Vanya Kewley reports from Southern California on the world's largest walk-in, drive-in 'Inspiration Centre', run by the man critics dub the 'Henry Ford of Organised Religion'. Everyman explores the multi-million dollar operation Dr Robert Schuller calls a 'shopping centre for Jesus Christ', and investigates the appeal of Schuller's weekly TV religious spectacular. In the year a devout Baptist became President of the United States, how do Americans rate a minister of religion who uses media technology to preach a gospel of success?
When the practice of homosexuality ceased to be a crime ten years ago, church leaders stated clearly that it was still a "grievous sin". Today not only practising Christians, but members of the clergy are proclaiming their homosexuality. The "gay Christians" believe that God loves them as they are, and that there is nothing morally wrong in what they do. Can they be right? Peter France reports.
Hollywood makes pictures to make money. What is less well known is that behind some of the latest and most successful horror films is a campaign to warn the world of the Devil's plans. The man who conceived The Omen claims: "God is using the movie industry today". Peter France investigates the reasons for the phenomenal success of the Devil in Hollywood.
To some God and the Church have always been natural subjects for comedy, to others it can border on blasphemy. John Pitman talks to Ken Dodd, Frank Carson, and Kenneth Williams, also Eric Morecambe ("I never use religious jokes") and Spike Milligan ("people laugh because they're frightened"). Plus the clergy's sometimes surprising viewpoint.
'Gospel music is good news - we've had enough "bad news".' But Thomas Dorsey, grandfather of gospel, also remembers 'I've been thrown out of some of the best churches in America!' However, today gospel music is big business from the foot-stomping services of America's black baptists and the political rallies of Martin Luther King, to the superstar of last year's 'world's greatest gospel show'. But is the faith that inspired the great names of the past still burning as brightly?
Everyman reports on the growing conflict between the Catholic Church and the martial law regime of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, where there have been reports of widespread human rights Violations, including the use of torture. Vanya Kewley put the allegations to The Hon Juan Ponce Enrile, Secretary of National Defence.
If you're not as happy as you'd like to be, is it because you possess too little - or because you possess too much? Peter France meets a millionaire, a pauper, three young people who have chosen to live the poor life, and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, to investigate the claim that the secret of happiness lies not in wealth but in poverty. In Assisi he finds out what has happened to the ideals of the most famous 'poor man' of them all, St Francis, 750 years after his death.
'The Army used to hold open air meetings, press into the Devil's strongholds ... Now, everybody is better off, everybody is respectable.' Commissioner Catherine Bramwell-Booth, 94-year-old grand-daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army. This month, the Army has been electing its 11th General. Peter France reports on the work of the Army today and asks how an organisation founded to deal with the spiritual and social crises of late Victorian England is succeeding in finding a role for the 1970s.
Throughout last year David Kossoff gave charity performances of his one-man show as a memorial for his son Paul. Paul Kossoff, lead guitarist with Free, died in March 1976, a victim of his addiction to heroin. Every night in a different theatre David puts on his show based on the Bible, but Paul is never out of his mind.
In the wedding ceremony, couples vow to marry 'till death us do part': yet last year the British were divorcing at the rate of 2,700 a week. Is the 'Vow' too strong? Or are people today too weak? Peter France gives the results of a national opinion poll, commissioned by Everyman, on present-day attitudes to the wedding vows; meets couples who have experienced the marriage paradox; and suggests a new form of vow that might be more realistic for today.
One street in Jerusalem which seems to stand for the city as a whole; a city where every aspect of life and death is steeped in religion.
Vanya Kewley reports from Jamaica on the marijuana-smoking Rastafarians who believe that the late Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is God. Everyman explores the controversial beliefs and life-style of these ferocious-looking 'dread-locks' in the Dungle (dung heap) of downtown Kingston, films their 'ganja' (marijuana) ceremonies, and looks at how their vision, music and painting are influencing Jamaica, from the music of Bob Marley to the new ballets of the Jamaica National Dance Theatre. As the Prime Minister, Michael Manley, says in the programme: 'By making Haile Selassie the Christ figure, the Rastafarian reconnects Africa and black with the Christian message... Rastafarians have this tremendous inner peace and sense of certainty about their identity which is not true about most other Jamaicans.'
Five weeks ago Everyman reported on the Salvation Army. For many viewers the show was stolen by Commissioner Catherine Bramwell-Booth, grand-daughter of the Army's founder, as she gave glimpses of a world long past. So tonight Peter France returns to her home in Berkshire and talks to her at length about her 93 years as a Salvationist.
The Church is the only major institution not bound by the Sex Discrimination Act. Last year Anglican women began being ordained in Canada and the USA, and now the Church of England is under increasing pressure to open its doors to women priests.
"The affluence of the rich countries plunges its roots into the misery of the poor world." The words of Dom Helder Camara, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Recife, Brazil. One of the new breed of Latin American churchmen, he has abandoned his bishop's palace to work alongside the forgotten poor who live on the darker side of Brazil's 'economic miracle'.
Two years ago Peter France reported on what was claimed as a breakthrough in treatment for heroin addiction. Now Everyman follows through that story. In a society which is becoming more drug reliant every day, Peter France asks whether this new 'black box' could be one answer and the Scottish doctor who has pioneered the work insists that the heart of the problem is a spiritual one.
In 1975 Vanya Kewley reported from South Korea on the Church's struggle for Human Rights. That film has just won a first prize in the documentary category of the Montreux Festival of Christian Television. It is shown again tonight in the last of the present series of Everyman, together with a report of what has happened to Christians in South Korea in the last two years.
Ten weeks ago the Old Bailey saw the start of the first trial for blasphemy in this country for over half a century. Begun by Mary Whitehouse against the homosexual newspaper Gay News, it ended in a conviction, heavy fines and a suspended prison sentence for the editor. An appeal is pending. Was this prosecution an attack on free speech? Or was it a necessary defence of the principle that, even in a permissive society, some things must remain sacred? This dramatised documentary reconstructs the crucial moments of this historic trial, and explores the issues it raises. Peter France questions the people on both sides, including Mary Whitehouse and Denis Lemon, Editor, Gay News, about their actions and reactions during the case.
Many religions teach that life continues after death; only Spiritualism claims to be able to prove it. Peter France investigates the various ways in which the dead are said to contact the living, including psychometry and spirit portrait drawing. For this film Everyman asked one of the nation's leading mediums to conduct a controlled seance: do the dead speak to the living? And if they do, what have they got to tell us about life after death?
Today, 60 years after the Russian Revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church claims its supporters outnumber card-carrying Communists in the country by two to one. Hemmed in by restrictions, many Christians have chosen to accept life within the State, while others have vigorously asserted themselves and suffered accordingly. This week Everyman reports on the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Established Churches in the Soviet Union, and on those in Britain trying to maintain contact with Christians whose consciences cannot accept submission to the Communist State.
This week the programme takes a hard look at the world of religion in 1977.
Thirteen years ago Dr Lawrence Blair, writer and student of comparative religions, made his first trip - to the island of Bali; 'I quickly discovered that here was a group of people who knew a great deal more about the inner nature of man, the world we refer to as spirit, than we do in the West.' Dr. Blair has since made his home in Bali. This film is his personal account of the island that has been called paradise on earth; and of what he believes the Balinese can teach us about how to live.
Tonight Everyman reports from Londonderry on two men, one C of E, one RC, as they struggle to cope with the spiritual dilemmas of soldiers involved in a conflict that has quite enough dilemmas of its own.
In his last year as Bishop of Stepney, Trevor Huddleston looks back at his life since 'Naught for Comfort' catapulted him into the headlines in 1956, and he was finally forced to leave his beloved South Africa. He reflects on the changes in British society, on his love-hate relationship with the Church of England, and on his continuing struggle against racialism.
Everyman explores the mind and work of Charles Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts characters. During his 27 years of Peanuts creativity, Mr Schulz has received surprisingly little personal publicity but tonight he talks frankly about his life, his work and his Christian faith. Peter France reports on the 'failure face' hero with over 90 million devotees.
Gp-Capt Leonard Cheshire, VC, has every reason to look back to the last war in which he commanded 617 Squadron, the Dam Busters, and was an official observer at the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. But he believes that Remembrance Day should set our society a contemporary challenge in the quest for peace. Peter France talks to Leonard CHESHIRE and explores the way in which he has translated his Christian ideals into a lifetime of commitment to the international network of Cheshire Homes.
Pilgrims in the Middle Ages came to Canterbury as an act of faith, looking forward to a heavenly reward; tourists today come as an act of curiosity, looking back at 800 years of English history. Are we turning the Mother-church of the nation into a God museum? Peter France looks at the life of a great cathedral, the choirboys and cleaners, stonemasons and priests, and asks: what does it all mean today?
The day he became Foreign Secretary David Owen said "If I can bring something to this office it will be on the issue of human dignity, human rights and of freedom of the individual". Now, nine months later, reporter Vanya Kewley asks him how successful he's been. Dr. Owen defends his moral stand on controversial issues like South Africa, Chile, Israel and the Arab boycott, and aid to Uganda. He maintains that "politics is an honourable profession" but that politicians have to do "the dirty work for other people".
More and more of today's American Indians are turning back to their traditional beliefs. Peter France reports from the Sioux tribal reservation on the religion of the pipe, and its new converts from Christianity.
In spite of the traditional link between Christmas and good food, we tend to think there is something unspiritual about really enjoying eating. In this film Peter France looks at how attitudes to food are woven into the fabric of the religion of Moslems, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews.
Tonic wine, hybrid bees, trinkets and stained glass, all these go to make up the working world of Buckfast Abbey. As a background to next Saturday's Midnight Mass, Everyman, in a film made by BBC South West, explores the life of this remarkable community.
Ten years ago a much-publicised section of the nation's youth was proclaiming a revolution: the overthrow of the age of war, hate, and competition, and the dawn of a new age of peace and love. Happy hippies preached the gentle gospel of flower power, and sang that all they needed was love. But was love enough? How much power is there left in the flowers today? In the first of two films, Peter France traces the 'hippies' of ten years ago to find out how they are living today: yippy leader Jerry Rubin, social deviant Mick Farren, Oz editor Felix Dennis, Dr Timothy Leary 'the messiah of LSD', Lynn Darnton, founder of the 'Tribe of the Sacred Mushroom,' and many more. Peace and love are ideals almost everybody shares; ideals preached by almost all religions; but can the ideals survive in the real world?
Ten years ago the new age of peace and love proclaimed by the hippies seemed to be around, the corner. Today, most of the 'flower children' have children of their own, and the sober 70s have brought widespread disillusion with the power of flowers. But not all the visions have faded; and not all the visionaries have gone back home to daddy. In this second of two films, Peter France traces the idealists of ten years ago who keep alive the hope of a new age, and who believe that the greater truths are on their side: teepee dweller Sid Rawle, pop star Arthur Brown, founder of Gandalf's Garden Muz Murray, founder of Release Caroline Coon, aristocratic hippy Sir Mark Palmer, and poet Allen Ginsberg.
Vanya Kewley reports from Libya with a film profile of Colonel Mo'ammar Gaddafi - one of the most contentious political leaders in the world For the first time he allowed cameras into his home, cabinet meetings and private devotions. COL GADDAFI bases his regime on the Koran, yet supports revolutionary movements all over the world. How does he justify what seems an extraordinary paradox?
The word ' Shantivanam ' means dwelling-place of peace. It's also the dwelling-place of one of the most unusual gurus in all India. His name is Bede Griffith , and he is a Benedictine monk from England who has lived more than 20 years in India. The philosophy he imparts to followers from all over the world is a unique mixture of East and West - Christianity seen through Hindu eyes.
A mother who hasn't seen her two sons for over two years - even though they live in the same town. A young girl being told: choose between abandoning your parents or never seeing your brother again. Just two of the horrifying stories unearthed by Peter France while investigating the activities of the Exclusive Brethren.
Malcolm Muggeridge and James Cameron have been friends and fellow-journalists for 30 years. Both men have faced the reality of empty phrases like ' moral issues', witnessing the explosion of the atom bomb and seeing at first hand death and deprivation, politics and power in most parts of the world. From their experiences they have developed idiosyncratic but radically differing views on the world and the struggles of man to stay in it. Tonight they meet on television for the first time.
Each year at Easter a most unusual Passion Play is staged in Bulawayo in the heart of Rhodesia. Based on the traditional African music of the Shona people, it carries a special political as well as a religious meaning for those taking part, who see the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the story of their own oppression and liberation.
