Thought for the Day under new pressure

The question of Thought for the Day and its religious exclusivity has been raised again, this time on the BBC website. A blog about Thought for the Day brought an overwhelming call from listeners for it to be opened up to a wider range of voices. But this did not impress the controller of Radio 4, Mark Damazer, who reiterated the policy of exclusion and discrimination.

Meanwhile, a new scandal concerning the BBC’s lack of religious impartiality is brewing, likely to break this weekend in a Sunday newspaper. Watch this space.

See also:
Expect more religion on TV

Terry Sanderson comments:
It seems a new urban myth has arisen among broadcasters that goes: “Religion is suddenly everywhere, therefore everyone is interested in it and wants to see and hear endless programmes about it.”

What has actually happened is that yes, religion is everywhere but it is not perceived by the population at large in this country as in any way beneficial. Most people find the present incarnation of religion terrifying and malignant.

But still the propaganda continues, and Channel 4 seems to have fallen for the myth that religion is central to our lives, packing its schedules with pious programming. Next week it starts an eight hour series called Christianity: A History (Sundays 7pm) in which the religious great and good (including Cherie Blair and Anne Widdecombe) indulge their own obsessions with religion. Who does Channel 4 thinks wants to watch this stuff?

On BBC2 we are presently being regaled with another expensive series, Around the World in 80 Faiths (Fridays 8pm) presented by Anglican vicar Peter Owen Jones. Mr Owen Jones reminds us, at what seems like thirty second intervals, that he is a Christian, presumably in an effort to distance himself from the bizarre — sometimes bordering on the insane — religious beliefs he is encountering in his travels. Why he should imagine his own particular take on the supernatural is any less daffy than the John Frum cult or the voodoo practitioners he witnesses slitting the throats of puppies and kittens, I don’t know.

There is an awful sense of smug superiority oozing from the Rev as he patronises the primitives. Meanwhile, the programme itself comes from the perspective that “all religion should be respected”. But after watching it for half an hour, any objective observer would think that most of these people should be committed to an asylum – for their own safety and ours. See this story for an example; Woman burnt to death in ‘sorcery’ murder

9 January 2009