Stephen Green at “Christian Voice” is indignant that the BBC is a partly secular organization.
The Daily Mail has run a story about the BBC employing more atheists and non-believers than Christians after submitting a Freedom of Information request.
An internal BBC survey indeed found that just 22.5 per cent of all staff professed to be Christians, but 43% of staff did not respond to the survey. The Daily Mail said the Christians were outnumbered by atheists and those of no faith, at 23.5 per cent, but that figure was arrived at by adding the professing atheists (8.9%) to those of no faith (14.6%). Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs totalled 3.2% while ‘others’ were 2.6%, and 5.2% preferred not to say.
The Daily Mail’s Jonathan Petrie said ‘the new research has been seized on by critics who accuse the Corporation of bias against Christianity and marginalising the faith in its output’. He quoted BBC veteran Roger Bolton, who until recently presented BBC Radio 4’s religious current affairs programme, ‘Sunday’, as saying: ‘There is an inbuilt but unconscious bias against religion, fuelled by the fact staff are not representative of the public. It is not a conspiracy but it needs a correction.’
Why would it need a correction? Why would the BBC have to be more pro-religion?
The Mail has certainly sensationalised the story, but it remains that BBC staff as a whole are unrepresentative of the population at large, where, according to the last census, around 72% claimed to be Christian, with just 15.5% saying they had no religion. At the BBC, out of those who have volunteered information, 39.5% claim to be Christian, 15.6% atheist and 25.6% of no religion. Other religions are similar to the proportions in the population.
I bet I know another way that BBC staff as a whole are unrepresentative of the population at large; I bet they have more than average levels of education. Why? Because of the nature of the job. You could say the same thing about lawyers (for just one example).
There’s an obvious connection, though BBC veteran Roger Bolton might call it bias against religion to spell it out. I’ll spell it out anyway. There’s an obvious connection between more education and more critical thinking about conventional wisdom such as religion. People who spend more time getting an education have more opportunities to be exposed to questions about religion, and people who ask questions about religion. It’s not hugely surprising that there’s a correlation (assuming there is one) between having the education needed to work for the BBC, and being non-religious.
I suppose that’s why outlets like the Daily Mail and people like Stephen Green feel they have to resort to bullying tactics like demanding more “representation” for untenable views.
Green then, taking a leaf from Bill Donohue’s book, quotes himself in a blog post he himself wrote:
In July 2006, a veteran BBC executive told a meeting called to address the problem of anti-Christian bias: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. ‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, responded:
‘It would be good to know the religious break-down of people in BBC top jobs, because it rather seems as if the Christians at the BBC have either a secularist world-view or little vision of how to turn the place upside down, as the early Apostles were accused of doing. Putting the comments from Andrew Marr and Jeremy Vine together, it just seems far easier to be atheistic and gay than to be normal and Christian at the BBC.’
Seriously. He’s quoting himself, in the third person. Did he forget that he shows as the author right at the top of the page?
‘The real problem is not the lack of Christian programming, but the fact that no world-view other than a tedious atheist outlook informs normal programming content. The BBC really should have the decency to acknowledge there are valid points of view other than the grindingly politically-correct anti-Christ atheism held by the majority of its staff.
‘Christians in soaps are always portrayed as weak, or stupid, or bigoted. Meanwhile, story-lines are concocted to introduce homosexuals whenever possible and to show favoured religious minorities in a good light.
Note how automatically he treats “homosexuals” as illegitimate intrusions forced on decent Christians by an atheist minority.
In passing he takes a swipe at Professor Alice Roberts, who replies in a comment:
I wanted to register my disquiet at the paragraph in which I am described as a “fanatical evolutionist”. Like most biologists, I think that evolution through natural selection best explains the diversity of life on this planet; this is not a minority view and not necessarily incompatible with religious belief: many Christians accept evolution.