Sport has always been a competition for physical supremacy, but many leading athletes today are discovering that it can play a radically deeper part in their lives: that sport can be their path to enlightenment. Ian Thompson: "I get out of running what a lot of people get out of going to church." Arthur Ashe: "It's like having a nervous breakdown but you don't care." David Hemery: "Sport can be a Western form of zen." The inner game is both a technique and a philosophy of sport. Tim Gallwey, author of "The Inner Game of Tennis", teaches Peter France the technique by means of a tennis lesson: "You learn control only when you lose control." Racing driver Jackie Stewart, tennis players Arthur Ashe and Mark Cox, cricketer Mike Brearley, marathon-runner Ian Thompson, hurdler David Hemery, report on their personal experiences of the wider philosophy: that sport is the ideal means of fusing body, mind and spirit; and can generate ecstatic states surprisingly similar to those described by religious mystics.
In a world that no longer speaks of death and resurrection, the great Victorian hymns are the warehouses of forbidden emotions: hunger for comfort, dread of dying, hope of eternity. Change and decay in all around I see, 0 Thou who changest not, abide with me. This film shares the moods of a hymn that can still take us to the heart of religious emotion: images of the real world bathed in the glow of ' Heaven's morning convictions that have not lost their power,
This year 83,000 people flocked to Olympia for the second Festival for Mind and Body. Why? What is the attraction of this annual spiritual supermarket where health food stalls vie with do-it-yourself Yoga, and Tibetan Buddhists are wired to bio-feedback machines? Are these more than the fads and fashions of a gullible post-Christian age? This Everyman film looks at the Festival through the eyes of Sir George Trevelyan , once a teacher at Gordonstoun, now the leading prophet of the New Age: ' It's not a religious revolution with any dogma you've got to believe in - it's a spiritual awakening.'
Some 35 years have passed since the Nazi attempt to exterminate European Jewry, the so-called 'Final Solution of the Jewish Problem'. Countless books, plays and films have attempted to describe and understand this crime. But how far can we understand it? Can we in any way learn what it felt like to live through it? This film concentrates on one kibbutz in Israel, founded by survivors of the Nazi genocide. On their kibbutz they have built the largest independent museum in Israel about the Holocaust. Every year, on Memorial Day, 20,000 people come to visit it What do they learn? We hear tine 'night voices' - those who lived through the events - and the 'day voices' - those who did not, the visitors to the museum, and the survivors' own children.
In this Everyman profile the singer talks to Steve Turner about what lies behind the public image, and the religious experience which produced his best-selling single 'Why Me Lord?! Through his songs, Kris Kristofferson traces his struggle to forge a faith in the midst of a career that has at times brought him to the brink of self-destruction. He's a walking contradiction Partly truth and partly fiction Taking every wrong direction On his lonely way back home.
To some they are romantic Kings of the Road; to others they are parasites who Utter the laybys. To Fr Daly they are his parish: 15,000 Irish gypsies whose Roman Catholic faith survives antagonism from local residents and indifference from local authorities. For 12 years FR DALY has chosen to work amongst them, responding to a call unwittingly begun by a fortune-teller.
Rhodesia is in a state of war: as in many other wars there are Christians supporting both sides. Is the Christian message political - or above politics? In Rhodesia the Christian mission has been one of the major influences on the present crisis: until recently 94 per cent of primary education consisted of mission schools. Almost every Black leader has had a Christian education. ' I'm a product of the Catholics ... the racial character of our society is un-Christian, it's inhuman.' (ROBERT MUGABE , president of ZANU) Today missionaries are dying in a war that both sides claim is inspired by Christian ideals. Everyman looks at the tragic impact of the war on the missionaries and their families and asks: What are they dying for?
'I tell you plainly: if I was not a committed, born-again child of God, I doubt I could have survived the conditions that we found in this country.' Black Christians from the West Indies have been living in Britain for nearly 30 years. How has their Christianity affected their response to conditions here? Everyman filmed with members of the Bethel Apostolic Church and their pastors, Ken and David Douglas, from Jamaica. For these Pentacostal Christians, it isn't enough just to pray: 'Unless we begin to work together for equal rights and equal opportunities, then our prayers won't help.'
Everyman with Billy Graham in Poland Into a nation run by a Communist Government, yet claiming an intense patriotic Catholicism, steps BILLY GRAHAM : Southern Baptist. world evangelist and friend of Richard Nixon - 'I believe my visit to Poland is a symbol of new directions and new hopes among Christians.' But does this - his second visit to a Communist country - mean a new direction towards human rights and political detente, or is his aim purely to spread a gospel of salvation through Christ? And has the State approved his tour because his brand of religion is a useful distraction from the food queues? Peter France was with him on his crusade.
One hundred years ago the Rhondda Valleys were the most famous coal-producing area in the world. The people were suspended between two forces - the chapels and the mines. Their work was dangerous, often lethal. Their religion was fervent. Their attitudes were shaped by struggle and expressed in bitter strikes and religious revivals. This film tells the story, in the words of the time, of the rise of a way of life, and goes to the Rhondda to see what remains of it today.
The world of the choir boys of St Paul's Cathedral may have its roots in the Middle Ages-like their nickname ' Paul's Children ' -but in 1978 it still means a life of dedication and very hard work for 38 boys from the age of eight. Everyman explores this little-known world from audition day to special performances before the Queen Mother, through a typical day starting at seven in the morning to the glories of Christmas carols in the Cathedral. Master of the Choristers
The Rev William Sloane Coffin is no ordinary minister. Once a CIA officer training agents to parachute into Russia, he became Chaplain of Yale and was twice arrested in the 1960s for his part in the student campaign of civil disobedience. Now, much to his surprise, he has been invited to America's most prestigious Protestant pulpit - Riverside Church, in New York's Manhattan. "I would like to think I will always maintain a healthy disregard for respectability. After all, faith means you can have a thumb-nosing independence of all the powers of Death Militant."
An expression of the passionate religious feeling of a community portrayed until now as lunatic, bigoted Sabbatarians, concerned only with the suppression of joy and the threat of hell-fire. It is the story of an island where Christianity in its purest Calvinist form is right at the centre of life, a story of fervent devotion, of pre-destination and the certainty of grace for God's elect. This is Puritan England of 300 years ago, still alive today in the Outer Hebrides.
Many parents no longer have a clear religious belief to pass on to their children. Many primary schools no longer provide Religious Education. So what ideas are modern children picking up about God, and goodness and badness, and what happens after death? Where do their beliefs come from? In this International Year of the Child Everyman listens to one class of 9-year-olds growing up in a secular school in an expanding post-war community as they talk about their beliefs.
Desert landscapes are magnificent, enticing and for those who venture deep into them, simply overwhelming. It is this experience that has fascinated Western explorers and romantics of the past. Today's explorers and romantics in their thousands, scientists, adventurers, farmers and artists are rediscovering that hypnotic attraction of the wilderness. Could the deserts' unique qualities have shaped the emergence of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? And indeed could they still possess a powerful message for the modern world? Everyman has followed the lives of desert dwellers, ancient and modern, in Arizona, Israel and the Sinai Peninsula. In tonight's programme we journey with the Beduin in search of those spiritual and physical roots that mysteriously sustain them in so uncompromising a world.
The great deserts of the American South-West are among the fastest expanding in the USA, attracting sun-lovers from the East coast, Mid-West and Canada. With the population boom comes massive investment and some remarkable new technology, but little general awareness of the real spiritual potential of the desert. The vast Sonoran Desert is a place of fragile beauty that demands a special sensitivity from modern man. From the McMath solar telescope in Papago territory into the little-known Indian tributary of the Grand Canyon and across to an extraordinary new desert city, Everyman explores an evolving faith whose symbol is the sun.
To many Israelis the harsh, arid lands of the Biblical wilderness are a magical, wondrous place, offering a huge promise to Man - the focus of a New Enlightenment. Tonight in the Sinai and Negev deserts we explore the faith of religious and non-religious people, who claim the desert may witness the birth of a new breed of man.
An Everyman profile of Michael Dummett , Wykeham Professor-Elect of Logic, Oxford University, Presented by Robert Kee For 19 years the Professor of Logic at Oxford has been SIR ALFRED AYER , a humanist who believes that religious language is meaningless. This year a new Professor will be taking up the post - MICHAEL DUMMETT. Ayer has called his successor ' one of the oustanding philosophers of the present time '. But Dummett is a devout Catholic. Is there any strain between his devotion to logic and his adherence to his faith?
The Madonna and Child dominate Christian imagery of women. How deep is the connection between the church's attitude to women, and that of male society? And how far does this picture of the ' perfect mother' reflect the reality of women's experience? In this Everyman film Christian and non-Christian women explore the effect on their lives of this image of idealised motherhood.
World hunger; the energy crisis; the poisoning of the environment - questions undreamed of by our forebears have become the common currency of today's news bulletins. In this Everyman film Ronald Higgins looks beyond our immediate crises to what lies behind them. Four years ago he gave up careers in the Foreign Office and at The Observer to explore the six threats he saw menacing mankind's future and to search within himself for the human factor which he believes to be the greatest threat of all: The Seventh Enemy.
Churches may not be full on Sundays-but does it follow that religion plays little part in our society today? For this Everyman report Peter France visited one street at random, Clough Road , in one town, Rotherham, on one Sunday. Is Sunday still the Lord's Day in Clough Road?
You don't have to go to the Holy Land to celebrate the theme of Easter: the story of death and rebirth is echoed in the cycle of the English seasons as spring begins, and in personal stories of hope triumphing over suffering. For some, Easter means children acting out the resurrection of Jesus or making Easter gardens; for many others it means Dame Isobel Baillie singing ' I Know that my Redeemer Liveth '.
As Pope John Paul II returns to the Vatican from his native Poland, Everyman looks back to the historic week in October when his election delighted an unprepared world. In Cracow that week the delight was mixed with sadness as the citizens felt the loss of their beloved Cardinal. The Everyman team were the first Western journalists to reach Cracow the day following the announcement, and brought back exclusive film of the reaction in the city. PETER FRANCE talks to the students, peasants and priests who made up the Pope's former diocese.
Everyman reports on a 48-year-old peasant woman called Maria da Conceicao, whose community in Ladeira, Northern Portugal, has become the centre of an ecstatic cult. Her followers claim she is a saint, and she herself says she has visited heaven 15 times. Contrary to scientific evidence, she declares, the moon and various planets she passes on her way are inhabited. The Church has excommunicated her. This film shows two events which her followers acclaimed as miracles, witnesses the scenes of hysteria which accompanied them, and examines the reasons for her celebrity - and notoriety.
Today, Pope John Paul II, Vicar of Christ on Earth, makes pilgrimage to a remote and windswept village on the west coast of Ireland. One hundred years ago at the gable wall of the local church in Knock, Co Mayo, Mary the Mother of God appeared in a blaze of light to some 15 villagers. Their witness has transformed the village into a shrine for millions of pilgrims from all over the world, and the faithful in Ireland accept it as living proof of God's timely intervention in the lives of ordinary people. Everyman has been to Knock to try to understand the nature of this faith, and the visions it produces - visions which, to the eye of faith, are ' nothing wonderful at all'.
A small village in West Sussex is faced with the strange prospect of saffron-robed Buddhist monks in its midst. They have just set up their first Western sanctuary for training along strict traditional lines. Part of their tradition is to rely for their food on the local villagers: but how will this go down in West Sussex? This Everyman report follows the monks' attempts to explain what they do and why; and it explores why many Western people are being drawn to Buddhism.
In a darkened room somewhere in England, three young Christians are being taught how to break the law. They have volunteered for a mission that will involve subterfuge, intrigue, and, if caught, imprisonment. They are smuggling Bibles into Communist countries in Eastern Europe, deliberately violating the laws of the land. There are some 40 highly organised international missions involved in these cloak and dagger activities, and they all passionately believe that Christians living in Communist lands are in need of both their support and their Bibles. Everyman investigates their methods, their claims, and their ethics, and separates the fiction from the fact.
Twenty years ago an American ex-alcoholic called CHUCK DEDERICH founded Synanon, an idealistic commune dedicated to curing heroin addicts. Its lifestyle-a combination of strong discipline and the seductive ' Synanon game ' - proved so attractive that non-addicts began to join. By the 1970s Synanon had developed into a multi-million-dollar religious cult, and Dederich into a semi-divine leader. Under his leadership the Synanon members shaved their heads, divorced their wives, and submitted to vasectomies. Today Dederich is on trial for conspiracy to murder. In this Everyman report Peter France tells the story of the rise and fall of Synanon, learns why its followers surrendered to Dederich, and why, like so many cults, the original dream turned to nightmare.
