Thought for the Day

''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. Nowadays lasting 2 minutes and 45 seconds, it is a successor to the 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, initially at 7:30, though soon moved to 7:47. The feature is mainly delivered by those involved in religious practice; often, these are Christian thinkers, but there have been numerous occasions where representatives of other faiths, including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, have presented ''Thought for the Day''.

Notable contributors to the slot have included major religious figures, including Rowan Williams (former archbishop of Canterbury) and Popes Benedict XVI and Francis. British rabbis who have contributed include Chief Rabbi Jonathan Lord Sacks of the United Synagogue movement and Lionel Blue of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

Other contributors include Anne Atkins, John L. Bell (Iona Community), Rhidian Brook, Tom Butler (former Bishop of Southwark), Dr Elaine Storkey (Philosopher and theologian), Canon Giles Fraser founder), Richard Lord Harries of Pentregarth, James Jones (former Bishop of Liverpool), Mona Siddiqui (Muslim professor), Michael Banner (ethicist), Indarjit Lord Singh of Wimbledon (Sikh parliamentarian), Jasvir Singh and Canon Angela Tilby.

Format

''Thought for the Day'' contributions often follow a similar format: starting with a contemporary issue of public interest or concern, possibly drawn from the news, or from sport, the arts, science or some other area of public life as a lead-in to a spiritual or religious reflection. A report by the Christian think tank Ekklesia described the link between the topical lead-in and the spiritual reflection as usually taking one of the following forms:

# Directional link: the contributor uses the theological content to comment on the issue in question.
# Meditatory link: the contributor moves from the contemporary topical issue to the theological issue in a way that inspires reflection but does not try to give a moral or message about the original issue.
# No link: this is usually done when the contributor picks a topic that is already directly spiritual or religious in nature.

Some ''Thought for the Day'' contributions can be more explicitly evangelistic while others are more personal, and others have been positively inter-religious with contributors praising faiths different from their own. Leslie Griffiths, a Christian contributor to the programme described his view of the role of faith in contributing to ''Thought for the Day'' as follows: "I'm a Christian and the essence of my Christianity gives me the angle from which I want to reflect, but it is the lens rather than the subject itself. I don’t want to talk about Christianity, I want as a Christian to talk about the news".

Controversial broadcasts

''Thought for the Day'' has included both traditionalist and more radical voices, and at times those selected to present in the slot have gone beyond providing spiritual instruction into directly criticising government policy and other social issues.

In 1971, the Methodist minister Colin Morris attacked an immigration bill put forward by the government of Ted Heath, arguing that the bill would have denied entry into Britain for not only Saints David, Andrew and George, but Jesus. This led politicians into a public debate about the advisability of the broadcast, and questions were asked in the House of Lords. The BBC dropped Morris from the list of contributors for a few months following the debate.

In 1979, a broadcast by Labour MP Tony Benn was delayed. Benn attacked the BBC for delaying the broadcast and told the press that he had been censored. It later turns out that the Conservative MP Rhodes Boyson had also been asked to prepare a script for ''Thought for the Day'' but was unable to do so. Fearing an accusation of bias in broadcasting Benn and not Boyson, they delayed Benn's broadcast until after the political conference season.

During the 1980s, increasing social problems in the inner cities led the Church of England to produce a report, ''Faith in the City''. This laid a large portion of the blame for the social issues on the policies of the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. A number of Anglican bishops appeared on ''Thought for the Day'' speaking out against Thatcher's social policies including Tom Butler, Jim Thompson and Richard Harries. To protect against accusations of bias in the run-up to the 1987 General Election, David Hatch told producers: "I don't want some lefty bishop on ''Thought for the Day'' queering our pitch".

In 1990, Canon Eric James had planned to use a ''Thought for the Day'' slot to defend those protesting the poll tax, and planned to speak in positive tones of "the spiritual value of revolt". The segment was set to be broadcast on the first day of the Labour Party conference, but James resigned from the programme and told the ''Church Times'' that he had faced censorship.

In 1992, Dr Elaine Storkey in her ''Thought for the Day'' took the Saudi Arabian judiciary to task after a brief BBC World Service report that Saudi Arabia planned to hang a Christian Filipino preacher on Christmas Day. Pastor Wally Magdangal had allegedly been flogged and tortured for preaching Christianity. The item became featured on news throughout the day, and was taken up by Amnesty International and other international groups. The pastor was later released.

In 1996, the writer Anne Atkins used her slot to argue that while "homophobia is reprehensible", the Church of England was altogether too tolerant of homosexuals, condemning a service in Southwark Cathedral commemorating twenty years of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement as a commemoration of "20 years of gay sex", and arguing that Church was failing in its "duty to condemn sin... no doubt, we will have an adulterers' Christian Fellowship". The Church of England expressed disapproval of Atkins' views, specifically the suggestion that increasing tolerance of homosexuality in the church was the cause of a declining number of people seeking to become ordained. The BBC said that they had received a "substantial number of complaints from listeners".

List of presenters

Presenters of the segment have included:

* Anne Atkins
* Reverend Dr Michael Banner
* Jonathan Bartley (Ekklesia founder)
* Vicky Beeching
* Reverend John L. Bell of the Iona Community
* Canon Dr Alan Billings
* Rabbi Lionel Blue
* Vishvapani Blomfield
* Rhidian Brook
* Bishop Tom Butler
* Akhandadhi Das (ISKCON)
* Reverend Joel Edwards
* Pope Francis
* Reverend Dr Giles Fraser

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