ethical debate goes much further than what we think of as 'religious' programmes." sacks said of bookbinder's appointment that "an unconventional choice may be precisely what religion needs if it is to regain its force in a secular age". - the sunday times.
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