This summer a group of volunteers spent five days under medical supervision in a Kent farm-house living on nothing but mineral water. By the end of the week reporter Peter France , who joined the fast for Everyman, was 13lbs lighter, and totally converted to the benefits of not eating for a week. This film follows the group's physical and emotional changes day by day, in an attempt to understand why fasting has played such a prominent part in religious traditions.
In Lancashire a Christian minister buries a Jack Russell terrier with the full rites of the church. In Coventry a vicar holds a religious service for pets. Yet Christian tradition holds that animals have no souls, and therefore no rights. Everyman investigates the growing movement for animal rights, and asks: is our 'species-ism' (the assumption that humans are superior to other species) the product of our religious heritage?
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (ST PAUL) In California faith in science has, for some people, replaced faith in heaven. Trans Time Inc offers the service of ' cryonic suspension', the deep-freezing of the body on death. Those who have paid for this service believe that when medical science has developed a cure for whatever caused their death, they will be unfrozen and brought back to life. Everyman looks at the process of cryonic suspension, and meets the people who call themselves the Immortalists. Some people want to achieve immortality through their works or descendants. I prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
Islam means submission to the will of God; but in women's lives obedience to fathers and husbands has predominated, with marriage their only guarantee of honour. ' If a girl doesn't marry she won't go to heaven.' How do women survive this pressure? Everyman filmed with Muslim women in this country, and discovered that for some of them the Koran holds a different message, of independence and equal rights.
Fifty-eight people assemble in a hotel room in London. For three long days they will do as they are told: leaving their seats only with the permission of the trainers, voluntarily submitting themselves to abuse, humiliation, and physical stress. The goal is ' enlightenment ', and they pay the high fee and accept the high pressure because they hope it will bring them enlightenment fast. Everyman follows one ' transformation seminar ' from Friday morning to Sunday night; examines the techniques which critics call brain-washing; and finds out what the weekend does to those who make it to the end.
Fatima in Portugal is the site of the world's largest annual gathering of Christian pilgrims-up to a million each May. It was there that, in 1917. the Virgin Mary appeared to three children and told them of the threat of an atheist Russia spreading its errors and annihilating nations '. Now, in post-revolutionary Portugal, the Fatima pilgrimage is a source of controversy. With the new Portuguese elections coming up, Everyman looks at Fatima-the event which symbolises the clash between two of the world's dominant beliefs - Christianity and Communism.
The dying become like little children: dependent, vulnerable, in need of loving security. Too often nurses treat their terminal cases as failures, and isolate them in the hour of their need. Everymanhas filmed in St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney, where a very different approach to dying: 'It's not so much that you lose anything here, but bit by bit you have to give things back. You give back your sight. You give back your hearing. You give back your friends. Then one day you finish by giving back yourself.'
Have you ever been aware of, or influenced by, a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self? Answers to this question have convinced a group of scientists in Oxford and Nottingham that most of us will at some time experience a ' presence or power ' beyond ourselves. Everyman reports on research which suggests that people who see visions, hear voices, or simply feel the presence of their God can no longer be considered part of a tiny minority of saints or psychotics. What are these experiences, and what effect do they have? Peter France meets the scientists, and some of those prepared to talk about these very private encounters.
Do we have the right to choose to die? In the successful West End play Whose Life is it Anyway? Ken Harrison, a sculptor who has had a road accident and is paralysed from the neck down, decides his life is so reduced that he doesn't want to live. The play is about his struggle to convince the hospital staff that his decision is balanced, that he is not disturbed and that they should morally accept his right to choose. A fictional situation, but what of real life? Most people believe that if they were that disabled, they too, would want to die. But do they? Do people as active, capable and self-aware as Ken Harrison ever reconcile a bright mind to a life of helplessness and dependancy? Tonight's Everyman compares scenes from the play with stories from real life and examines the last right-the right to choose between life or death.
In the corner of Owino Market, Kampala, a small boy of six, offers a single cigarette for sale. He is dressed in a torn singlet and covered in sores. At night he sleeps under buses and sniffs petrol fumes to keep off the cold and mosquitoes. He is one of thousands of children brutally orphaned by Idi Amin who now must make a life and a future out of thieving and blackmail, corruption and bribery. In the last month, Everyman has been to Uganda to explore the lives of this lost generation' and to meet the one man in Kampala prepared to react to their plight.
On 3 January 1956, five American missionaries flew out over the Ecuadorian jungle on the last stage of ' Operation Auca ' - the epic attempt to evangelise the Auca Indians, regarded as the most ferocious tribe in the Amazon. Within six days all five had been speared to death. Two years later the widow of one of the missionaries and the sister of another decided to make their own attempt to reach the Aucas. Everyman goes back to the scene of the killings; talks to the missionary women, and to the Auca killers themselves. This first of two films examines the impact of Christianity on a tribe that believed all outsiders were cannibals.
The Auca Indians in Ecuador were once regarded as the most ferocious Amazon tribe. Auca means ' naked ' or ' savage'. Nowadays they resent the name Auca and call themselves Waorani which means ' people Twenty-five years ago, five American missionaries embarked on ' Operation Auca', an attempt to convert the tribe. They were speared to death. But two years later two missionary women succeeded in reaching the tribe and today most are Christians. This Everyman report, filmed in some of the most remote parts of the Amazon jungle, examines the impact the missionaries have had on the tribe. Has Christianity helped them-or does it threaten their identity?
Last Friday Dr Donald Coggan formally resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury. In a month's time Bishop Robert Runcie of St Albans will be sworn in as his successor in an ancient ceremony in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral. This Everyman profile looks at how the Bishop and his family are preparing for their move to Canterbury and considers what kind of man has been chosen to lead the Church of England into the 1980s.
Faced with the poverty and suffering of the Third World, many people want to help, but are put off by the size of the problem. Some charity organisations now realise that we give more willingly to ' somebody we know'. One result is 'postal parents'-individual sponsorship of a Third World child. ' Every penny you give goes to support your child and your child's programme.' This is the promise that has made Action in Distress one of Britain's fastest-growing new charities. This Everyman report by Peter France begins with two families in England who are ' postal parents ' and goes to India to discover that the reality for their children is not quite what they imagine.
One hundred years ago white missionaries brought Christianity to Uganda. But God had been there long before Christianity - and they called him Ruhanga. He was a powerful, all-pervasive God, but he was accessible only behind a complicated hierarchy of diviners and evil spirits: through the intercession of the ancestors - ' the living dead.' Everyman reports from a remote region in South West Uganda and discovers that the faith of Ruhanga is infusing an imported Christianity with a vitality entirely its own.
After the bombs had fallen Coventry was rebuilt as a model city community based on civic wealth and personal reconciliation. People from all over the world came to claim a share of the city's industrial riches - and now a Coventry kid is as likely to be a Moslem or a Geordie. The wealth is no longer there but the will to co-operate still lingers. This film is about Coventrians, their city and their beliefs, and at the time of the most fundamental Christian festival they look forward to their children's spring awakening in Coventry.
At the height of last summer's tragic exodus of ' boat people' from Vietnam, an American Christian charity chartered a ship to cruise the South China Sea. The ship carried food and medicine to re-supply the refugees at sea, but had undertaken not to take boat People aboard, because no neighbouring country would allow them to land. Only a few days after setting sail the charity ship encountered a refugee boat in which 93 Vietnamese had been drifting for eight days. An Everyman crew aboard the ship filmed the entire voyage, climaxing in the dramatic mid-sea rescue which saved 93 lives.
For the last year Pastor Lannewall has been priest-in-charge of the parish of Hogboda in central Sweden. The people of the village take their priest very much for granted, but to the popular press Hogboda is now a story, because Hbgboda's priest is an attractive single young woman. Like the Church of England, the Church of Sweden is the nation's established church. But unlike the Church of England, 20 years ago it began ordaining women to the priesthood. Today ten per cent of Sweden's clergy are women. Everyman follows Margaretha Lannewall as she prepares her confirmation class, marries a village couple, celebrates the eucharist, and talks about the problems and rewards of being a woman priest.
The Soka Gakkai is Japanese and Buddhist. The Buddhism it preaches is a road to success: money, promotion, health and happiness. Yet its doctrines come from the strange and fierce teachings of Nichiren, a nationalist zealot of the 13th century. Since the war 10,000,000 Japanese have joined the sect. Each member is taught to chant the sacred syllables Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, and receives an object of worship, a Gohonzon, which is installed in his home. Many of Soka Gakkai's activities are not religious at all. There are Soka Gakkai schools and a university. Soka Gakkai sponsors music, art and sporting activities. It has its own political party, the ' Clean Government Party'; and its international president, DAISAKU IKEDA , travels the world in the cause of peace. The Soka Gakkai is successful, but the organisation is not loved. This film tries to discover why.
Tragedy in Northern Ireland has seemed an all too familiar news headline, since the present strife began 11 years ago. The statistics are grim enough but behind the tragedies are many untold stories. An old news film gives the bare outline of two brothers found shot dead; another unsolved sectarian crime for the police, but a personal and unforgettable nightmare for a mother. In this two-part film, Joan Orr tells her own story of her hopes and fears during that night in 1972 when her family became news headlines; how subsequently tragedy turns into a kind of hope, and how she found the faith to survive.
Every year a group of friends go on holiday on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland. In their friendship, all religious differences are forgotten. But this quiet ' good news' story from a part of Britain that is so often associated with bad news, has developed from tragedy. Maura Kiely 's son was the innocent victim of an indiscriminate sectarian shooting. All her friends in the Cross Group, which she's founded, have lost wives or children in the same way. The second of two programmes from Northern Ireland follows the Group on their holiday. As they tell their stories, reflecting the needs and values of their new-found friendship, this film reveals hopes and fears for their future and the future of the country that is their home.
Vladimir Bukovskyin East and West ' For the average Westerner the life of the Soviet citizen - not just his physical life but more importantly, his moral life, is a complete mystery.' By December 1976, VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY had spent over half of his adult life in prison. Then he crossed borders, from the Soviet Union to the West, from captivity to freedom, from obscurity to fame. Since coming to the West he has given hundreds of interviews but, as he says, ' how can I explain in a few minutes an experience which takes up the lifetimes of millions of people? ' In this film he attempts to explain what the interviews never tell. Using documentary footage, archive material and dramatised inserts, Crossing Borders is Bukovsky's comparison of the two societies, their differences and their similarities.
The monastery is one of the few forms of communal living that has survived the test of time. The orders of monks have evolved sets of rules which hold the communities together. The most famous of all monastic rules was written by St Benedict, whose 1,500th anniversary is being celebrated this year. Over 800 communities worldwide still order their lives according to the detailed instructions he laid down. Everyman follows the Cistercian monks of Mount St Bernard Abbey, Leicestershire, through one day lived according to the Rule: from waking at 3.15 am to sleeping at 8.0 pm.
There are 40 to 50 million evangelicals in America today. All three presidential candidates claim to be born again and by far the most vocal and visible part of the evangelical movement is swinging sharply to the political Right. As preachers and politicians battle for supremacy, a broad but effective coalition marshalls the forces of this extraordinary phenomenon. But how far can the dreams of a new and moral America become a practical political reality?
The Rev Martin Luther King Sr, father of the famous civil rights campaigner, is still a leader of his people at the age of 80. Born in extreme poverty, he became a famous preacher and a courageous fighter against racial injustice long before his son became prominent. In the aftermath of the US elections this film looks at an extraordinary American.
For over 300 years the Book of Common Prayer has been the official book of Church of England services. Largely composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer , its use has been authorised by Act of Parliament. Generations of English people have been ' hatched, matched and dispatched' according to its rites. Last week a rival to the Book of Common Prayer was published after years of experiment by Anglicans with new styles of services. There are no 'thees' and ' thous ' in the Alternative Service Book, and even the wording of the Lord's Prayer has been changed. The new book is expected to be a best-seller, with churches ordering hundreds of copies to replace the old prayer book. But the new services have attracted widespread criticism. Some complain that the language is ugly and trivial, others think that the new book is part of a plot by Church of England clergy to wipe out the old prayer book altogether. Reporter Peter France
' I want to ask a question: a Christian was born in a land, he was brought up in that land. He plants a coconut tree, and this tree is now 20 years old. Then a company arrives from nowhere and six months later it wants to take possession of that coconut tree. I ask: who owns that tree? ' Everyman reports from Brazil on a conflict of interests, and a bishop facing death threats and intimidation in defence of his people.