However, I felt moved to respond to the criticisms of the series Origins of Us, and set the record straight. Firstly, the criticisms do BBC Science an injustice. Even if I wanted to present my own opinions and speculation (in any other way than clearly flagging them as such) the BBC would not allow me to do this in a science programme. Secondly, the criticism levelled at me brings my own academic integrity into question. Every hypothesis and fact discussed or presented in the programme is already “out there”, in peer reviewed scientific publications. BBC Science (and I myself) are very careful about the factual basis of such programmes, and extremely careful to differentiate between fact and opinion.
The “vacuous subjective claims” to which Mr Stephen Green alludes are facts based on peer-reviewed scientific research. I am also surprised that Mr Green suggests I presented the extremely outdated “savannah hypothesis” as current science – this is something that was critically appraised and research suggesting, instead, an arboreal origin for bipedalism was put forward. The idea that tool-using and tool-making may have influenced the shape of our hands is, again, not idle speculation but based on published research. Any change in anatomy which leads to a survival advantage (whether that’s an adaptation helping survival in a particular natural environment or an adaptation which makes you better at making technology which helps you to survive) is likely to be selected for.
I realise that few readers of this website will read my response objectively, but I object strongly to the criticism that my programmes with the BBC have lacked objectivity and include “idle speculation”. That can only be true if you believe that the numerous academic papers which form the backbone of such a series are also “idle speculation”.
Regards, Professor Alice Roberts [I will post a copy of this comment on my Facebook page]
And I posted it here. I like to help.
Stephen Green is showing how desperate the church must be getting.
Your assessment of why there may be more atheists at the BBC than in the general population is probably pretty accurate but I fail to see what the BBC can do about it. I’ve personally never been to job interview where the subject of my religion or otherwise has come up. While we usually fill in a form about ethnicity, religion, disability etc., this is for monitoring purposes only and is a) voluntary and b) not seen by interviewers. Without asking, interviewers just wouldn’t know. If they did ask they could lay themselves open to charges of discrimination by the atheists who didn’t get the jobs.
This bleating about demographics is a brazen attempt to acquire yet more religious privilege. Furthermore, those census figures he quotes are from 2001. The 2011 census puts Christians at 59% and ‘no religion’ at 25% – a considerable shift. (http://godless.eu/IWhcTf)
Ugh. WHY won’t they just go away?
t looks even worse for Christians than you think. I a poll commissioned by the Richard Dawkins Foundation and conducted by IPSOS-MORI they found the following:
And note that these are the 56% that self-identify as Christian.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2921/
Well exactly. I think asking potential employees about their religion or non-religion is a no-no in most hiring situations, at least in the US…but I’m betting elsewhere too, for obvious reasons. (No, you may not preferentially hire people of the “right” religion.)
And you can’t have every kind of “balance” or “representation” there is. Universities aren’t required to hire people who dropped out of school in the 8th grade. Gyms aren’t required to hire people whose only exercise is flicking buttons on the remote.
Indeed, and why should they do anything? Being educated and intelligent is a requisite for fairness; being religious is clearly not.
So glad. She’s one of my heroes.
Unlike real Christians, who simply misunderstand evolution, preach discrimination against homosexuals, and cry like pigs at the abattoir unless everyone in the world gives them a trophy for putting up a Christmas tree.
ffs, doesn’t the supposedly atheist BBC outright support the Establishment church? They have a whole genre of religious programming like Songs of Praise.
I was googling for more info and found this article about how they’re ramping up religious programming for the Christmas season: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/religious-programmes-christmas.html
Shorter Green: “Wah! My favourite religion is not dominating the BBC staff like I’d like it to. WAH!”
Oops! I have to take back my criticism that Green was using old census data and not the latest from 2011. Although the twaddle in question was written on 5th December, the dates on the comments make it clear that it was 5th December 2011. The 2011 census data wouldn’t have been available then.
Alice Roberts’ response was written today though!
It would be illegal under the Equality Act 2010 to directly or indirectly discriminate against someone on the basis of their religion or lack thereof (this has been interpreted quite broadly, IIRC, to include political beliefs).
