My 83-year-old aunt in California phoned my mother and told her that Peter Jennings shook her faith. She is hoping my articles will make her feel again secure in her Christian faith. This article, therefore, is dedicated to my wonderful Aunt Polly.

Why did Peter Jennings attempt to dumb down the story of the life and work of Christ in his ABC News Special, The Search for Jesus?

Why did he and his scholars say that Christian faith was founded on the embellishments and fabrications of the early followers of Christ?

And why did he and ABC offend millions of people, conservative or not, who don't believe the Bible is compromised by myth and embellishments while ABC's officials are running numerous advertising spots of Jennings to increase his popularity and give them the edge over other national news organizations?

The American Broadcasting Company must have an agenda that is even more important to them than profit. This article contains my explanation.

Millions of Christians who honor the New Testament as the whole truth and nothing but the truth believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation and that their Lord has commissioned them to invite everyone in the world to their faith. Although not inappropriate in a country whose citizens are guaranteed freedom of religion, Christ's great commission to His followers is out of step with some tenets of sensitivity training, diversity training, globalization, and the secularists' positions of...

To those who rigidly support such positions, Christian faith (that is based on the truth of Scripture and upon Jesus as the Savior of all humankind) is America's last resistance against their platform, and they perceive that it must be neutralized and downgraded. The method for attempting to rid the country of the strongest and most committed of the Christian faith is to intimidate them with doubt and equip detractors with fresh supplies of "ammunition."

This can be clearly perceivable when readers realize that the ABC News logo and the BeliefNet.com logo were shown side by side on the television screen during The Search for Jesus, and BeliefNet.com was persistently promoted by Jennings and his announcers.

BeliefNet.com presents a smorgasbord of religions, traditional and new, placing all religions on the same level, inviting certain participants to build their coven's Web presence through the media of BeliefNet.com. BeliefNet.com is a for-profit venture funded by Highland Capital, Primus, Zero Stage, The Trump Group, and Blue Chip Ventures. Disney owns ABC.

What could be more effective in downgrading the Christian faith than dumbing down the life and work of Christ? How did Jennings do that?

Jennings designed his piece to calm Bible-honoring Christians of all denominations while he quietly attempted to remove their foundation from beneath them.

He opened by saying: "We've tried to be respectful of what people believe (although their beliefs are based on fabrications and embellishments) as we have gone in search of what we can note about Jesus the man. We found a real man."

The parenthetical statement is mine, and notice the words I italicized. A real man: Jennings and his scholars implied that Jesus was not God incarnated into human flesh. Not the Savior of the world. Not the Christ who was sacrificed for the sins of all humankind. Not the King of the spiritual Kingdom of God.

Their implications were that Jesus was nothing more than an authentic human, although a really impressive and heroic man who championed the cause of justice for those who were being treated unjustly. One of Jennings's scholars placed Jesus in the league of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

What was the point? If Jesus is only a man, then Christian faith is ill-founded and only one of many religious options. It is downgraded. It should not be taken too seriously. And Christian faith's most faithful defenders should become less assertive.

As the broadcast closed, ABC provided a chat line with Jennings and a message board--very useful tools. ABC officials know that they can defuse much of the anger of viewers who were insightful and offended by allowing those viewers to calm their anger by writing their frustrations and submitting them--getting everything off their chests.