An act of Christian charity, a miracle cure, an unorthodox but successful healing practice, the support of distinguished churchmen... and... a fraud of over one million pounds, a year on the run from the police, chaotic dealings in church organs and sponsored motor racing, and prison sentences of six years. Startling facts combined in the lives of Jim Miller and John Bellord, yet such simple separation of right and wrong seems to fail in understanding their nightmare story which led five years ago to front page headlines and public disgrace. Now in this Everyman film, people who have known them piece together the clues to this extraordinary partnership and as Miller and Bellord themselves sit down to confront their past for the first time, they uncover a confusing pattern of motives, spiritual claims and moral judgments.
When Peter Blackman left Barbados for England in 1933, it was to train for that pillar of the establishment, the Anglican priesthood. And even though in the 30s black people had lived for years in places like London, Liverpool and Cardiff, few had so far scrambled over the barriers of class and race into theological college. So how was this future priest from the plantations of ' Little England' received in English society? And how did his experiences in the heartland of the British Empire influence the course of his later life and thinking?
' When the Christians of Latin America join the revolution, the revolution will be unstoppable.' Six years ago these words were spoken by Ernesto Cardenal. Then he was a revolutionary poet and Catholic priest on an island parish in the great lake of Nicaragua. Since then, some 50,000 people have died, a dictatorship has been overthrown, and today Cardenal is a Minister of State in the revolutionary government. Everyman returns to Nicaragua to discover what the practical experience of revolution has meant for this priest, and for the people in whose name the revolution was carried out.
' Just give a cup of water to one; and when you've helped one, move on to another.' Barbara Walker struggles under difficult conditions to keep alive the 67,000 refugees in Las Dureh camp, Northern Somalia. She is one of the vast army of missionaries who, at the season when families and loved-ones are reunited, endure separation from personal roots in their battle for a better world. Colin Morris , who went to Zambia 25 years ago, travels back to the mission fields of Africa on a journey that leads from a pioneer station in the Turkana desert to a London suburb, and gives a vision of how ' the call' will be answered in the future.
In 1961 four girls in Garabandal, a remote village in northern Spain, began claiming that they were seeing visions. These visions returned so frequently that visitors with movie cameras were able to film the girls in their trance states. Through these visions, the girls said, God was issuing a warning to the world: ' The cup is filling up, and if we do not change, a great chastisement will befall us '. The chief visionary of Garabandal, Conchita Gonzalez , has since emigrated to America and married. This film tells her story: the visions, the warning to the world, her attempts to hide from her growing fame, and her fears for her own children. If the events she is prophesying come to pass, she says it would be better for her children that they had never been born.
The dervishes are best known for ' whirling ': a spinning dance that is also a mystical exercise. Dervishes are the mystics of Islam - a religion in worldwide revival. Britain has a large immigrant Muslim population, but very few converts to Islam. This film features a group of British people who have become dervishes (also known as ' Sufis '), a process which includes a conversion to Islam, and who now live according to the teachings of the Koran.
In the 19th century, this view united liberal reformers of the factory system with working men struggling to improve their conditions: both wanted women out of the factories and back in the home. Then, as now, even Biblical texts could be used to back this view. But women have always needed to earn money, and for years manufacturers have made use of their dilemma, giving out work to women to do in their own homes. Working unseen in the back room, these women are isolated and vulnerable, torn between the demands of employers and home. This Everyman film tries to portray the life of the home worker in the Britain of 1981.
When new recruits in the Israeli army are sworn in at a ceremony by the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, they are given a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other. The army rabbi delivers a sermon explaining that the gun can be pure if it is used for defence and the cause is just. To explore this theme, Everyman went to elite commando units of the Israeli army. This is the first time they have allowed themselves to be filmed because of the secrecy and controversial nature of their work. Their task is to make regular raids into Lebanon, kill members of the PLO and blow up the houses of anybody sheltering them. These units operate on literal and metaphorical borders. They defend Israel's land and sea borders; and they exist on the borders between life and death and between what might be considered as legitimate killing and murder. The film explores the relationship between their belief as Jews and their work as professional soldiers.
Jews all over the world feel a deep emotional loyalty to Israel and when one of them criticises the state, many see this as a betrayal. Chaim Bermant , a British novelist and journalist, is a committed Zionist, yet he frequently speaks out against some of Israel's policies and attitudes. This film attempts to understand why he feels he cannot remain silent: CHAIM BERMANT and his family talk about their feelings for Judaism and the Promised Land as they prepare in north London for a major Jewish festival.
One in ten of the population is likely to spend some time in a mental institution, and yet fear and ignorance about mental illness are as widespread as ever. A mental hospital resonates with the ' ultimate' questions which most of us are able to keep safely buried, as we strive to lead a ' normal, balanced' life. This film offers an inside look at a ward in Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, which has long had a reputation for its radical approach. Their aim is to involve the patients in making decisions about their own problems, rather than simply drugging them into orderly behaviour and submission. The film is a portrait of how patients and staff confront despair and how they work to find a path through it.
This film is the story of a young woman from Japan who seems to be fulfilling a very strange religious destiny. Kiyokazu Kitamura, who is 30, Western-educated and an accomplished musician, is the grand-daughter of a woman who founded a new worldwide religion in 1945. Kiyokazu is her successor - the spiritual leader of three-quarters of a million people and known to her followers as Himegamisama - 'Princess Goddess'. Yet she admits that she does not feel she herself is divine and the role she has to play is a great strain.
Each week countless church congregations recite the Creed, a statement of belief mainly written 14 centuries ago. But now, theologians seem to put question marks against apparently central and familiar facts; so what does it mean and does it matter? Hans Kiing and Edward Schille beeckx are two of the most controversial Christian thinkers to have contributed to the tremors shaking the Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century. Though their books are read avidly by believers and non-believers alike, they have incurred the wrath of the Vatican . Peter France meets the two so-called ' heretics ' to find out what they think the Christian can believe.
Everyman has been to El Salvador to get first-hand evidence of the Church's involvement in the struggle; an involvement that has led to the murder of priests and nuns, lay workers and an Archbishop, has driven many priests underground or into exile, but which provides the only sense of hope for this bitterly-divided country.
Thousands of people are in jail in dozens of countries because they hold religious and political beliefs, opinions or ideas not approved of by the ' authorities '. The imprisonment of these ' prisoners of conscience' is in violation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. This film tells the story of two men, Gustavo Westerkamp , held in Argentina for five years without trial, and Danylo Shumuk , who has been in jail in the USSR for over 35 years. It also shows the work of people fighting for the release of these two - and of the thousands of other individuals and groups who, under the umbrella of Amnesty International, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary, devote their spare time to working for the freedom of people they have never met. Written and presented by Vanya Kewley
What does our future hold? One thing seems certain, whether we suKer destruction or enjoy progress scientists have a major part to play in our fate. They are the ' future-makers ', changing, more than any other group, our economy, our environment, our whole way of being and thinking. But never before have they been so widety mistrusted. This film looks at a community of scientists working in that most controversial area - nuclear power - and investigates their ideas, their methods, their values.
An Everyman film for Easter- Oberammergau - a tiny village in the Bavarian Alps, but a world-famous one. For one summer season every decade the villagers perform the Passion of Christ, and hundreds of thousands of spectators come to see it. The play is a spectacular act of faith: it goes back nearly 350 years, involves virtually every member of the village, lasts five hours in performance and is, in scale and longevity, unique. But for more than a decade, the play has also been the source of great controversy. Is it anti-Semitic? Does it project the right image of Christianity? Should it be replaced, or changed, or even stopped? The controversy has been considered at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, and has also divided the village into warring camps, as first one faction, then another, has gained control. Oberammergau performed the play last summer for the 34th time. In this special Easter film Everyman presents excerpts from it, and reports on a controversy whose impl
The direction in which the Roman Catholic Church is moving in Latin America is worrying the Vatican. Military dictatorships are being overthrown with the active participation of priests; industrial disruption is condoned from the pulpit; Bishops and Archbishops support the use of violence. The Pope re-affirms the spiritual nature of the priesthood, but for three Irish priests the reality of a parish in Brazil has taken them a long way from their seminary days in Dublin.
On 3 January 1956, five American missionaries flew out over the Ecuadorian jungle on the last stage of ' Operation Auca ' - the epic attempt to evangelise the Auca Indians, regarded as the most ferocious tribe in the Amazon. Within six days all five had been speared to death. Two years later the widow of one of the missionaries and the sister of another decided to make their own attempt to reach the Aucas.
Since returning from the moon two of the Apollo astronauts - Jim Irwin and Charles Duke - have committed themselves to Christ. Other astronauts have testified to the strong spiritual impact the space experience made on them. For Ed Mitchell it led to the founding of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, dedicated to research into esp, parapsychology and the ' alternative ' sciences. In the first of 12 Everyman films we report on the other side of the space programme - not its machinery, but its meaning. Space exploration is still in its very early stages, but it has already made us view ourselves and our ' Spaceship Earth' in new ways. As space travel becomes commonplace what effect will it have on us? With the help of those who have already been there Everyman surveys our new home.
' Compulsive gambling ' is now recognised as an addictive state. The compulsive gambler lies, cheats and steals to get money to gamble, but cannot stop gambling until all the money is lost. In 1964 a Methodist minister introduced Gamblers Anonymous to Britain. It has proved itself to be a lifeline for the compulsive gambler - but first the gambler must reach ' rock bottom', the recognition that his addiction is beyond his control. Only then can his fellow-addicts, and GA's ' spiritual recovery programme', help him rebuild his life. Everyman reports from within the confessional meetings of Gamblers Anonymous.
Shortly after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, a portrait of a dark-skinned lady, known as the Virgin of Guadalupe, appeared on the coarse, cactus-fibre cloak of an Indian peasant. Today, 450 years later, this painting hangs behind bullet-proof glass in Mexico's largest cathedral, where it is revered as a living miracle. Earlier this year a team of American scientists, formerly assembled to investigate the Shroud of Turin, were given permission to conduct tests on the Virgin of Guadalupe. Everyman reports on the remarkable history of Mexico's national icon, on the scientists' tests, and on their controversial findings.
Early this year, in the ballroom of a London hotel, a thousand disciples of India's most notorious guru-Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh-gathered to proclaim what they believe is a revolutionary discovery: to achieve enlightenment, you don't have to suffer first. Religion can and should be fun. Rajneesh claims that Christianity is obsessed with suffering; by contrast he offers a religion of ' total life affirmation '. The tabloid papers hailed the London event as a ' Love-Cult Romp ' and a ' Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses Sex Orgy'. But is there more to the movement than the headlines and exposes suggest? Rajneesh has now left India to set up ' the largest spiritual community in the world'. '. Everyman examines the movement in England and asks: Does its growing popularity have something to tell us about the decline of conventional religion?
In 1949, at the age of 7, John Davis made his first communion. He was brought up in Dublin, and taught by the Christian Brothers. At 14 he went to sea, and so escaped his strict Catholic background. This year he returned to Dublin for the first time, as a film maker, to re-create on film the world of his Catholic childhood. Everyman follows this journey back to the Dublin of 30 years ago. Scenes from JOHN DAVIS 's film, and his own reflections on his past, evoke a vanished experience: an experience common to a whole generation of ordinary Irishmen.
This week the World Council o.f Churches is making an appeal for the displaced people of war-torn Angola. For the first time since South Africa's invasion of Angola, a documentary crew has toured the war zone, and the little-reported Central Provinces, where civil war is causing widespread starvation. South Africa believes it is making a stand against Marxism. The World Council of Churches believes it is making a stand against racism. Christians are beingolled upon to take sides. Everyman reports on the hard realities of a front-line state in southern Africa.
2:10 Genesis Fights Back BBC One logo BBC One Sun 22nd Nov 1981, 22:10 on BBC One London In the first chapter of Genesis the creation of the world takes place in six days. The earth is made first, then plants. The sun and moon are fixed in the sky and animals appear on earth. Last of all, on the sixth day God creates man. Since Darwin wrote the Origin of Species over 100 years ago most scientists have dismissed the Biblical view of creation as a religious myth with no basis in fact. But today an increasing number of people, often highly educated and scientifically trained, are dismissing Darwin and returning to Genesis. They describe themselves as ' Creationists They believe that the Bible is not only better religion, but better science. If they are right it will mean a radical change in our view of ourselves: a return to Bible-based morality and a new science that takes religion as its starting point. Everyman examines the issues.
