There has been some public debate recently about the BBC Radio 4 morning slot Though for the Day. The BBC Trust will soon respond to various charges made against it by supporters of secularism and humanism.
Nick Baines reported on an event he took part in, at Free thinking, a couple of weeks ago.
This weekend Jonathan Wynne-Jones wrote a detailed review of the arguments in the Telegraph, see Rethinking Thought for the Day. His earlier blog entry is here.
I’m with Sandy Toksvig on this one. 8.10am Sunday worship has the same effect.
I know this is completely off thread, but for anyone who’s interested there’s a two-part documentary about the diocese of Sydney on the ABC. It’s available through the ABC website here: http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/catchup To find it, select the alphabetical list and find *Compass,* where the first installment of “The Battle of the Bishops” is the current episode. I don’t know if this will play outside Australia. As the episode screened last night it will be up for the next couple of weeks. While much of it might strike followers of this blog as mostly last year’s news, there’s some fairly revealing… Read more »
Kieran, we’d like to watch the ABC documentary, but unfortunately (the same applies to BBC1 & 2) some country’s copyright (not sure ours-U.S. or theirs) laws prevent true global communication and freedom of speech.
First thing we do is kill all the lawyers.
“”Thought for the Day is a relic of the past,” believes Claire Rayner, the agony aunt who is vice-president of the British Humanist Association. “It’s a slot that encourages disparity. Let it die quietly.” With the rise of secularism, critics of the slot’s policy are irritated that religious leaders are free to express their views unchallenged to an audience of 4.5 million.” When one considers that ‘Thought For The Day’ takes up just 3 minutes of daily broadcasting, it is difficult to see how it provides un-balanced bias towards religion – when the other 23 hours and 57 minutes are… Read more »
“I know this is completely off thread, but for anyone who’s interested there’s a two-part documentary about the diocese of Sydney on the ABC. It’s available through the ABC website here:” – Kieran crichton, on Monday – It’s not ‘completely ‘off-thread’, Kieran – as this vidoe-clip that you have advertised on this thread is the Sydney Archdiocese’s answer to the British ‘Thought For Today’ – only with a rather sinister twist. It’s perhaps as well this particular bit of church publicity is not commonly available – otherwise Anglicans who do not reside in the Archdiocese of Sydney would be appalled… Read more »
Hard not to agree in passing that traditionalistic Christians are slowly but surely being marginalized; and of course that involves their being edged to the margins of many occasions in public life in a modern western democracy. Fact is, every time such believers show up to play with others, it is all about them claiming God already gave them all of the toys in any and all toy boxes, so that they are in charge. Traditional religionists now face a heavy burden – they must always demonstrate that they have arrived, ready to play well with all the others in… Read more »
” Traditional religionists now face a heavy burden – they must always demonstrate that they have arrived, ready to play well with all the others in the public places.”
Exactly. But 1700 years of Imperial Church has made them think that the Church doesn’t have to play well with others. The very idea is deeply disturbing to them. Their idea of Church is that the Church gets to tell everybody else how to play, and those who don’t like that are oppressing Her.