There was a telling moment on the Today programme yesterday morning when its seasoned presenter, Nick Robinson (pictured), was wrong-footed during a live interview he was conducting with a survivor of coronavirus. Hylton Murray-Philipson, 61, had spent five days in intensive care, many of them on a ventilator, and had been invited on to talk about the experience. But scarcely had the interview begun when Mr Murray-Philipson said something unexpected. Having just listened to Thought for the Day with Bishop James Jones, and it being Good Friday, he thought it appropriate to mention, he said, that in the moment of his greatest distress and struggle whilst in intensive care, he had a powerful image of Jesus calming the storm on the sea of Galilee. “I would like to think that was Jesus Christ coming to me, and helping me in my hour of need,” he said.

As both a practising Catholic and one who has spent 30 years as a journalist in BBC News, two thoughts occurred to me as I listened to these words.  The first was what a wonderful, reassuring experience that must have been; the second, how on earth would Nick Robinson respond to such a stark expression of faith?  I didn’t have long to wait: “Well, it’s so powerful that you have that, partly, I have to say, partly because of the drugs you have to be on in order to be on a ventilator machine, which plays tricks with the mind doesn’t it, really?” the presenter said.

It took another former BBC journalist, Chris Landau, to point out that this was not the response that Christians most wanted to hear. “I don’t relish pointing out the casual on-air dismissal of sincere religious experience,” he said on Twitter, but “Christian faith is not about ‘tricks with the mind’, in intensive care or anywhere else.”  Nick Robinson, it must be said, responded quickly and graciously. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to dismiss his or anyone else’s faith,’ he tweeted back. Robinson explained that he had been told that Murray-Philipson had a series of vivid dreams while in intensive care and that, as it happened, his own dreams when on a ventilator had also been vivid and memorable.

Now, even the most experienced of BBC presenters can misspeak in a live broadcast and I am sure that Murray-Philipson would be the last to hold Nick Robinson’s words against him. But the incident does deserve a little reflection.

If my experience producing programmes at the BBC is anything to go by, Murray-Philipson, a prominent conservationist who chairs a global campaign to stop tropical deforestation, will have been chosen as a guest on Today on the strength of a Guardian article he wrote earlier this week. In it he spoke movingly of his utter dependence on others during the worst stage of his illness and of the immense kindness and care of the team who looked after him. He concludes:

I haven’t been out of hospital long but all I can think is that the miracle of this whole story is the NHS. I don’t know how an organisation on the scale of the health service ends up having a team of people – whether in reception, intensive care or on the ward – where everyone is inculcated with a sense of care and compassion. It’s mind-blowing and very humbling. I do think the creation of the NHS is the crowning achievement of Britain.

This was the part of Hylton Murray-Philipson’s message that the BBC had wanted to focus on. It was indeed startling for Nick Robinson to be confronted with the other, deeper, part of what the Anglican Murray-Philipson had to say. “I have a strong faith and the idea of falling into the arms of a loving God became quite appealing,” he wrote. Later in the piece he said that he was “supported by an extraordinary assembly of people around the world who were praying for me.”

These phrases remind us that without divine intervention, all human efforts are in vain and that those who place their trust in a merciful God have nothing, ultimately, to fear. In these dark times, when every news bulletin leads with talk of suffering and death and churchgoers are locked out of their places of worship, there are a great many people thirsting for this message. The national broadcaster would do well to bear that in mind.

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

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