'The Curse' is one of the commonest names for menstruation, something that happens to women once a month for at least 30 years of their lives. How has a natural process acquired such a name? From the earliest times of the Christian church, women were held to be 'the devil's gateway', the route through which evil comes into the world; still today in many countries, the taboo survives that excludes menstruating women from the practice of their religion. This Everyman film explores the tangle of ideas that conspires to make women feel their monthly period is something shameful, to be kept hidden.
Today more than ever, questions are being asked about the morality of nuclear weapons. A week ago in Amsterdam, the World Council of Churches summoned some of the world's leading theologians, together with experts in the field, to five days of public hearings on the issues raised by the deployment of nuclear weapons. Military experts outlined what we can do with nuclear weapons; theologians debated what we should do. What moral and religious grounds are there for deciding that the deployment of nuclear weapons is right, or wrong? Peter France reports for Everyman from Amsterdam.
Is it true that as a nation we are no longer sure what is right and what is wrong? Are we happy or miserable? Is ours a slack and permissive society, or do traditional British values still mean something? Three years ago the European Values Study Group decided to mount the world's biggest opinion survey. It's an inquiry into the beliefs, morals and attitudes of today. In total it represents the views of 210-million Europeans. Everyman reports on some of the most revealing British and European results.
Sixteen years ago Cliff Richard became a Christian. At the time the pop pundits predicted that his conversion would lose him his following among young people-but today Cliff is more popular than ever. In the final Everyman of this series, CLIFF RICHARD talks about the private side of his life and the claims that Christian morality makes on his personal philosophy, lifestyle and sexual conduct.
A growing number of people in Britain are coming to believe in the power of the supernatural, their convictions strengthened by the extraordinary experience of being taken over, as they claim, by the Holy Spirit. They speak in unknown tongues, they experience ecstatic states, they enter trance, and they fall unconscious. Unlike most claims of supernatural activity, these phenomena have a long, respectable Christian history, and can be witnessed - and filmed - by non-believers. This film reports on the return of the supernatural to British religion, and on the latest scientific experiments designed to reproduce states of religious trance.
Can severely mentally handicapped children have normal lives? And at what cost to those supporting them? The recent debate over the Arthur case concentrated on the moment of decision faced by doctors and parents, but what is life like for-and with-the mentally handicapped as they grow up? In this film Everyman tells the story of one mongol child -Kathy Chalcraft - now aged 17, of her parents' struggle to bring her up within the family, and of the difficult decision they face as she approaches school leaving age: should they give up their present jobs and spend the rest of their lives caring for her? Or should they find an alternative home for her to live in? Filmed over a period of six months last year, the programme records the conflicts and pressures that build up as the Chalcrafts make their choice.
Is there life after death or is death the end? This is a report on a group of people who believe they know the answer to that universal question. These people believe they have seen beyond death and affirm that there is heaven and reunion with loved ones on the other side. People who make these claims are not cranks or religious freaks and they are growing in number. They are of all ages, backgrounds and cultures. The one thing they have in common is that they have had a close brush with death and recovered, either spontaneously or through advanced medical techniques before death became irreversible. Not everyone is convinced by their claims. This Everyman film offers a chance to weigh the evidence as presented by believers and sceptics as they consider the mystery of death.
'The most politically potent show ever staged in South Africa. That's how The Observer's correspondent described Woza Albert !, a new work devised by two black actors which has been playing to packed houses in South Africa, both black and white. So far it has escaped censorship, and if that continues it opens in Los Angeles and then London later this year. The play is very funny and also very moving The story-line is Itrikingly original: what would happen if Jesus chose South Africa for his' Second Coming? At first, the authorities are flattered by his choice; but when he starts to denounce injustice, he is dealt with accordingly. All the parts, including the Prime Minister, are played by the two actors: to denote a white man, they stick ping-pong balls on then-noses. In the explosive final scene, th. Moolah raises African liberathe Messiah raises African liberation heroes from their graves.
Work is not only a principal means ;-of income, it also organises our time, gives us status and a sense of worth. Our attitude to work has been formed largely by the Protestant religion of the reformation: the moral basis of capitalism; also the impetus behind socialism and the development of Trades Unions. Today, in our secular society, it is a hangover from Protestantism that causes us to equate work with worth, and that condemns the unemployed to feelings of guilt and shame. Against a background of rising and possibly permanent unemployment, this film asks whether it is time to scrap the old work ethic. Are there different ways of valuing people other than through work and income? Can work, income and leisure be fairly distributed? Or are we doomed to develop an unstable two-tier society of the working and the workless?
In seven weeks' time Pope John Paul II will arrive in Great Britain, on the first visit to these islands by a reigning Pontiff. It is a great symbolic event, but it is not just a symbol, an institution, that is coming: it is also a man. KAROL wojTYLA has, in the three-and-a-half years of his Papacy, become probably the most famous man on the planet. Few Popes, if any, have made such a strong public impact; few have given rise to such conflicting emotions. What sort of man is he? And where is he taking the Roman Catholic Church? The answers are rooted in his life, so in this film Peter France (above) presents a complete film record of Karol Wajtyla's 62 years-from Wadowice to the Vatican. He travels to Rome and Poland to trace the connection between the life and the Papacy. And he talks to some of Pope John Paul II's leading supporters and critics.
An Investigation into Opus Dei, UK. In Spain they call it 'Octopus Dei', in Italy the 'Sancta Mafia'. It has been accused of splitting families, of medieval spiritual practices, of financial and political chicanery. But the Pope has granted it a special status within the Church, and procedures for the canonisation of its founder have been opened. Opus Dei - God's Work - has been operating in this country for 35 years. Recently it has come under heavy criticism for its activities and attitudes. This Everyman film, the first of a new series, is the most thorough investigation of Opus Dei, UK, ever mounted. It contains the first television interview with Opus Dei's National Director, Fr Philip Sherrington, and brings to light evidence about the organisation never revealed before.
A journey in Wales written and presented by Donald Allchin. Wales often conjures up images of coalmines and rugby, daffodils and leeks, hymns and harps. For Donald Allchin, a very English Englishman and a canon of Canterbury Cathedral, discovering Wales and the Welsh language has been to discover a scarcely known part of our Christian heritage. From the Celtic centuries, through the Methodist revival and to Welsh poets of this century he detects, despite the outward differences, a common experience of the nearness of eternity. Each journey to Wales confirms for him the reality that the universe is not alien and hostile, that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. By their lives of faith and their prayers today they affirm that, in God, man is no longer a stranger.
The King is dead! - Long live the King! ... Or at least the King's ideas. Almost 20 years ago Walt Disney, the King of Fantasy, left his empire with a blueprint which promised to point the way to hope and optimism for mankind in the future. Disney called it EPCOT (an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) and was confident that his organisation had the ability and unity to re-educate humanity for the 21st century. Today the Utopian dream has become reality, attracting, entertaining and educating thousands a day with all the skills and gusto at its disposal. But can a corporation founded on the antics of Mickey Mouse ever be capable of tackling the true nature of man, and seriously shape his future character?
In the borders of Afghanistan, by the Khyber Pass, a young Russian soldier is handed over alive by his guerrilla captors to the International Committee of the Red Cross. In this notoriously bitter and ferocious conflict a small group of Swiss negotiators are achieving the apparently impossible. For the first time, the Red Cross has allowed cameras to follow these tense and delicate negotiations. David Jessel tells the story of idealism in practice, and the struggle - medical and political - to keep the victims of both sides of this bloody conflict alive.
Nirad Chaudhuri in East and West 'I blush for the English character. Once they came to my country to conquer and rule; now they come to learn. I myself preferred them in their previous incarnation.' The idea that the East, particularly India, possesses spiritual insights we in the West lack has become almost a cliche over the past 20 years. Nirad Chaudhuri sees the matter quite differently. He is 85, and one of the most celebrated Indian scholars and writers alive today. In this film he tells the story of his 'passage to England', the attraction England exerted on him as a child in India, and the impact it made on him when he came here for the first time at the age of 57. He examines the Western pilgrimage to the East, and explains his dismay at it: 'If anything persuaded me of the degeneration of the English spirit it was this "Hinduising" by which I mean adoption of some of the sloppier forms of Hindu worship without any understanding of the essential elements of Hinduism.'
This Everyman report, shot in the most remote parts of north-western Australia, explores what's happening to Aborigines today. They feel passionately about the need for land rights because their relationship to the land is at the heart of their religion. For hundreds of years, western civilisation has pronounced that it's the primitive natives who must learn from us. Now the Aborigines are saying it's we who should learn from them. Because, while our civilisation seems hell-bent on destruction, they hold the secret of survival.
This year Australia has been much in the news, but surprisingly little has been heard about the plight of the ' other Australians ', the Aborigines. Last week's Everyman reported on tribal Aborigines in the outback, on their struggle to retain their own way of life. But what happens to Aborigines caught up in the cities? This film explores the Aborigine experience of Sydney, and the response of one remarkable white priest, Fr Ted Kennedy , who believes it is time white ' civilisation' stopped telling ' primitive ' tribes how to live their lives.
General Efrain Rios Montt , President of Guatemala, is a man in trouble. Last year he swept to power in a military coup, and in this traditionally Roman Catholic country energetically promoted his brand of charismatic evangelism. This year Pope John Paul II was officially received with ill-disguised hostility: days before his arrival, six guerrillas were executed despite a papal plea for clemency. Now the Army's highest-ranking General has been sacked for claiming that religious sectarianism at the highest levels of government is causing ' unnecessary offence ' to the Catholic population. As the battle for the soul of Guatemala develops, David Jessel examines the nature of the evangelical movement and the Catholic opposition, and asks ' whose God is winning? '
Four years ago Mother Angelica. a 60-year-old Franciscan nun, became tired of complaining about the violence and materialism of American television and decided to go into the business herself. Today she runs the world's first Roman Catholic satellite-linked cable television network, from her tiny convent in Alabama.
Coleg Elidyr is a remarkable community where young people suffering from intense mental and physical maladjustment live together with teachers as a totally interdependent family, restoring dignity and wholeness to lives that would never otherwise be fulfilled. For at Coleg Elidyr it is believed that in each person there is a divine spark, the invincible spirit of man - recognise it and they will fight for it for all their lives.
On a hillside, a deserted village: the old stone houses partly ruined, fruit trees running wild, the cultivated terraces crumbling from neglect. After 34 years, three women and a man return to the village to find the houses they were bom in and retrace the paths they knew so well-to Fatma Hamdi the tailor's house, to the mosque, to the cucumber fields and the olive-groves. This Everyman film offers a unique insight into the experiences of Palestinian families in and around Jerusalem, and their restless search for the security of' home '.
"The Bronx is burning!" - victory cry of the 60s revolution. Today the fires have long gone out, leaving empty shells of buildings; a society of street-survivors, whores and hustlers. Yet in the heart of this devastated world a small community of elderly Jews clings on - Mr Sachs, the baker, Dave Lenten, comic and sign painter, Mrs Miroff, seamstress, protected by her street-wise gang of 'bums'. Everyman tells the remarkable story of their survival and of their battered synagogue - the sole focus of their faith, their pride and their history.
The first of ten programmes. Luis Palau is an Argentinian evangelist. He's been called 'the new Billy Graham'. Over the past 17 years he has preached to five million people in 37 countries. Now he's arrived in Britain, and this coming June he'll be trying to save souls at the Queen's Park Rangers Stadium, west London, every night for a month. His message is uncompromising: he believes the many compromises the churches have made in recent times to arrest their decline have only accelerated it. His evidence? The thousands who have flocked to the more basic 'evangelical' Christianity that he - and other similar preachers - have offered over the past few years. But does this kind of fundamentalist Christianity really make sense in the 20th century? Can we still believe in the narrow path to Heaven, the broad highway to Hell? In this film Peter France follows Luis Palau through one of his big warm-up meetings at Wembley, examining his message and talking to those who claim it has changed th
The quest for immortality is mankind's oldest dream. Now some scientists believe they are close to understanding why we grow old, and how to slow, or even stop the ageing process. In America this research has spawned the Life Extension movement, whose members follow special diets and consume large quantities of anti-ageing drugs in the hope of living for a very, very long time. Everyman has been to America to film the leaders of the Life Extension movement and to examine the scientific evidence behind their claims. What would be the effect on our lives if we could greatly extend the human lifespan? Is Life Extension an admirable dream coming true -or is it a nightmarish attempt to escape the reality that has always called forth the best in mankind?
