Genesis TV and Revelation TV

Revelation TV and Genesis TV are two of only four Christian TV stations operating under UK broadcasting licences (the others being UCB TV and DBN). The station holds to an unusual mix of theological positions which places it outside mainstream Christianity (and possibly mainstream evangelicalism) in the UK.

[This article is regularly updated. Last update: 9th March 2010]

Operations
Revelation TV operate two television channels broadcast on the Sky Digital platform to the UK and parts of mainland Europe. They also broadcast simultaneously on-line via live streaming. The two channels operated are called Revelation TV and Genesis TV. Revelation TV mainly carries pre recorded programmes from other ministries who pay to have their material broadcast. These include some controversial word of faith teachers like Don Stewart and Kenneth Copeland and many African based churches in the UK. Genesis TV mainly carries in house programmes, many of which are broadcast live and include audience participation via telephone, email and text message.

General Theological position
The stations broad statement of faith is published on its web site here. This is avowedly evangelical, millennialist and zionist, but not pentecostal. In spite of this, the station clearly holds a pentecostal and charismatic position, believing that the gifts of the spirit are available to Christians today and that there is a baptism of the holy spirit secondary to water baptism and being saved.

Dispensationalism
Revelation and Genesis TV hold to a dispensationalist theological position - that we are living in the last days and that the return of Christ is imminent. They also believe in the rapture. They do not specify if this will be before, during or after the tribulation, although many of the presenters have stated pre-millenialist personal views.

They are supportive of concepts like the alleged emerging "New World Order" and other conspiracy theories expounded by the late Barry Smith.

Zionism
The station is strongly Christian Zionist, believing that the Jewish people are God's chosen people and have a special role in the last days, revealed in bible prophecy. However they tend to identify the Jewish people as the state of Israel rather than people who happen to be of the Jewish faith. They are in favour of "aliyah" (return to Israel of the diaspora Jews) but also supportive of messianic Judaism whilst being unclear whether Jews who do not accept Jesus can be saved by adherence to the law. They regularly promote group tours of Israel on their programmes and by mailings to their supporters.

Revelation TV has previously given some coverage to British Israelism, but this seems to have been set aside in favour of a more straightforward American style Christian Zionism.

Associated with this is the view of some presenters on the channel that Christians should abstain from eating pork or shellfish in line with old testament law, and that the Jewish festivals should be celebrated.

Political position
The channels self produced programmes present a conservative moral position and often use articles from the Daily Mail newspaper as examples of how society is breaking down. Bad things happening in the world are often explained as signs that the return of Christ is imminent.

The presented view seems to be that the world is against Christians and discriminates against them. Genesis and Revelation TV seem to favour political action by Christians and they often make programmes about Christian political parties and organisations like Christian Voice and CCTV (now defunct). In this respect they are dominionist.

They do not support President Obama's administration whom they view as "not of God" because of its support for abortion and its willingness to seek peaceful solutions in the middle east (and its cooling relations with Israel).

Word of faith teaching
They are ambivalent towards word of faith theology. On the one hand they show programmes that promote it, such as Don Stewart and Kenneth Copeland, but on the other hand their own programming is sceptical of it without being openly critical. There was some discussion about this by viewers on their website feedback page during 2009, but links to this page were removed from the Revelation and Genesis TV web site. (This page has now totally disappeared but you can read a PDF copy of it here).

Justin Peters

On 10th February 2010 Genesis TV screened a Live at 9 programme during which the guest Justin Peters was critical of many word of faith teachers, including some who broadcast on Revelation TV. It was later announced that due to complaints about Peters' critical comments the programme would not be repeated (as would be the norm). Click here to see a video of the announcement (this video has now been removed from YouTube after a copyright complaint by 21st Century Television Ltd - the holding company for Revelation TV - but you can see another copy by clicking here). On the 16th February the station issued a statement on their website about the incident.

Use of Copyright Law and Other Means to Suppress Dissent

There is a strong tradition of Christian television ministries using copyright law to prevent their material being viewed outside its intended audience, especially on YouTube (e.g. Benny Hinn Ministries' removal of user uploaded material on a regular basis). In addition to the removal of the Justin Peters response video from YouTube (discussed above), Revelation - Genesis TV have previously closed down a discussion forum (citing abuse) and removed criticism of their showing of Don Stewart programmes from their web site feedback page. They have not, however, sought to remove user uploaded videos of prank calls made to the station which receive a lot of views on YouTube and are presumably seen as good publicity.

