READING, England — A proposal for a ‘Radio Bible’, putting the Scriptures into the form of 365 15-minute radio programmes, is being considered by a partnership of Christian agencies including UBS, and if plans go ahead, production in three languages will begin early next year.
The proposal envisages some 175 programmes from the Old Testament, 175 from the New Testament and 15 special programmes devoted to Christmas, Easter and Bible Sunday.
The core of each programme will be a dramatised recording of a section of text, but time will also be given to explanations of the issues it raises and to guidance about its application to life.
The partnership behind the plan currently comprises UBS, the International Bible Society, Hosanna (the organisation behind the worldwide ‘Faith Comes By Hearing’ program) and Trans World Radio. The proposal has been written by UBS Media Consultant Viggo Søgaard.
Mr Søgaard said he believed the Radio Bible project would have a “very significant” influence.
“I am sure that in a few years we will see this programme on radio stations around the world,” he said. “Radio is a very good medium for Bible communication in a world where so many people are not reading, and, as we are formatting these programmes specifically for the medium, we will get a very large audience.”
The project’s stated goal of making people familiar with the Bible and leading them to ‘engage’ with it, he added, “followed the intentions of the World Assembly at Midrand”.
For the non-reading part of the audience, at least, the ‘Radio Bible’ programmes will have to be self-contained, so that full understanding will be achieved during the programme itself. It will also be important, however, to have appropriate ‘follow-up’ to the broadcasts. This is likely to come from a variety of sources: from the co-operating agencies, from local churches and ‘Faith Comes By Hearing’ groups, as well as from national Bible Societies which will make Scripture material available in both print and non-print formats.
The ‘Radio Bible’ proposal is based in part on a pilot project recently undertaken among the Ashanti people of central Ghana, with positive results.
It demonstrated that Scripture material on radio can win a large audience – in the city of Kumasi it achieved a daily audience of 61 per cent – and offered pointers to how a similar project on a much larger scale should be run.
Mr Søgaard said the proposal had received “positive and exciting responses”. The International Committee of the Radio Partnership is due to meet at the end of January to finalise format proposals and to inititiate the development of programmes in three languages, tentatively chosen as Asante, Swahili and Telegu.
Radio – a medium whose time has comeIn a world where the number of people who cannot read – or choose not to do so – is growing, radio offers Bible agencies an excellent alternative for effective Scripture communication.New opportunities for radio are arising from a number of directions:
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