In the West, when someone reaches the age of retirement, the hope is for prosperity and comfort, perhaps a bungalow by the sea, carefully-tended roses and a grandchild or two dangling on the knee. A life in which the fruits of past labour can be savoured. But for a devout Hindu in India, the 'fourth stage' is very different. The highest ideal is not to savour the pleasures of life, but to renounce them: leaving behind family, friends and all worldly possessions to become a wandering monk.
The missionary had as much influence on the British Empire as the politician and the soldier; his achievements may well prove more durable. Today, as a result of his success, the great majority of practising Anglicans are black - they are Africans, Indians and West Indians, spread across six continents. Over the last 30 years this challenge - of a multi-racial English church - has come home. How has the Church, so successful at foreign missionary work, reacted to it? Using little-known archive footage, this film traces the story of black Christians and the Church in Britain.
The words 'Maronite' and 'Druze' have become familiar terms in Lebanon's confused carnage, but who are they, and what are they fighting for? In the first of two films, Everyman goes to the Lebanon to explore the underlying beliefs, emotions and antagonisms that fuel Christian and Islamic passions and have caused their warlords and their widows to dominate the world's headlines.
Forces, and Catholic theology student. Since the days of the Crusaders, the Maronites of Lebanon have fought the Christian fight in the Middle East against militant Islam. Today, Western powers again find themselves entangled in the future of this tiny Orthodox Catholic faith, although with considerably more reluctance than Richard the Lionheart. But if Kalashnikovs have replaced sabres and howitzers replaced lances, has the struggle itself changed? How much longer can the warlords defend their faith, while the widows continue to grieve?
Ours is the first era in human history in which man is capable of ending human history. Faced with this ultimate absurdity of technological progress, many have begun to search for new spiritual understandings. In doing so they have popularised a variety of interests - dowsing, leylines, earth zodiacs and many others. Yet many such 'New Age' beliefs are based on ancient wisdoms, buried in our own past. Everyman.travels to a centre of pagan and New Age beliefs in this country - Glastonbury - and examines these wisdoms. What do they really offer us - harmless eccentricity, or an alternative spirituality with which to defuse a dangerous future?
A portrait of Arthur Koestler written and presented by Brian Inghs 'I wish my friends to know that I am leaving their company in a peaceful frame of mind, with some timid hopes for a depersonalised after-life ... beyond our comprehension. This "oceanic feeling" has often sustained me at difficult moments, and does so now'. A year ago one of the great writers of our time - ARTHUR KOESTLER - committed suicide in a pact with his wife Cynthia. This was the end of an adventurous life, in which he took up many of the challenges of our century: he was a Zionist pioneer in Palestine, then a Communist agent; he was sentenced to death in Franco's Spain, and only just escaped the Nazis. He was never satisfied for long with the easy answers offered by dogmatic faiths - in politics, religion or science. BRIAN INGLIS , writer and friend of Koestler, traces his life's journey and explains why he believes it is of vital significance to us all.
In 1984 both Amnesty International and the British Council of Churches are to mount major campaigns highlighting what they call a world-wide 'epidemic' of torture. This film uses both drama and documentary techniques to tell the story of Michalis Petrou , one of the chief torturers of the Greek Colonels' regime (1967-1974). Petrou is probably unique in film history: in this programme he explains how he became a torturer, and admits how far he was prepared to go in tormenting fellow humans to serve a political system. The film shows how Petrou was trained, and also includes interviews with some of his victims. Yet it is not just about what happened in Greece during a certain period in its history. It is an account of the training that could make a torturer of the ordinary young man anywhere - even your neighbour's son.
How did the universe begin? According to Genesis, God created the world in six days. According to science, the universe was born about 15 billion years ago in a moment of cataclysmic creation -the big bang. But this theory leaves open the question: how did the bang happen in the first place? It is here that science has seemed to leave room for God - at least in the role of lighting the blue touch paper. But very recently some scientists have claimed that they can answer the ultimate question - how the universe appeared all on its own, out of nothing. Is this true? And what would be the implications if it is? In this film Everyman uses advanced computer graphics to explain the latest developments in the scientific understanding of the creation, and talks to leading scientists, both religious and atheist, about the consequences of these developments for belief in God.
E. R. Sethuram is a successful newspaper editor in southern India. Approaching retirement, he is more and more attracted by the Hindu tradition of 'Sannyas' - renouncing the pleasures of life, leaving behind family, friends and all worldly possessions, to become a wandering monk. But how will his family react? And does he really want to embrace poverty and anonymity? Everyman follows Sethuram as he wrestles with his decision, from his home in Bangalore, via a remote monastery in the hills, to the banks of the Ganges. 'In India, old age has always been a time for spiritual journeys. Not a time for just ruminating on the past, but something more challenging - new beginning.'
The Iranian Revolution was one of the most important world events in recent decades. It radically shifted the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, and it has acted as a focus for a resurgence of confidence throughout the vast Islamic world. Yet the causes, meaning and basic facts of the situation in Iran remain largely unknown to outsiders. In two films Everyman shows scenes from all levels of Iranian society, and gives a unique insight into the state of Iran today. In this, the first part, an examination of the religious beliefs that inspired the revolution -and still sustain it.
From the outside the one thing that seems clear about Iran's Islamic Revolution is that people have died in their thousands, both for and through it. This programme concentrates on one Iranian family - the Afrasaibis - who have lost four sons since the revolution, and one of whose surviving sons is a revolutionary guard.
God's call to the priesthood can come at any time, insists Andrew, whose own call came when he was six. He went to Upholland College last year at the age of 11. Upholland is the Roman Catholic Church's last remaining junior seminary in England and Wales. Its aim is to train schoolboys for the priesthood. But many Catholics feel that a vocation should be tested in the family and in the parish, and that Upholland is a relic of the past. So is it an institution for brainwashing idealistic teenagers, or is it a place where a responsible decision for or against the priesthood can be made?
A woman's husband has been missing for over a year; an actor faces a law suit which could ruin his career; a maharajah wants to purchase a new car; a rickshaw driver has a row with his child who tries to kill himself; a girl's engagement is suddenly broken off. In times of crisis these people have one thing in common: they turn to their astrologer. Following them through the bustling alleyways of Benares in India, Everyman explores their problems and their search for a solution. Today in the West astrology as a major influence is virtually dead, but in India most people still consult an astrologer before taking vital decisions - after Mrs Gandhi 's assassination many Indian astrologers claimed to have predicted the event. By looking at the part astrology still plays in India today one can catch a glimpse of the crucial role it has played in civilisations throughout the world, for thousands of years.
When Adolf Hitler came to power he seemed to millions of Germans the answer to prayer. And from the first he played on these longings, presenting Nazism as a religion, with himself as Messiah. But the religion of Nazism had to compete with another, older faith - Christianity. Fifty years ago this week the Nazis took their first legal step against Christianity, passing the so-called Conspiracy Law, which was used to suppress Christian activities. In this film, made by a young German director, Everyman examines the response of contemporary Christian writers and poets to the dilemma posed by organised evil - how far should one submit to Caesar, how far to God?
A two-part investigation into Christianity in Britain today by Peter France. Is Christianity in Britain today more a matter of behaviour than belief? As Bishops argue whether the Creed is literally 'true' Peter France looks at the strength, beauty - and oddities - of the Christian tradition and asks distinguished Church leaders 'What do I have to believe to come in?'.
The second of a two-part investigation into Christianity in Britain today by Peter France. As Bishops argue whether the traditional 'truths' of Christianity have to be taken literally, Peter France goes on a journey through Christian Britain. He looks at the strength, beauty - and oddities of the Christian tradition. In this film he examines the powerful dissenting movements which have helped to shape modern Britain and asks influential Protestant leaders: 'What do I have to believe in order to come in?'
With these words as their guide, members of some churches in West Virginia, USA, handle poisonous snakes in their church services. This extreme Biblical literalism has been banned in the surrounding states, but in West Virginia it remains legal, despite the occasional deaths of participants. This film examines the routes of Christian snake handling in the harsh coal-mining environment of the state, and in the traditional Protestant fundamentalism of its people. The Everyman team gained access to one of the snake-handling services, and filmed scenes of extraordinary religious fervour, never before shown in such detail on television.
Anxiety, lack of confidence, isolation, depression ... these alarming feelings are often presented in doctors' waiting rooms and treated with drugs. But why are some people made ill by the stress and strains of life while others seem to sail through? Dr Dorothy Rowe , clinical psychologist and author, argues that the answer lies in the 'mind box'-the framework of unexamined beliefs about life and death which each person acquires in childhood. Psychology has traditionally dismissed such beliefs. Dr Rowe, however, sides with an older tradition which sees depression as a symptom of an underlying spiritual crisis. 'Ancient writers on the subject said it was a lack of wisdom in living, and I think that's true. Learning to be a bit wiser about yourself-that's the cure for depression.' This film examines how she passes on the ancient wisdom of self-knowledge - and what the people who come to her learn in the process.
Since the end of the Vietnam War ended, the Buddhist kingdom of Thailand has become a front-line state, facing a unified Communist Indo-China across the Mekong River. The legacies of the American presence are still clearly visible in Thailand -in its highly developed consumer society, powerful military elite and over one million prostitutes. In coping with the shock of the last decades, the Sangha- Buddhist clergy-play a crucial role. But, like the Christian churches of the West, the monks themselves are divided. This Everyman film reveals a society where the beliefs of Buddhism have become weapons in the struggle for the hearts and minds of its people.
Ten years ago the Communist Pathet Lao took over in Laos. Thirty years of civil war and two million tons of US bombs had changed this Buddhist kingdom from a quiet backwater to a front line state of the Cold War. Rumours tell of drastic attempts to turn Laos from its traditional Buddhist beliefs to hard-line Marxist-Leninism. For the first time, the government has allowed a Western crew to film widely in the country. And in this film, Everyman tries to find out why some monks fought with the Communists, why some have fled, and what the future of Buddhism is in a country where theoretically there is no religion. Narrator Eugene Fraser Series producer Daniel Wolf Producer John
At 14, Laura Herbert was an orphan, cutting cane on a St Kitts estate. Now 75. she lives on a tiny pension in a back-to-back in Leeds. Her days are spent by the window, reading the Bible. Elizabeth Richardson has 12 children. When she wasn't caring for them she was out working. Now not even a damaged back keeps her away from her duties as church steward. Lunadelle Willocks works all week in a factory. At the weekend, as 'Volunteer Willocks', she leads and inspires her congregation in a tiny backstreet church. These are just some of the 'sisters in the spirit': women from the Caribbean who have made their lives in inner-city Britain. This film tells their story. Researcher
Between Two Worlds: A Journey to Calcutta This year, 1985, is the International Year of Youth. The oldest youth organisation in the world - the YMCA - is contributing to it with a special project: taking 20 young people from Britain to India, to work with the destitute of Calcutta. They will also help out on rural development schemes, aimed at stopping thousands more joining the three million who already live in the city's slums. Some of the youngsters making the journey are unemployed, one is a striking miner. Each of them has had to raise F700
In Iran, Baha'is are being imprisoned, tortured and executed. In the rest of the world, three million Baha'is are setting up a computerised structure for an alternative world government. The Baha'i faith began as a 19th-century offshoot of Islam. Today it's the fastest growing new religion in the world. In the first of a new international series, "Everyman" slips behind the lines of "The Quiet Revolution" to report on the Baha'i mission to establish God's Kingdom on Earth.
Christians have always seen God as a hugely powerful father. And the fatherhood of God has always justified the subjection of women to male authority. Feminists argue that freedom for women is incompatible with Christianity - but where does this leave women influenced by feminism who want to remain Christians? Five Christian women argue that if the church is to be loyal to its deepest insights the faithful must learn to say - God is She.
