Thought for the Day on the Radio 4’s Today programme may lose its original religious status as the BBC Trust has launched an investigation into the possibility of opening it up to secular and humanist points of view. The plans sparked criticism from politicians and faith leaders.
Mark Damazer, Controller of Radio 4, said that he regarded the allowing non-religious perspectives as a 'finely balanced argument' and that non-religious speakers should become a part of the long-running Today programme feature.
Responding to listener complaints on Radio 4’s Feedback programme, Mr Damazer said there 'may well be quite a strong argument for including secularists and humanists' and said it was 'absolutely not a cut and dried issue.
'You should know that the BBC Trust … is currently considering this question and they will come to some kind of conclusion later on this year. They may well suggest – I have no idea it's for them and not for me – that we should take in a wider range of voices,' he said.
However, listeners of Thought for the Day accused the BBC of caving in to lobbying from secular groups, and said that any decision to change the broadcast would be 'madness'.
Reverend Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney, South-West London, and a regular contributor to the show, said:
'What is at threat here is whether this is a distinctive slot. Would you have secularists doing Songs of Praise? It just seems madness. This could be a way of destroying it through the back door, through political correctness.
'I think it is very easy for people to read the BBC as backing away from religious broadcasting,' he added.
Conservative MP Philip Davies, who sits on the culture, media and sport select committee, said:
'The whole of the broadcast media tends to be pretty secular and Thought for the Day is the one thing which actually puts a religious and therefore different perspective across.
'If they are going to abandon the principle it is a religious thing then it drives a coach and horses through its purpose. Its uniqueness would disappear.'
The Rev. Canon Jonathan Alderton-Ford from St Edmundsbury and Ipswich diocese said: 'In an age which is increasingly secular it is vitally important that religion retains its voice.'
The Vicar of Putney, Rev Giles Fraser, also criticised the plans.
'One of the main rules about the Thought for the Day slot is that contributors are not allowed to attack other faiths. If we had Richard Dawkins attacking and rubbishing religion, it would change the fundamental nature of it. It is a gentle slot.
'Secondly, it is not a comment slot; it's about understanding my faith and traditions and what is a secular tradition? There isn't one,' he said.
Steve Clifford, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance said:
'The Today programme has no problem running slots for business and sport, so why shouldn't it have a slot dedicated to religion? It strikes me that the secularists predominate in the other 2 hours and 55 minutes, so is it really asking too much for religion to just have a small chunk of dedicated time?'
In 2002, Professor Richard Dawkins was heavily criticised after he was given a two-and-a-half minute 'unofficial' Thought slot after the main broadcast on BBC Radio 4 to deliver a reflection from an atheist viewpoint, following a letter to the BBC Governors.
Thought for the Day is a daily scripted slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 offering 'reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news', broadcast at around 7.45 each Monday to Saturday morning. The programme is a successor to the more substantial five-minute religious sequence Ten to Eight (1965–1970) and, before that, Lift Up Your Hearts, which was first broadcast five mornings a week on the BBC Home Service from December 1939.
A spokesman from the BBC Trust said that the decision is to be published in the Autumn.
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