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",[1] broadcast at around 7:45 each Monday to Saturday morning.

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.

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 (Inclusive Church 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.

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:[2] 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.

[2] 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.

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".

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.

[5] 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".

[4][6] Presenters of the segment have included:[7] After months of negotiation between the Vatican and the BBC, Pope Benedict XVI recorded a 'Christmas message especially for the UK', which was broadcast as the Thought for the Day on 24 December 2010.

Another difference is that it draws from a more diverse religious base, even including a regular pagan speaker, possibly reflecting the strong interfaith movement in the station's home town of Ipswich.