The notorious Stephen Fry interview in which he denounced God as "utterly evil, capricious and monstrous" is up for a religious broadcasting award.
The Sandford St Martin Trust makes the awards for religious broadcasting across a number of platforms, and this year Fry's interview on Gay Byrne's Meaning of Life show is in the frame. Rather less controversially, Tony Jordan's The Ark and the BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet's documentary Children of the Gaza War are also in the running.
Fry's outburst after Byrne asked him what he would say to God if he met him almost melted the internet. "How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"
He said he would ask God: "Bone cancer in children? What's that about?
"Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him; what kind of God would do that?"
Fry is an atheist, and his comments were leapt on by kindred spirits everywhere who gleefully shared them. For them, he was just stating the obvious.
So what on earth is an organisation that promotes religious broadcasting doing, giving an award to a programme that so trenchantly attacks the whole idea of God in the first place? Shouldn't it be promoting nice programmes like Songs of Praise, instead?
No, it shouldn't. The Stephen Fry interview was a devastating bit of TV, and I hope Gay Byrne gets the award he deserves. Because there's another side to the argument.
Yes, Stephen Fry had a platform for his views, which – with the greatest respect and affection for our national treasure – were neither original nor surprising. He used his incomparable skill with words to state, powerfully and passionately, an argument that's as old as Christianity. He flushed out legions of internet trolls of the kind who post wearisomely identical abusive comments under every online article or video clip about religion. But there was nothing new.
What was noticeably new, however, was the traction Christian responses to his article got. Some were of the unhelpful 'we're praying for you to see the error of your ways' variety. Others were cogent and balanced rejoinders that were read by hundreds of thousands of people. Religion was news; people were engaging with the arguments and thinking things through.
The problem of evil is always a problem, to anyone with a heart and a brain. But Christians have answers, and those answers were being heard.
So I'm glad of that interview, and glad that the skill of the interviewer is being recognised. I hope it wins its category, not just because it's great TV but because it'll make people think again.
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