The Rainbow Warrior trial - the case linking the French Secret Service to the mining of Greenpeace's ship - begins in Auckland this week. At the centre of the controversy surrounding the case is the outspoken New Zealand Prime Minister, David Lange. He has condemned forthrightly France's violation of New Zealand's sovereignty. Earlier this year, the USA found him equally uncompromising when he announced their nuclear carriers would not be welcome in New Zealand. Lange is a Methodist lay preacher who says that what he does in his political life is a reflection of his Christian convictions. This Everyman profile records his first meeting with the man whose preaching changed his life - Lord Soper. In a conversation filmed earlier this year, they discuss the choice confronting a politician between compromise and conscience.
Years of our lives are passed in the dreamscapes of sleep, yet the phenomenon of dreams remains largely a mystery to us. We say 'it was only a dream' to dismiss these phantasms, and reassure ourselves that we have returned to reality. But recent research is blurring the distinction between sleeping and waking states. In the last ten years investigators have discovered that some 'lucid dreamers', can perform pre-arranged experiments in their sleep, and even send messages acfbss the sleep barrier to the waking world. The results of these experiments have provided startling insights into sleep consciousness. Everyman examines the story of lucid dream research, and encounters a puzzle well-known to the most ancient religious traditions: how can we ever be sure we're awake?
Every year thousands of torture victims disappear, never to tell their tale. But thousands more survive, and are released back into the world. Their torture does not end at the moment they step outside the prison gates. The memories remain, and with them the anguish that makes readjustment to normal life so hard. Canada has a uniquely liberal policy of immigration for political refugees - over 20,000 settle in the country each year. Many have suffered terrible tortures and made miraculous escapes. To meet their needs an extraordinary network of doctors, psychiatrists, health workers and volunteers, several themselves former victims, has sprung up. This film does not investigate the politics of the victims. It examines their experiences, and follows the attempts of care-workers, medical and social, to overcome their traumas.
The Church of England is today on the defensive in the inner cities, apparently irrelevant in a hostile world of unemployment, deprivation and riots. But the problems it is facing are not new ones. In the week the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on the Church in the City publishes its findings, Everyman asks: has the Church ever been at home in Britain's industrial areas? Or has it always, as its critics maintain, dined with the rich and preached to the poor? The film goes to one English town - Middlesbrough and examines the Church's record there over the last 150 years. It reveals a story of lethargy and energy, of indifference and concern, of occasional victories and persistent defeats.
A portrait of Gerard Manley Hopkins. During his lifetime not six people even knew he wrote poetry, and no one thought it worth publishing. His family never accepted his conversion to Catholicism. He spent much of his adult life working as a priest in Liverpool and Dublin. He died at 45. Yet today Gerard Manley Hopkins is recognised as one of the greatest Victorian poets. He lived in isolation from the fashions and trends of his time. But his work seems wholly modern. In this portrait John Wain , writer and former Oxford Professor of Poetry, examines Hopkins's life and work, explains why the Victorians found it hard to listen to his voice - and why we need to.
'Killing another human being is beyond description. Each time it's like killing a little bit of yourself.' James R. Jarrett survived a violent upbringing, and later the war in Vietnam. Survival is now his business. He runs the Phoenix Firearms Training Centre in Arizona. The courses Jarrett offers prepare his clients to meet their own worst fears - in mock ambushes, muggings and raids. And there's a philosophy to go with the training: 'Survival requires no apology'. Jarrett has come to believe there is a stark choice between trust and survival. He has made his choice, and has adopted a personal creed to match: 'I do believe in God, but I really don't think he gives a damn about us'.
Ever since Galileo fell foul of the Roman Catholic Church, science and faith have appeared to be in conflict. But some commentators now argue that, the further physics progresses, the nearer it approaches a mystical view of the universe, and of man's place in it. Fritjof Capra is a physicist and writer, living in California. In this film he criticises the conventional belief that the universe can be viewed simply as a vast machine, and argues that modern physics itself can lead us to the profoundest spiritual insights - insights crucial to man's survival.
Ten years ago, in the New Year of 1976, Northern Ireland suffered one of the worst instances of terrorist violence since the Troubles began. On 4 January five Catholics from South Armagh were shot dead. Twenty-four hours later, as relatives of the murdered were appealing on television against retaliation, a minibus carrying local Protestant mill workers home was ambushed. Ten were killed. This moving film revisits the villages of Whitecross and Bessbrook on the tenth anniversary of the killings - and tells the remarkable story of a community still united by grief, where the transient headlines have become part of daily reality.
In this programme Everyman looks at the world's oldest and newest Marxist-inspired revolutions. It shows the price the Russian Orthodox Church has paid to survive in the Soviet Union. And it travels to Nicaragua, to investigate the conflict between those Christians who support the revolution and those who are actively opposed to it.
The Black Madonna of Czestochowa, 'Queen of Poland', has been the symbol of Poland's faith and national tradition for six centuries. In today's Poland the pilgrimage to the Black Madonna is also an act of defiance and solidarity. Last year eight million Poles made the pilgrimage, and on 15 August alone, half a million converged on Czestochowa This film examines why 40 years of Communist rule in Poland have strengthened the Catholic Church's power and influence, and why the pilgrimage has become even more popular since the banning of Solidarity. Beginning in Gdansk, at the church of Lech Walesa , Everyman follows in the footsteps of the pilgrims and examines the faith of the Polish Catholics, their martyrs, their leaders and their adversaries.
'The "New Man" Castro is trying to create here is similar to the "New Man" we Christians have failed to create over the centuries. I feel that to be a true Christian you have to be a Communist'. Some Cuban Christians feel the regime offers a unique opportunity to put their faith into practice. Others talk of repression and discrimination. Cuba is full of contradictions: while young Communists gather at a mass rally to chant anti-imperialist slogans, a few miles away a spirit priest sacrifices a live chicken in an occult African ceremony. But is there really religious freedom in Cuba? And can faith ever be compatible with Marxism?
Christianity has been the established religion in the country for over half of the 2,500-year reign of its emperors. When the Derg, a group of army officers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Mengistu, deposed the last Emperor, Haile Selassie , in 1974 and inaugurated Africa's first Marxist-Leninist revolution, it was not at all clear what would happen to the Church. The Revolution has attempted dramatic changes despite wars, insurrections, drought and famine. Literacy campaigns, land reforms and workers' unions modelled on its ally, the Soviet Union, are all designed to create 'scientific socialism'. Yet the numbers going to church have increased, and the priests have found a new role, both as mediators in the civil wars, and in helping the famine victims.
This BAFTA award-winning series returns with a remarkable documentary, probably the most revealing portrait of Afghanistan at war yet made. Taking over a year to make, and filmed at great personal risk, Jihad contains sequences of combat, interrogation of prisoners, and daily life under Soviet occupation. It concentrates on a group of Afghan warriors, based in Kandahar, the country's second largest city. They include a 9-year-old street assassin and a chief executioner of the Islamic Court. Several were captured or killed during the making of the film. The war in Afghanistan is nearly seven years old: it has cost over 1,000,000 lives, and created 4,000,000 refugees. But coverage of it in the West has been sparse. This film shows the war at closer quarters than ever before.
This Everyman special traces the Frankenstein myth's extraordinary progress through modern culture, using a wealth of clips and illustrations. It includes the first television showing of the first Frankenstein film - the 1910 Edison version, which was lost for over 50 years and was finally found in an attic in the US mid-West. At its heart is an original dramatisation of the major scenes from Mary Shelley's story, closely following - unlike other films - the spirit and content of the novel. Combining dramatisation, film extracts, documentary sequences and interviews, Everyman explores a myth that still haunts us today.
The Jains are the world's strictest believers in non-violence. Jain monks will not bathe, for fear of killing the organisms that live on the body; some tie a cloth band across their mouths to protect flying insects from harm. In Ahmedabad, west India - where this film was shot - they run a hospital for animals: no matter how ill, or how great their suffering, the animals are not killed, but allowed to die naturally. In this film Everyman explores the paradoxes of this small but influential sect. The crew was given unique access to the animal hospitals, and was allowed to film the austere life of Jain monks and nuns - including their ritual hair-plucking. The result is a portrait of people who live on the frontiers of peace - far beyond what most would consider the reasonable limits of non-violen
Arthur Kirkby: a sculptor from, Merseyside is trying to cope with religious doubts. Peter: Distribution Manager for a small firm near Newcastle, needs to rethink his priorities at home and at work. Elizabeth: hopes to find the spiritual resources to face her cancer. All of them go on retreat. For five days at St Beuno's College, North Wales, they follow St Ignatius's spiritual exercises, a blend of devotion and psychological exploration. The aim is 'to enable them to distinguish between their positive and creative feelings and their negative and destructive ones'. Peter, Arthur and Elizabeth speak frankly and movingly about what it is like to be exposed to five days of silence and solitude in search of the will of God.
Five years ago, few people had heard of AIDS. Now, it is seen as one of the greatest health threats facing the modern world. According to some medical sources, there could be 10,000 deaths in the UK from AIDS by 1990, with a further two million people carrying the virus. Yet attitudes to this killer disease are today dominated by ignorance and fear. AIDS has been described as 'God's gift to bigotry': from the gay community in particular come increasing reports of discrimination and violent attacks. Jeremy Paxman reports on the causes and the consequences of present attitudes to AIDS. He meets people with the virus and those working to help prevent the spread of a disease which, in the United States, already affects over a quarter of a million people.
Lysergic acid diethylamide - more commonly known as LSD - is one of the most potent pharmacological substances known to science. It is also the most controversial. One ten-thousandth of a gram, an amount invisible to the naked eye, can precipitate some of the most powerful experiences in the repertory of human consciousness. Tonight Everyman traces the turbulent history of this remarkable substance. Are psychedelic drugs merely dangerous and subversive poisons, or do they tell us something important about reality, consciousness and the relationship between them? Among those appearing are Dr Albert Hofmann , the man who discovered the drug in 1943; Humphry Osmond , who coined the term 'psychedelic' and administered mescaline to Aldous Huxley ; and Lord Christopher Mayhew who, 30 years ago, took part in a filmed experiment with a hallucinogenic drug, shown tonight for the first time.
Tonight Everyman follows the bizarre and sometimes tragic events as LSD escaped from the laboratory and was consumed, during the 1960's, by millions of young people seeking enlightenment and consciousness expansion. To some, like the novelist Ken Kesey , LSD was a sacrament that seemed to reveal a new and better reality. But others were overwhelmed and damaged by the drug, and 20 years ago LSD was classified as an illegal substance. With the help of Albert Hofmann , discoverer of LSD, Rosie Boycott , founder of Spare Rib magazine, and Roger Scruton , conservative writer and thinker, Everyman asks what influence the drug had on the social upheaval of the 60s. Was it taken simply for kicks, or did LSD's popularity hint at something deeper?
Many of us will buy our Christmas with credit cards, and sort out the payments in the New Year. Credit is easy to get and it's on the increase. But for some people, credit is a nightmare. At worst, people lose their homes, their marriages and even their will to live. Martin Young reports on the phenomenon of credit, and examines the morality of it. Ought lenders to give us so much credit? Or ought we to discipline ourselves?
A Meditation on the Paintings of Georges de la Tour In the years between the wars, a mystery gradually unfolded before the eyes of the world. Thirty-eight paintings, previously lost in obscurity, were discovered and collected together. The paintings of Georges de la Tour are now regarded as among the greatest works of 17th-century art. But about the painter we know virtually nothing. All we have are a series of images, haunting tableaux, often candle-lit and usually with a religious subject. This film attempts to explore behind the surface of these mysterious works, with the help of Fr John McDaid, sj, theatre director Ronald Eyre , novelist Peter Ackroyd , psychoanalyst Linda Freeman , and the children of HOTWELLS SCHOOL, Bristol.
An Everyman presentation starring The pioneers who sailed on the Mayflower had very different dreams of what their 'New World' could be. One group planned a communal state where all would love each other, the other group were adventurers out to make their fortune backed by the power of the gun.
'No alcoholic voluntarily does anything about his or her problem. What we're up against is a disease, and a disease that is not curable.' To dry out in Detroit you go to the Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Centre, one of the biggest treatment centres for alcoholics in the United States. It was founded by Fr Vaughn Quinn. For an alcoholic, the path to self-knowledge and sobriety is a rough one. No one knows this better than Fr Quinn himself. His exuberant style conceals a first-hand . knowledge of his clients' despair: he is, in his own words, 'just a recovering alcoholic'. This film follows the personal struggles of both clients and counsellors through the precarious business of alcoholic rehabilitation: from Quinn's search for drunks in his 1925 hearse on the streets of Detroit, through painful therapy groups, to three intensive days for a small group of residents on board The Mighty Quinn - a 38-foot yacht skippered by Quinn on Lake St Clair.
