It’s a disgrace children don’t read Bible, says atheist Bragg

BROADCASTER Melvyn Bragg has attacked the ‘disgraceful’ decline in young people reading the Bible, saying those who think it is too complicated are ‘wimps’.

Despite not believing in God himself, the Labour peer and author said he sees the Bible as a ‘great force’ for people of all backgrounds.

Asked what he thought about many young people no longer reading or being taught the Bible, the -year-old told the Henley Literary Festival: ‘I think it is a disgrace.

‘They say it’s too complicated, what are they talking about? Shakespeare gets more and more popular, and nearly always Shakespeare is played in the original.

‘We have to work a bit harder, and that’s also good. But yet [the Bible is] equally powerful [and] we just say ‘it’s too complicated’. Wimps, terrible persons.’

The presenter of In Our Time on Radio 4 and The South Bank Show on Sky Arts called for a return of Bible readings to school life. He told an audience at the festival, which is sponsored by the Daily Mail: ‘The first week of every month in every church and every school, no matter what denomination because I’m talking about a culture as well as a religion, it should be read so that people have depth to language and depth of reference, which they are without. I think it is a great deprivation... It’s awful.’

On his own beliefs, he told the audience on Monday: ‘I don’t believe in God but I do believe in a first cause.’