The BBC broadcasts about 100 hours of religious content a year, across four tv channels and seven national radio stations (probably very little of it on 6Music and 5Live Sport). Thought For The Day is very important for me, as it is more many others, as marks the time I have to leave for work.
A clear example of the projection that runs rampant in holy circles. They are afraid that atheists are using the platform to oppress others, because that’s exactly what they would do in that situation.
First, let me pause to laugh at Green, in that particular way that delights in the discomfort of an idiot.
BWAHAHAHA!
Now then.
I’d suggest “potential connection”, not obvious connection. Theologians get the fuck educated out of them, after all, and critical thinking is not a notable feature there, except where it enables them to “work”.
And then you say this:
Did you mean “critical thinking about how to advance my own career and enforce my own prejudices”? If you didn’t, I give you the counterexample of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who can’t decide from day to day whether or not being gay is legally acceptable. I believe you’ve written about his shutdown of mental faculties when it comes to reproductive rights and female agency!
To be fair, you said “education”, and like most of America’s finest legal minds, Kennedy went to Harvard.
That said, I would quite agree that the type of educational background that would enable people to apply for a job — even to want to apply for a job — at the BBC probably isn’t of that nature. Still, that statement made me cringe a bit.
I will add that in my engineering undergrad at UC Berkeley — generally considered a good school — I was forbidden to take courses beyond the required “breadth requirements” (seven courses in all, four of which I was able to waive out of due to AP testing). I was even actively dissuaded from participating in campus activities outside of engineering societies. In grad school, it was a social norm that people didn’t waste their time on such activities.
I see the opposite of “gay” is “normal.”
Atheism is “tedious” and “grindingly politically correct,” is it? Hey, Mr. Green, I sat through a few church services in my day. There’s a reason “church” is practically a synonym for “boring.”
Green is a very nasty piece of work indeed with an enormous but fragile ego. I’m not convinced that Christian Voice is anything other than just him. His ex-wife claims that he regularly beat her (with a weapon! A weapon he described to her in advance that he would design, make and use on her!) and their children. It’s alleged that he beat his son with a piece of wood (presumably the same weapon) so severely that he needed hospital treatment. According to her, his son told doctors that he’d fallen because he was scared of what Green would do if he told the truth. Green hung a copy of he and his wife’s marriage vows above their bed. Apparently he always emphasized the ‘obey’ part. What a fantastic surprise.
Whether those allegations or true or not, Green is still absolutely horrible. He supports the death penalty for homosexuality. He’s said that being homosexual is as bad as being a serial killer. He doesn’t recognise the concept of marital rape (failure to have sex with him is one of the things his ex-wife says he beat her for) and opposes abortion under any circumstances. He’s against HPV vaccine because he claims it promotes promiscurity and published a press release lying that it causes sterility.
He really didn’t like Jerry Springer, the Opera. He caused a cancer charity to decline a £3000 donation from the producers of that show because Green threatened to picket their centres, where of course people were receiving palliative care and probably wouldn’t enjoy being shouted and jeered at when they arrived or left. He also tried to sue the producers, lost and refused to pay the costs they were awarded. This was also instrumental in having the blasphemy laws being repealed in the UK.
But he’s a reliable loon so the media here trot him out whenever they can to say something predictably stupid. For example, he’s claimed that Tesco’s drop in profits were not due to the global economic recession, but due to a punishment from god for supporting Pride. He blamed a mouse infestation in one Tesco store on the same thing.
If I remember rightly, his objection to the atheist bus campaign was that “people don’t like being preached to” while simultaneously saying homosexuals should be murdered, people shouldn’t be allowed abortions, .
I don’t think there’s any reason to take stories featuring Green very seriously. Very few Christian or political organisations here seem to think of him as anything other than a dangerous loon. As usual, our irresponsible press encourages and promotes him for the obvious reason. I’m tempted to think of that press as the baddies in this case. But then I remember what a completely horrible shit Green is and I find it hard to see him as the victim.
I am not familiar with this person, Mr Green. Is he some kind of vegetable? If so, edible? If so, I elect to abstain.