Last week’s publicity campaign for a BBC series on the Nazis was about how we are complicit unless we speak out against evil. Strange, then, to find myself all too aware of the issue of corporate responsibility within the BBC itself.

On Monday afternoon I resigned from my job as senior producer at Radio 3 working on Late Junction and Between the Ears over the screening of Jerry Springer — The Opera on BBC2.

I had been aware of this issue since the beginning of the year, when the protest e-mails started surfacing. But when it became clear about 10 days ago that the level of concern over the broadcast was both unprecedented — to date more than 50,000 protests — and being all but ignored, I decided to write to Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC. Specifically I said in my e-mail on the Friday morning before Jerry Springer — The Opera was broadcast that if the programme were to go ahead, I would feel that I had no option but to consider resigning.

Mark Thompson rang me that evening and for almost 40 minutes we talked. He persuaded me at least to watch the broadcast before concluding that its content was blasphemous. So I did — I saw it in all its baleful glory. My conclusion? The blasphemy was far, far worse than the news reports had led me to believe.

I cited just four examples in my resignation statement as being blasphemous, although there were many more. There was the introduction of and dialogue with the Jesus figure which contained all kinds of insults, profanity and deliberate mockery; the ridiculing of the figure of Jesus on the cross, dressed to imply sexual perversion; the repeated mockery of the wounds (stigmata), linked to acts of crudeness; and the singing of Jerry Eleison as a contemptuous travesty of the Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy).

I found the experience of watching both the hour-long introductory broadcast (devoid as it was of any editorial balance) and the show itself deeply troubling. I do not understand how anybody can be proud of enjoying the humiliation of other people (as happens in the real Jerry Springer Show), nor how the representation of that in an artistic format makes it more acceptable. Surely tears rather than laughter are the proper human response.

The whole experience was not vastly different from being forced to look down the lavatory for three hours. My wife watched the show with me and we were both staggered. It was like watching one of our closest friends or family being humiliated at length before a Roman circus-like public.

The music itself and the performances seemed as you’d expect them to be for a successful West End show. But I’m afraid artistic quality is totally irrelevant to the issue over which I resigned. Of course it’s normal to weigh up artistic merit against the potential to offend, as Mark Thompson and his team had done, but nothing justifies content that is simply blasphemous. Likewise, “satire” cannot very well be used as a defence by people accused of making prisoner pyramids in Abu Ghraib.

In the case of the examples I quoted, these were clearly blasphemous according to any ordinary use of the word — and I thought it at least worth comparing them with the terms used in the legal definition of blasphemy. As the law concedes, it’s not the attack on the veracity or the sanity of Christianity that is a problem, but it’s the way in which it’s conducted that is important — in this case with language that nobody has denied is both indecent and intemperate.

One of the misconceptions about blasphemy is the primary object of the offence: it is not Christians but God who is mocked, dishonoured and insulted. The Christian groups who motivated many believers to protest before and after the broadcast were only doing the most natural thing in the world: standing up for their best friend. And while following in the steps of Jesus means turning the other cheek, it also means pointing out the truth — remember Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers? In this context it’s worth recalling the Latin inscription on Broadcasting House (particularly because it’s now hidden from view by building works): “This Temple of the Arts and Muses is dedicated to Almighty God by the first Governors of Broadcasting in the year 1931, Sir John Reith being Director-General. It is their prayer that good seed sown may bring forth a good harvest and that the people, inclining their ear to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and of good report, may tread the path of wisdom and uprightness.”

The BBC has been an amazing place to work in and the vast majority of what we’ve done and still do is wonderful. Radio 3 is a particularly undersung jewel in the crown, where the breadth and depth of programming is enough to make your head spin. I’m especially looking forward to the 60th anniversary season next year, when this unique tradition of creativity and diversity will be celebrated.

But I think a corner has been turned and it provokes the deeper question about our culture. The BBC’s decision to go ahead means that there is now a wider problem: we have created a new benchmark for public service broadcasting. In the future, unless there is some positive action, it’ll be all too easy to compare programmes containing profanity, obscenity and blasphemy with Jerry Springer — The Opera and to conclude that since they don’t quite reach that low, it ’s okay to broadcast them.

The number of people writing in and protesting to the BBC and to Ofcom, the media regulator, must surely be only the tip of the iceberg. Since Monday evening I have received scores of e-mails and letters almost all saying the same thing: enough is enough.

Where does this leave the BBC and its admirable set of “core values” — trust, audiences, quality, creativity and respect? My hope, as one who has made plenty of mistakes himself, is that the BBC will do four things: admit the mistake, apologise for it, try to put it right and learn from it.

There were two reasons why I felt that I had to resign last week: first, in order to have the freedom to express my views publicly; second, in order to accept some of the corporate responsibility that I felt lay on the BBC’s shoulders.

Yes, it’s only a gesture — not an easy one — but it had to be made. It is now the BBC’s own integrity and future that I hope can be rebuilt.