Religion programming has found itself on the chopping block amid cuts to ABC funding.

But the popular Religion and Ethics online portal will remain intact. It will be moved into the Radio Unit. Eternity understands that its editor Scott Stephens is a likely survivor.

Sunday Nights with John Cleary, and the Religion and Ethics Report with Andrew West (aired on Wednesday and replayed on Thursday evening) will also remain unchanged. The Spirit of Things will be reduced to 30 minutes.

Other programs are not faring so well. Australia’s longest running radio program Encounter will be decommissioned. The Executive Producer of Religion will no longer have responsibility for the staffing or the budget of Religion documentaries, and will have only limited editorial input.

Rose Hesp, the Executive Producer of TV Religion will be made redundant. The ABC will no longer be purchasing the long running television program Songs of Praise from the BBC. Compass will continue, but will come under more general supervision instead of the specialisation it currently enjoys.

Up to 40% of the jobs in the Religion Unit in Radio will be cut. They will also lose around 50% of their budget.

According to ABC sources, these changes are not related to the announced government budget cuts. Eternity understands that this is a decision taken by the ABC in order to reshape the network for the digital future, and that the government’s cuts are being used as cover for a radical internal reorganisation in which religion is to be marginalised.

Some inside the organisation have said that with the specialist unit boundaries eroded, managers are now openly saying that while specialists will continue to be employed, their program assignments will not necessarily relate to their specialist expertise. Staffing assignments will be determined by network managers, not by specialist Executive Producers. Eternity understands that there is speculation that religion as a discrete specialist unit would wither with the passing of time.

Former Specialist Editor of Religion at the ABC Paul Collins says the cuts are being made by “people with an agenda to turn the ABC into a purveyor of privately produced products. They are using the cover of budget cuts to eviscerate any form of specialist broadcasting. This is going to be an absolute tragedy.”

“People are actually interested in spirituality. We have a ridiculous notion that we’re a group of hedonists who spend all our time on Bondi beach. But there is a firm majority who believe in God or in transcendence. There is only a minority of practicing religious people, but that doesn’t mean people are not interested in these issues. Human beings are essentially spiritual,” says Collins.

If these cuts go ahead, Collins says people “won’t be able to discuss the more important things in life. People’s interest in life extends beyond the purely obvious. Beyond sport,” he says. “People are interested in cultural issues. They want to talk about them, they want to be informed about them. If the ABC is eviscerated, the cultural and religious life of Australia will be much lesser for it.”

Australian Religious Press Association National Director Peter Bentley says, “this means there will be fewer remaining areas for wider public discussion of religion in Australia.

“It is also unfortunate that the specialist base of this area will be reduced, as I believe this will further limit the provision of specialist religious information to other parts of the ABC at a time when there is more need for specialist interpreters due to the seemingly increasing lack of wider understanding of the role of religion,” Bentley says.

John Cleary, host of Sunday Nights, responding to a listener comment on November 30 said this about the budget cuts: “It is difficult at a time when there is broad recognition of the increased significance of religion on both the local and global stage that such cuts seem necessary.

“The irony is that it’s the knowledge-rich specialist units such as religion and science that have much to offer the ABC as the corporation moves out of the silos of radio and TV into a multi-platform world.”

John Dickson, Director of the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX) says “Australian Christians of all kinds should be deeply worried about cuts to the ABC. It’s true they produce some highly critical commentary about our faith but, equally, I’ve been stunned over the last five years or so at the ABC’s willingness to air and publish clear Christian opinion on the matters that count. No media outlet in the country gives a greater platform for traditional Christian belief.”

“Certainly no other outlet has published more of CPX’s material and interviewed more CPX guests than ABC online, TV, and radio. And, frankly,” Dickson says, “I would much rather take the hits along with the invitations than be ignored in the public square!”

Late on Tuesday 2nd December, the President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rev. Professor Andrew Dutney issued a joint statement with 28 other Australian religious leaders to protest the ABC’s cuts to religion programmes. The letter represents the concerns of a variety of Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish religious leaders.

Their letter is addressed to Mark Scott AO and James Spigelman AC QC, the Managing Director and Chairman of the ABC respectively. They are asking for meeting to discuss the proposed changes to religion broadcasting.

They write, “we believe the faith and values we hold will always occupy a central part in the formation of our Australian national identity. Further, an understanding of religion plays a crucial part in grasping today’s ever more complex social and political developments both in Australia and internationally.

“We also believe that no broadcaster committed to the common good, let alone one seeking to provide a comprehensive service to all Australians in an increasingly diverse and multicultural Australia, should diminish its commitment to the broadcasting of religion,” they say.