TV channels put their faith into tackling religious issues

What has happened to religion on TV? At the moment we're offered Martin Shaw as Jesuit superhero, doing battle against the Devil in the BBC One schlock-drama Apparitions but actual worship-based programmes have almost vanished from the schedules.

I remember growing up in the 1970s, when bishops regularly appeared on television as moral arbiters on issues of the day. Songs of Praise and Stars on Sunday bored teenagers who'd rather have been watching Shaw in The Professionals.

Now only Songs of Praise remains in anything like primetime (favourite miscellany: a burglar was once jailed after being recognised singing on the programme – so much for the penitent's reward). The decline in church attendance may have slowed, but believing in any faith is often still seen as a little weird. One of the presenters of our new Channel 4 series on Christianity, the actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, talks of the embarrassed silence at dinner parties when he reveals his Christian belief.

With this increasingly secular mindset, religion in the 1980s and 1990s became something of a TV backwater. I remember watching the argument between Michael Palin and Malcolm Muggeridge about the Life of Brian. Muggeridge made a fool of himself, and even then, you could feel the power slipping away – to the point where in 2005 even the BBC could broadcast Jerry Springer – the Opera.

Naturally, the Church isn't happy about this marginalisation. A recent bishops' submission to Ofcom pointed out that "...one programme gaining an audience of around 4 million weekly is regarded as a wild success meriting an £18m star (Friday Night with Jonathan Ross) while another with a similar audience is regarded as part of an unprofitable genre (Songs of Praise)". I'm a big Ross fan, but you can see their point.

Yet in a multi-faith Britain the disappearance of overtly proselytizing programming from the major channels is probably no bad thing. Songs of Praise will probably remain to broadcast the "Last Trumpet", live from Bangor. While the birth of digital channels has meant 24/7 choice for those who want sermons on TV – God Channel, Revelation, Muslim TV, and others – it is interesting to see that, in the last five years, programmes about religion on the terrestrial channels have never been more prominent. In the wake of September 11 we've woken up to the fact that not everyone shares a post-Enlightenment, rationalist view of the world. For billions of people, faith is still very much a "live" issue and if we're to understand the world, it's critical that we understand the beliefs that those people espouse.

Channel 4 in particular was quick to realise this. Under commissioner Aaqil Ahmed, it has produced a plethora of films – such as the excellent Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber, or its recent two hour special on the Qur'an – that explore religion as a global force today. In fact, religion now appears all over the networks, in drama and reality TV as well as documentaries. So we had the BBC's The Monastery (five ordinary men try the contemplative life with an order of monks) or C4's Priest Idol (a country parish tries modern marketing techniques to reverse falling attendance). Even The Vicar of Dibley sprang up in the wake of the controversy over the ordination of women. The imperative to find new and, yes, entertaining ways to tackle religious issues continues.

Biblical archaeology is another programme genre that has boomed recently, especially in the key US market. Is this the ossuary of James? Is the Shroud real? Has a new "Lost Gospel" been found? What is the "science of the scriptures" (rather misses the point, but never mind)? Some of these often fall into the trap of second-rate dramatic reconstruction – meaningful glances exchanged between suspiciously Anglo-Saxon "disciples", figures framed portentously against blinding lights – but they certainly get ratings, just as Dan Brown novels sell.

The eight films in our series are each authored by a different commentator with a particular view or stake in the topic. For instance, the Independent's own Howard Jacobson rails magnificently against Christianity's denial of Jesus' Jewishness, and explores how this laid the ground for 2,000 years of anti-semitism. Michael Portillo investigates the political ramifications of Christianity's acceptance into the Roman Empire. Robert Beckford embraces the British conversion to Christianity as the defining moment of our history. Rageh Omaar considers the taint of the Crusades on relations with Islam today, and Cherie Blair asks whether, after the horrors of the 20th-century, Christianity has a future in the 21st. What all the films have in common is the idea that, believer or not, you can't deny the continuing influence of faith on almost every aspect of our world today – and that includes television.

Jeremy Dear is executive producer at Pioneer Productions. 'Christianity: A History' starts on Channel 4 on 11 January, 7pm with Jesus, The Jew, presented by Howard Jacobson.