On 28th February 2010 Genesis-Revelation TV staff removed comments from viewers about the Justin Peters incident from their Facebook page. Following the removal of the comments another thread was started by some of the people who'se comments had been removed. Part of this discussion can be seen here.

The Bible
The bible is innerant, but they skirt round the textual criticism issue (i.e. which manuscript text of the bible is it that is innerant) and use various translations; predominantly the New American Standard Bible.

Prophecy
They sometimes feature prophecies from well known modern day prophets. Recently they featured a prophecy from David Wilkerson.

Evolution and Creationism
Revelation TV and Genesis TV are opposed to Evolution which they present as not scientifically proven. Viewers are encouraged to believe the bible, reject the scientific view and accept young earth creationism. This is presesented as the orthodox Christian position even though most professing Christians belong to denominations that accept evolution. To this end they have regular programming from John McKay (CMI), Answers in Genesis and Dr Grady McMurtry. They have also made programmes that advise parents on home schooling which is presented as a way of safeguarding children from the teaching of evolution and sex education in schools.

Relations with other religions and mainstream Christian denominations
Christianity is seen as the only true religion so they are against all other religions; apart from Judaism, which seems to inhabit a shadowy in-between area. In practice they normally do not criticise other religions apart from Islam. They have received a censure from OFCOM about their statements about Islam in the past.

Revelation TV and Genesis TV do not seem to engage with mainstream Christian denominations, and concentrate instead on independent charismatic churches, often ones with African connections. Their programme "Church in Focus" usually features interviews with African church leaders.

Relations with the broadcasting regulator OFCOM
Revelaton and Genesis TV have been the subject of a number of complaints and investigations by OFCOM over the past few years. Details of some of these are given below.

Homosexuality and OFCOM
They have been vocal in opposition to homosexuality which has also got them into trouble with OFCOM. The person who made the complaint to OFCOM has a video explaining the background to it on YouTube.

Abortion and OFCOM
They are against legalised abortion and feature programmes about the issue from time to time. In September 2009 Revelation TV was found to be in breach of 1.3, 2.1, 2.3 and 5.5 of the OFCOM broadcast code for airing a programme called "The Land Cries Out for the Blood that Was Shed" which showed images of dismembered late aborted foetuses at 3:30pm, just prior to their afternoon children's programme. The full judgement can be found here in the OFCOM broadcast bulletin of 14th September 2009.

Commercial Promotions and OFCOM
In January 2010, Revelation TV was found to be in breach of rule 10.4 of the OFCOM broadcast code for giving undue prominence to the promotion of books, CD's and conferences by Andrew Womack. The full judgement can be found here in the OFCOM broadcast bulletin off 11th January 2010. The report concludes that:

Ofcom has previously censured Revelation TV for failing to review the content of its programmes prior to transmission. In light of our concerns, Ofcom is requiring the broadcaster to attend a meeting to discuss its compliance processes and procedures.

Other OFCOM Investigations
On 17th February 2010 OFCOM announced that they were investigating a complaint about a programme called "Bible Medicine" aired on Genesis TV on Monday, 4 January 2010.


Ownership and funding
It is not clear who currently owns the station. It was founded by Howard and Lesley Conder through their company 21st Century Television Ltd, but the funds are held by a charity set up for the purpose called the Revelation Foundation. One day per month is set aside for fundraising programmes to support the two channels. Most donors seem to be individuals and some make regular monthly donations.

Commercial activities
Apart from selling airtime to other Christian ministries and selling some advertising space the station appears to have no other commercial activities.

Revelation Foundation
The channel is partly funded by the Revelation Foundation which was set up for the purpose. Viewers donations are made through the foundation and are therefore supplemented by the government through Gift Aid.

According to the Charities Commission web site they turned over £1.74M in the last financial year. Click here to view their accounts for the past few years.

Some information from the notes to the accounts for year ended 31 Mar 2008:

"Trustees' Expenses
Travel expenses amounting to £13,596 (2007 -£16,187) were re-imbursed to 1(2007 - 2) trustee(s).
In order to enable Mr Pettie to be able to perform his duties properly in London, accommodation costs were paid by the charity for this trustee. The amount of £13,886 (2007 -£14,327) was paid during the year for Mr Pettie."

