Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: September 2008

Blink and you'll miss it

There was clear evidence last week that predictions on climate change are vastly understated. There it was, in glorious colour - clear for all to see who were tuned in to early morning news and weather on BBC1 - the ominous temperature figure of 232 hanging over Windsor to the west of London (For the full video see Record temperature for Windsor). Just think of it - way above the boiling point of water - pavements melting, rails warping, people collapsing with heat exhaustion on every corner.

Of course the figure was a mistake. Later, the BBC corrected it, and assured everybody that it should in fact have read a much more reasonable 23 degrees Celsius. The amazing thing was not so much how many people pointed out the mistake ... as how few!

Is it that we trust the BBC so much? Is it that we can watch a thing without really seeing it? Is it that the weather forecast simply washes over us without actually registering it?

As a preacher of sermons, I should not be at all surprised by the latter. After all, people regularly listen to them and forget their contents on the short journey between church seat and church door. The exception would be those occasions on which a mistake is made. It only takes an erroneous quotation, the wrong date, or attributing some bon mot to the wrong person to guarantee a comment afterwards. Perhaps I should try it more often!

This brings me back to last week's misleading weather forecast. Was it, in fact, not an innocent mistake but a clever communication device? Perhaps the BBC allowed the mistake in deliberately in order to provoke a response and to make people think about the consequences of severe climate change? After all - temperatures of 232 degrees would change all our lives ..... drastically and permanently!

We tend to think of Jesus as the great teller of stories - and rightly so. However, he was not averse to the odd shock tactic or two. Calling the religious hypocrites of his day "whited sepulchres" certainly set some tongues wagging ... and describing them as a "nest of vipers" would doubtless have made the headlines!

If you can read the Bible today and not be shocked by something Jesus says, perhaps you are not reading it right! Read it today - and keep your eyes truly open!