Dan Walker complains about "persecution for being a Christian"

[milquetoast1]

Bit of local interest since Dan Walker lives in Sheffield, and congratulations to him on landing the presenting job on BBC Breakfast.

 

Anyway, he's just been a guest with Chris Evans this morning and he complained he was "persecuted for being a Christian" due to lots of recent media interest about his faith.

 

Presumably he means articles like this:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12152098/Dan-Walkers-creationism-is-an-affront-to-reason-science-and-logic.html

 

Someone who is on the record as believing that the earth is flat would be an unlikely anchor of the BBC’s flagship breakfast news show. A news reporter who denied basic facts from the past such as the French revolution, the explosion of Mount Vesuvius, or the Holocaust would surely raise eyebrows at interview. Climate change denial, or a denial of heliocentrism, would be unlikely to find favour at the BBC. And yet they have just selected a creationist to front their Breakfast show.

 

Here's what Dan Walker said; "I want a tolerant society, where you can be a Christian, you can be a Muslim, you can be a Jew. You can have those beliefs and get on with life. I want to live in a world where Gary Lineker can present Match Of The Day even though he's a Leicester City fan, and John Humphries can do Radio 4 even though he's an atheist. Where a young Muslim girl can go into journalism and your faith and your sex will not hold you back. That's the world I want to live in, not where I'm persecuted for being a Christian".

 

Chris Evans quite correctly, and from experience, told Dan Walker that it's not persecution at all, it's just interest; "They haven't persecuted you, they've just pointed it out. Because it's interesting. Once you step into centre stage it all changes, that's the deal."

 

Notwithstanding the low threshold for what many Christian's like Dan Walker thinks constitutes persecution these days, everything he said except for that is correct. Society should not care about anybody's faith or sex, but I think he's rather missing the point.

 

I think it's valid to ask why a sports journalist, with a bent towards football, should be accommodated when half the output is on a day you refuse to work, or why a news journalist should be accommodated when they might not trust what they are actually saying.

 

I don't think it's about faith, but actions, and expecting other people to respect or accommodate those actions and then dressing it up as faith.

 

With respect to accommodation to people's faith, where should we as a society draw the line?

[tzijlstra]

I am an atheist, I believe people should be free to believe what they want and that society has a duty to respect those that have faith.

 

It is up to employers to establish whether they can work with someone who doesn't want to work on Sunday's or goes for prayers frequently. The BBC presumably knew of his desire not to work Sunday's and went ahead and put him in this position anyway, no big deal, if they are happy to do so and he is, then what is the problem?

[L00b]

With respect to accommodation to people's faith, where should we as a society draw the line?

At the interface between public matters and personal matters: faith should be a strictly private matter, and kept such, by the faithful as much as by the State.

 

If he thinks he's being persecuted for his faith, maybe he could be all the journalist that he can be and, as his first piece of personal investigative journalism, look into the increasing segregation (also increasingly secret/witness protection-like, in all cases of ex-IS slaves, mostly Yazidis) of Christian and atheist refugees in sheltered accommodation Germany and Sweden: they're being segregated at their own request and for their own protection, due to being persecuted by proselytes and IS sympathizers.

 

And I mean persecuted within the conventional meaning of the verb: beatings, rapes, thefts and racketing, and more.

 

Guess we'll have to see if and when any of that ever makes BBC Breakfast news, with its new anchor

Edited February 12, 2016 by L00b

[Cyclone]

I am an atheist, I believe people should be free to believe what they want and that society has a duty to respect those that have faith.

 

It is up to employers to establish whether they can work with someone who doesn't want to work on Sunday's or goes for prayers frequently. The BBC presumably knew of his desire not to work Sunday's and went ahead and put him in this position anyway, no big deal, if they are happy to do so and he is, then what is the problem?

 

How far does this extend?

 

We have to humour someone that thinks the earth is flat?

 

We have to humour someone who believes in Santa Claus?

 

Or is it only okay for them to have these beliefs if they never mention them?

[milquetoast1]

I am an atheist, I believe people should be free to believe what they want and that society has a duty to respect those that have faith.

 

Quite right, we both want the tolerant society that Dan Walker said he wants, but as I said I don't really think issue is faith but actions.

 

It is up to employers to establish whether they can work with someone who doesn't want to work on Sunday's or goes for prayers frequently. The BBC presumably knew of his desire not to work Sunday's and went ahead and put him in this position anyway, no big deal, if they are happy to do so and he is, then what is the problem?