"Revelation Foundation is in dispute with HMRC in respect of VAT which the Trustees consider is recoverable amounting to £147,020. HMRC consider that there is debt due to them amounting to £20,708 and this represents a difference of
£167,728. The Trustees consider that this amount is substantially recoverable but feel it is prudent to make a reserve in the accounts for the full amount."

"RELATED PARTY DISCLOSURES
Mr Conder's son and daughter are employees of the charity and the total of their salari es included in the accounts amounted to £62,084.
Mr Pettie's daughter provides bookkeeping services to the charity and the total paid to her during the year was £1,291.
21st Century Television Limited is a company controlled by Mr H Conder and his wife. 21st Century Television Limited was charged £45,000 during the year by the Foundation during the year for the use of the Foundation's staff. Revelation
Foundation received £300,000 donations from 21st Century Television Limited during the year. Revelation Foundation also acquired equipment totalling £260,000 during the year. The balance due from 21st Century Television Limited at 31 March 2008 amounted to £12,125 and this is included in trade debtors."

Like all UK Christian broadcasters Revelation and Genesis TV receive funding from the Government through the gift aid scheme via their charity. Click here for an article about this specific issue.

Resignation of Howard Conder

On 2nd February 2010 Howard Conder announced that he was resigning as a trustee of the Revelation Foundation and stepping down from his role at Genesis TV. The full text of his resignation can be found here (pdf document). Since then he has appeared back on the channel so its not clear what actually happened.

Changes announced on 9th March 2009

On March 9th it was announced that Genesis TV would be closing and programmes would be consolidated on one channel to be known as Revelation TV. This will move to SKY channel 581, which is being vacated by God TV Europe. At the same time Revelation TV will move to a broadcasting licence issued by the government of Spain which will free them from regulation by OFCOM, although they have stated an intention to stay within the spirit of UK broadcasting regulations.

How the British tax payer is funding Televangelists

The three largest UK based Christian television networks are all funded from donations from viewers and supporters. These are channelled into them through registered charities which the channels have set up for this purpose.

By running as registered charities these organisations receive a number of benefits that amount to taxpayer funding of their operations, which includes evangelism and in some cases campaigning against evolution and environmental concerns like global warming.

The benefits that Christian TV channels receive from the taxpayer through their charitable status include:

• the ability to reclaim tax on donations given by individuals through Gift Aid.
• business rates relief for any buildings they are using.
• exemption from paying corporation tax on their profits (surpluses)

The value of these to the organisations is difficult to determine in full, but Gift Aid alone can amount to a substantial part of their income.

Gift AID is a reclaim of tax from the government on donations made by UK tax payers. I have examined the accounts of three UK based Christian Television networks to try and estimate how much they are earning from Gift Aid. One (UCB) state explicitly in their annual accounts how much they receive in Gift Aid. The others I have estimated.

At least two of these channels (God TV and Revelation & Genesis TV) are not in the mainstream of the Christian religion and speak out against evolution and environmental concerns.


Channel: UCB TV and various radio channels
Charity: UNITED CHRISTIAN BROADCASTERS LIMITED, Registered Charity 299128

A staggering 16.3% of their donated income came from the government through the Gift Aid scheme - a total of £859,000 in state funding.

From their Accounts for year ended 31st December 2007
Total Income £6,819,108
Total income from donations £5 241 108
Total gift aid (according to their annual report @ 16.3% confirmed) £859,000



Channel: GOD TV and GOD TV EUROPE
Charity: THE ANGEL FOUNDATION, Registered Charity 1079501

God TV is not regulated by OFCOM. It operates under a foreign broadcasting licence and is outside OFCOM regulation allowing them to use fundraising techniques which would probably not be permitted if they were under a UK licence.

We do not know how much they are receiving in Gift Aid donations as they do not separate it out in their annual accounts. However, if we conservatively estimate it at 10% then it would mean they received at least £1M per year from the government to fund their operations. The figure could be much higher.


From their Accounts for year ended 31st March 2008

Total Income £12,174,673
Total income from donations £11,166,574
Estimated gift aid @ 10% of donated income £1,116,657
Estimated gift aid @ 15% of donated income £1,674,961



Channel: REVELATION TV and GENESIS TV
Charity: REVELATION FOUNDATION, Registered Charity 1100573

We do not know how much they are receiving in Gift Aid donations as they do not separate it out in their annual accounts. However, if we conservatively estimate it at 10% then it means they are receiving at least £167,000 from the government to fund their operations.

