The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked the BBC not to turn its back on Christianity.
Dr Rowan Williams had a meeting at Lambeth Palace with director general Mark Thompson in which he said the corporation should not ignore its Christian audience.
The talks came at a time when some senior figures are worried about signs that the BBC is more interested in promoting minority faiths than in broadcasting Christian programming or teachings.
Further talks between another bishop and BBC managers are to be held next month.
Church leaders are making their concerns known at a time of upheaval in the BBC's religious department.
A reorganisation of management posts has seen the former head of religious programmes, Methodist preacher Michael Wakelin, fail to land the renamed job of Commissioning Editor, Religion and Head of Religion and Ethics.
A leading contender for the post is Aaqil Ahmed, a Muslim who is commissioning editor for religion at Channel 4.
Mr Ahmed has taken part in campaigns in favour of a greater Muslim presence in the media, and is a trustee of the Runnymede Trust, a pressure group that has champ-ioned multiculturalism.
Mr Wakelin's continued employment at the BBC remains in question.
There have also been raised eyebrows at the appointment last year of Tommy Nagra, a Sikh, as executive producer of BBC TV's longrunning Songs of Praise programme.
Church of England bishops have been unhappy for some time at what has been seen as the downgrading of religious programmes at the corporation.
The fear now is that Christianity is on the slide among the BBC's priorities. It is believed Dr Williams challenged Mr Thompson in particular over the decline in religious broadcasting on the BBC World Service.
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In 2001, it broadcast one hour and 45 minutes a week of religious programming. It now broadcasts just half an hour.
Christina Rees, a member of the CofE's cabinet, the Archbishops' Council, said: 'I would want to see a commitment to Christian output.
'In all the censuses a very large proportion of the population identifies itself as Christian.
'The established Church has a special role in the country. We actually have a remit for everyone in the whole country.'
She added: 'The BBC is a public service corporation. It is funded by licence-payers and part of the broadcaster's duty is to represent the population.
'If it ignored Christians and the Church it would be negligent.'
There is concern among churchmen at what appear to be increasingly frequent official efforts to suppress the expression of Christianity.
Earlier this year Somerset nurse Caroline Petrie, 45, was suspended - although later reinstated - for offering to pray for an elderly patient's recovery.
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, wrote in the Daily Mail last month that the denial by public servants of people's right to express their Christian faith was 'an affront'.
Last week there was alarm among some bishops at Gordon Brown's proposal to repeal the 1701 Act of Settlement, which prevents anyone married to a Roman Catholic becoming monarch.
The move is seen as a precursor to ending the CofE's status as the established state religion.
BBC chief Mr Thompson said last autumn that minority religions like Islam should be more protected from criticism than Christianity.
He said in a lecture that 'what Christian identity feels like to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.
'There's no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don't want to say that all religions are the same. To be a minority, I think, puts a slightly different outlook on it.'
A spokesman for the BBC said: 'BBC religious programming covers a variety of faiths reflecting its audiences, with the majority of the programming being Christian as the major faith of the UK.'
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