 

I don't want to work Sundays either, so I limit my employment accordingly. When Jonathan Edwards was a Christian he used to refuse to work on Sundays, and the only person impacted by that decision was himself. If an employer wants to accommodate somebody's refusal to work on Sundays then that's fine, but I don't think an employer should be forced to. If an employee doesn't want to work on Sundays, and it means other employees have to work more Sundays when they want to, then that's a problem.

 

Also I am curious as to why people conflate questioning of their beliefs with "persecution", and agree with L00b's reply above.

[sgtkate]

For me if your beliefs get in the way of you doing your job compared to someone without those beliefs then that shouldn't be acceptable.

 

Does Dan Walkers beliefs effect his ability to present breakfast time radio? Can't see how. However, if he'd been hired to host the weekend breakfast show and then refused to work on Sundays clearly his beliefs are out of line with the expectations of the role and he should be dismissed if refusal to work on Sundays continued.

[999tigger]

 

I think it's valid to ask why a sports journalist, with a bent towards football, should be accommodated when half the output is on a day you refuse to work, or why a news journalist should be accommodated when they might not trust what they are actually saying.

?

 

 

Half of sports output is not on a Sunday.

His appointment is to breakfast TV. He can fulfill that Monday to Saturday.

Why wouldnt you trust what he's saying?

 

On this forum theres quite a lot of intolerance to anyone with a religion.

[milquetoast1]

Half of sports output is not on a Sunday.

His appointment is to breakfast TV. He can fulfill that Monday to Saturday.

Why wouldnt you trust what he's saying?

 

Okay, almost half the football output is on a Sunday.

 

Why wouldn't I trust what he was saying? Why do you think that I that?

 

What I said was "they might not trust what they are actually saying".

 

From the Telegraph article, written by a Christian author:

 

"Someone who is on the record as believing that the earth is flat would be an unlikely anchor of the BBC’s flagship breakfast news show. A news reporter who denied basic facts from the past such as the French revolution, the explosion of Mount Vesuvius, or the Holocaust would surely raise eyebrows at interview. Climate change denial, or a denial of heliocentrism, would be unlikely to find favour at the BBC. And yet they have just selected a creationist to front their Breakfast show.Of course, in a free society, the margin of respect and tolerance given to religious beliefs should be generous. As a Christian, I hope society continues to protect my right to hold beliefs and to express them. But that margin cannot cover disregard for well-established scientific fact in a job where fact is key."

[999tigger]

Okay, almost half the football output is on a Sunday.

 

Why wouldn't I trust what he was saying? Why do you think that I that?

 

What I said was "they might not trust what they are actually saying".

 

From the Telegraph article, written by a Christian author:

 

"Someone who is on the record as believing that the earth is flat would be an unlikely anchor of the BBC’s flagship breakfast news show. A news reporter who denied basic facts from the past such as the French revolution, the explosion of Mount Vesuvius, or the Holocaust would surely raise eyebrows at interview. Climate change denial, or a denial of heliocentrism, would be unlikely to find favour at the BBC. And yet they have just selected a creationist to front their Breakfast show.Of course, in a free society, the margin of respect and tolerance given to religious beliefs should be generous. As a Christian, I hope society continues to protect my right to hold beliefs and to express them. But that margin cannot cover disregard for well-established scientific fact in a job where fact is key."

 

Nowhere near half of football fixtures are on Sunday. The BBC has plenty of football presenters. They can agree with him whatever terms they want. Bit like chris Evans doing only friday on the One Show.

 

It doesnt matter if what he is saying is consistent with his religion. He just has to preesent the facts.

[L00b]

It doesnt matter if what he is saying is consistent with his religion. He just has to preesent the facts.

What matters more is that he does not dismiss or misrepresent what is inconsistent with his religion.

 

There's no suggestion that he will of course...but just a suspicion, whence some 'antis' may well then disbelieve the factual accuracy of anything he reports, because of the anchor's imagined proselytism. I think that's the argument made in that article, unless I'm missing its point.

 

It's like conspiracy types disbelieving anything a government mouthpiece says, regardless of verifiable accuracy, because "it's the guberment, innit".

 

At a broader level, there's just been so much going 'wrong' with all types of religions lately, that a general backlash (call it a step up from apathy, I'm not talking progroms) is just inevitable. I mean, there's the whole Muslim demonization thing going on, there was the Christian Church abuses not so long ago, there's the neverending Jews v Arabs around Israel/Palestine, jihadis kicking off here there and everywhere for the past decade and a bit...I get this sort of feeling that ordinary people are getting to the stage where they've just about had enough of hearing about religions, and religious types making their lives a misery, directly and not.

Edited February 12, 2016 by L00b