From their Accounts for year ended 31st March 2008

Total Income £1,740,988
Income from Donations £1,677,136
Estimated gift aid @ 10% of donated income £167,713
Estimated gift aid @ 15% of donated income £251,570


Issues this raises

Should taxpayers money be going to fund religious broadcasting organisations whose principal aims are evangelism?

If the government is to continue funding organisations like this, should this not be conditional on them operating under UK broadcast licences so they are regulated by OFCOM? For example, God TV gets money from the UK government but does not have to abide by UK broadcasting restrictions. This means they can use fundraising techniques which would be dubious under UK broadcasting regulations, but still get Gift Aid on those donations from tax payers.


The other side of the coin

It could be claimed that Gift Aid us a reclaim of the tax the donors have paid on their earnings, but the reclaim is at a notional "blended rate" which may be more than the donor has paid in tax. If the money was not given to them by the government then the government could spend it on things that would benefit the wider community.


Changes to charity law in the UK

The Charities Commission has recently published new guidance to charities that they must be able to show "public benefit". Its not clear how they will apply this to existing charities, but it will be interesting to see how religious charities and in particular Christian television stations will be able to prove a public benefit when they have such narrow sectarian aims and objectives. I suspect they will get round it by having very broad aims in their charity memorandum and articles of association, but in reality pass the vast majority of the funds raised straight to the TV channels they are operating.

Why are Christians so uncomfortable with the idea of evolution?

Why do some Christians trust creationist opinions over scientific ideas that have been worked out by many scientists over many years? Presumably they are quite happy to take medicines that have also been developed by scientists over many years, without feeling the need to question its effectiveness.

I think the answer is that just as Galileo showed that the sun does not revolve round the earth, evolution challenges Christians to accept that they are not the centre of the universe. A rather humbling notion, especially for the self exalting kind of Christians who tend to be the ones who are very pro creationism.

Can you be a Christian and believe in evolution?

I would say a definite yes to this question. It is a clear demonstrable fact that most Christians do believe in evolution but there are a vociferous minority of fundamentalists who do not, and who intend to convert other Christians to a belief in creationism (a belief that the earth is 6500 years old and was created in six days with all its life forms fully formed).

Therefore in the tradition of Plato's conversations I present this fictional discussion between a fundamentalist and an enquirer which is based on the sort of reasoning that I heard regularly during my time as a fundamentalist.

Enquirer:
Do you have to believe in creationism in order to be saved and go to heaven?

Fundamentalist:
No, you just need to have faith in Christ. This is all that is required.
See Acts 16:31 and Romans 10:9.

Enquirer:
Most professing Christians do believe in evolution. For example, the teaching of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches all allow for belief in evolution, so why do we need to believe in the biblical account of creation?

Fundamentalist:
Those people are not true Christians.

Enquirer:
So you would say they are not saved then?

Fundamentalist:
It is possible they are saved, but it is not certain as they have rejected the bible as being the word of God.

Enquirer:
So you are saying that I do have to believe in creationism to be saved?

Fundamentalist:
No, I didn't say that.

Enquirer:
Yes you did!

Fundamentalist:
Well its an issue of living the best way possible.
Those who are closer to God and more conformed to his will for their lives will receive a greater reward in heaven.
See Matthew 16:27 and 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.

Enquirer:
So there are different classes of salvation?

Fundamentalist:
No, I didn't say that.

Enquirer:
Yes you did!

Fundamentalist:
Well if you want to be a true Christian and be absolutely sure of receiving your maximum reward you do need to believe in a lot more than the basic gospel message. This includes creationism, premillenial dispensationalism, the special status of Israel and a number of other things. Believing in these things is God's will for the Christian. They are revealed in his word and will be confirmed to you if you get into a church that preaches the whole word of God and you pray about it.

Enquirer:
So if I don't believe in those things I am not a proper Christian?

Fundamentalist:
No, I didn't say that.

Enquirer:
Well you seemed to imply it.

Fundamentalist:
Well its what I believe, and what all my friends believe. The bible does seem to say these things so they must be true. Therefore if you don't accept them you are rejecting the whole counsel of God and not living in truth. You therefore run the risk of being rejected by God.
See Matthew 7:21-23.

Enquirer:
That's very interesting but I am not sure I agree with you.

Fundamentalist:
I will be praying for you, that God will reveal the truth to you.