Figures show that crime is rising year by year. Fear of crime seems to be growing even more rapidly: police forces encourage neighbourhood watch groups, alarmed individuals train in techniques of self-defence and security guards now outnumber police officers. Jeremy Paxman asks where the rising tide of fear will end, and discovers that in some areas citizens are already taking up arms because they believe the state can no longer protect them.
"The city is like Niagara Falls. The closer you live to the brink, the more likely you will be swept over the edge. We like to live a long way upstream.' The old Mennonite communities of Canada are descendants of European Protestants who fled from terrible persecution in the 17th and 18th centuries. They have retained a separate identity, avoiding the modem world and preserving a 200-year-old way of life. But at the fringes compromises are being made. Everyman visits the farming communities where the old values of peace, humility, hard work and brotherhood are still the priority. What happens when the modern world gets too close? 'There's lots of room, we just move a little further out.'
'You need people who are prepared to commit themselves to each other, to their workforce, in order for this country to prosper. That is a Christian thing to do, if it is done on a basis of equality.' Half our waking lives are spent at work. And for most people work means routine laced with competition - a sort of nerve-wracking drudgery. Given our highly developed and sophisticated economy, could our life at work ever be different? In the past ten years there's been a huge growth in enterprises formed by people who believe it could. Inspired by the example of Ernest Bader , who gave his business to his workforce and started the modern Common Ownership Movement, they have founded nearly 1,500 workers' co-operatives. By the year 2000, at the current rate of increase, there could be a quarter of a million coops in Britain. But can co-operatives provide jobs that are more than 'just a job'? And can they still be viable businesses at the same time?
The Virgin Mary appears on a hillside in a remote village in Yugoslavia. Six children see her, touch her and hear her voice. She says she has come as the Queen of Peace. She urges believers to pray, fast and do penance. She says that the West has lost God and that Russia will come to glorify the Lord. The local clergy dismiss the children's story, but soon huge crowds are gathering on the hill. The police move in, fearful that the religious stirrings are a sign of counter-revolution among the Catholic population. Gradually the testimony of the child visionaries wins over their families and friends. The parish priest becomes a believer. Supernatural signs are seen in the area; healings are reported and the crowds keep coming. Within six years Medjugorje shows signs of becoming another Lourdes - with the differences that it has all happened in a Marxist country, and that the apparitions are still going on to this day.
The Sanema tribe is one of the most remote, independent and feared of all the Amazonian Indians. It was only in 1973 that Pastor Hernan Artigas came to Majawana and carved the first mission out of the rain forest of the Upper Orinoco. For the majority of the Sanema, little has changed since the Stone Age. Life revolves around hunting, story-telling and contact with the forest spirits. But now they are meeting the 20th-century world of Hernan. It is a culture shock from which they may never recover.
Friday night fever in the cities of Brazil is not so much about disco-dancing as spirittrancing. It is when the 30 million practitioners of Umbanda, a voodo-like cult that started this century, perform their strange rites. Umbanda, a synthesis of African and Amerindian gods with Catholicism, is Brazil's fastest-growing religion. At spiritist centres, like those run by Abraham in the slums of Rio, or Marilda or on luxurious Governor's Island, possession states are used to grant favours, cure illness or lift curses. The Catholic Church, once vehemently anti-Umbanda, now tolerates it. But for the new evangelical churches, toleration is an anathema: their Friday night services are a spectacle of mass exorcism, a battle between God and the Devil.
During the past ten years 9,000 people have 'disappeared' in Peru's Ayacucho province, victims of the conflict between the Maoist guerrillas, Sendero Luminoso, and the military. This violence now threatens the neighbouring province of Puno, home of the Aymara Indians who have cultivated the banks of Lake Titicaca since pre-Columban times. The church in Puno, unlike in Ayacucho, has actively pressurised the government to enact land reforms, hoping to limit Sendero's appeal to the Indians. Branded communists by the right and reactionaries by the left, the Peruvian church is divided. Filmed around Lake Titicaca and in the slums of Lima this concluding episode reveals the church at a crossroad in its history.
For four years, Michael Buerk reported on South Africa for BBC Television News. He saw the country at its best and at its worst. He made many friends, black, white and coloured; he was also shot at, gassed, beaten, locked up, censored, and finally expelled. He cannot go back. But now, using material some of which has never been shown, he tells us what it was really like to live and work on the edge of a racial battleground. This first programme in a new series of Everyman goes behind the news for a personal look at the country and the people for whom there is 'no easy road'.
Caring for people in the last stages of cancer requires more than medical and nursing skills. It involves accompanying patients and their relatives through fear, anger and mourning to acceptance. In this moving film shot in St Luke's Hospice, Plymouth, a husband and wife share the faith that sustains them through ravaging illness. A mother and daughter find a new closeness as they come to terms with a cruelly mishandled diagnosis. Dr Sheila Cassidy , the medical director of St Luke's, explains her approach to the care of terminal cancer.
Over the past ten years, Guatemala has been the focus for the most aggressive evangelisation process since the Spanish conquistadores came to Latin America. Today, nearly one third of the population are 'born again' Christians - mostly Pentecostals like the American TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart , whose crusades have become one of the country's most popular television programmes. For Swaggart, Guatemala is in the front line of a battle between good and evil, with the Roman Catholic Church and the Communists cast together in the role of Satan. This religious conflict now threatens further divisions among the Indian communities, already the worst sufferers from a decade of bitter civil war.
First broadcast: Sun 8th Nov 1987, 22:20 on BBC One London 'I had found a way of life that elated me: I tasted briefly, the nectar of the Gods ...' But when the round-the-world motorcyclist Ted Simon got back from his four-year, 64,000-mile journey round the globe, he found it impossible to settle in Britain. To the eye of a man who had immersed himself in the cultures of 45 different countries, the British seemed to have sold their soul to materialism. His best-selling account of his trip, Jupiter's Travels, mapped the different, inner road he had found while riding his bike. To try to preserve that vision, he fled to a remote valley in North America. Now Everyman has brought Ted Simon back to make a new journey, from London to the Scottish islands, meeting the readers who've responded to his book and its insights.
'You can't express the pain that I go through being married to Geoffrey ... there's no finality about my pain - it's every day. It's going on and on for years and years.' Rhona Prime , wife of GCHQ spy Geoffrey Prime , explains the dilemma she faced when she 'shopped' the husband she loves, and the cost of standing by him since his conviction. Loyalty is said to be the holiest virtue in the human heart, but is there virtue in the popular idea that a woman, no matter what, should stand by her man? Jenni Murray talks to four women who have been loyal to husbands who have been involved in robbery, rape, murder and espionage. Why do they do it when loyalty means sharing the punishment for someone else's crime?
Three years ago, Joe and Eileen Connolly left St Louis, Missouri for Central America in search of Eileen's brother, a Catholic priest. Fr 'Guadalupe' Carney had disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the jungles of Honduras. Their search was to uncover a tangle of political intrigue and secrecy which stretched back to Washington, but it was also to leave many important questions unanswered. David Jessel 's film on the Connollys won the Royal Television Society's International Current Affairs award in 1984. Now he reports on new evidence which sheds important light on Fr Guadalupe 's fate, and on the extraordinary journey of faith and discovery which the Connollys have made.
In 1984 the Indian Army invaded the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Soon after, Sikh gunmen assassinated Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister, and thousands of Sikhs died in the riots that followed her death. The violence has had a traumatic effect on many Sikhs living in Britain. It has provoked some of them into a political and religious crusade for an independent Sikh homeland: they say they are trying to revive Sikh culture and religion. Others strongly disagree. This bitter conflict has led to costly court actions and even to fights inside temples. A number of prominent British Sikhs have been shot. Rosemary Hartill investigates what lies behind these divisions, and asks what the turban and the sword mean to Sikhs in Britain today.
On his visit to West Germany earlier this year, the Pope pronounced the beatification of Sister Teresia Benedicta, a Carmelite nun murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Sister Benedicta had been born a Jewess, Edith Stein. Thousands of Catholics rejoiced at the ceremony, and welcomed the pronouncement as a sign of reconciliation between Catholics and Jews. But many Jews were indignant. In their eyes not only had Edith Stein betrayed her faith by converting to Christianity, but she died because she was Jewish, not as a Christian martyr. For them, the attempt at reconciliation failed. Why are relations between Catholics and Jews so difficult and sensitive, and what hopes are there that a better understanding can be achieved?
At the New Testament Church of God in Brixton Pastor Vernon Nelson makes a passionate appeal for a return to the traditional values of the Protestant ethic - hard work, high moral standards and the honest rewards of material success. His church is packed with obedient young people, joyfully proclaiming the truth of the Gospels and busily making progress with their careers. But are the increasingly popular black-led churches really answering the needs of Britain's black community? With songs and sermons the church members say yes; outsiders, many of them church drop-outs, are not so sure.
When he visited Fiji last year, Pope John Paul called it 'a symbol of hope in the world'. He found 'people of diverse cultures ... living in harmony and peace'. Now this peace has been destroyed by two military coups; religions and races are divided. Brigadier Rabuka, the man behind the coups, is a Methodist lay preacher. Why has this devout Christian wanted to deny over half the population their political rights and restrict their religious freedom? And what prospects are there for harmony in the future? Martin Young talks to Brigadier Rabuka and other Fijian political and religious leaders, and analyses the significance of what's been happening.
In the past 150 years there have been thousands of reported appearances of the Virgin Mary , usually to children. The visions warn of disaster and call to prayer. The Pope, a keen visitor to the shrines where the visions are commemorated, has declared 1987-88 a Marian year. Many women in the Church are troubled by the cult: they say it has gone hand in hand in the Christian tradition with the subjection of women and the fear of sexuality. Yet it remains magnetic. The Virgin Mother still draws thousands of sick and despairing to her shrines in search of wholeness and hope.
Mr Yamaguchi is a typical Tokyo 'salaryman': workaholic, conformist and, like most Japanese, uninterested in religion. When his wife discovers he's been having an affair, and tries to kill herself, their world is thrown into confusion. In search of help, Mrs Yamaguchi joins Shinnyuen, one of the new evangelistic Buddhist sects that have grown up in the post-war period. She becomes a 'born-again Buddhist'. Mr Yamaguchi is horrified. Buddhism for him is reserved for funeral services; he distrusts Shinnyuen's new-fangled style. This film traces what happens to the Yamaguchis' marriage, and looks at how the new sects are answering the spiritual needs of people who have suffered the flip-side of the economic miracle.
A religious powerhouse, a social centre, a springboard for artistic and political activity: in its heyday, the Nonconformist chapel dominated Welsh life. In mining communities like Nantymoel, at the head of the Ogmore Valley, it was chapel three times on a Sunday and a week filled with temperance meetings, choir practices and 'penny readings'. But now the glory has departed. Saron and Gilead chapels lie derelict. Hope is a furniture showroom. Bethany keeps only its vestry and, on Sunday mornings, just two or three of Dinam's 850 pews are occupied. And yet as those few ageing voices are raised in harmony in the old language, there's a poignant echo of Sundays when this place was full. So what sustains the failing remnant in their determination to remember the Sabbath Day? Everyman visits Nantymoel to find out.
When white missionaries converted black tribes in South Africa to Christianity 200 years ago, they created for their converts an abiding dilemma. Should black Christians today put their trust in Christian forgiveness and peaceful negotiation, or does their belief in the rightness of overcoming apartheid justify militancy? This film explores that tension. The dilemma leads many black Christians to rebel against their Church's conservatism and look for a new form of faith. Some of them go back to their African tribal roots to mark their separation from 'white' Christianity. How far should they go towards violent resistance? Or does Christian teaching on forgiveness forbid the overthrow of oppression?
In the Middle Ages, people believed that light was the very embodiment of God, and they celebrated his presence with the breathtaking splendour of their stained-glass windows. Very little is known about the men who made them. Yet they are still a source of inspiration to modern craftsmen, like those working on the huge unfinished cathedral of St John the Divine in New York. For the first time, a film camera has recorded for Everyman the magical beauty of the great rose windows at Chartres Cathedral from close at hand. And the great composer, Olivier Messiaen , at the organ of the Trinite church in Paris, talks of the special place light and stained glass have in his faith and his music.
In America, the Gospel is preached over the television airwaves by evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart , eager to win the hearts, minds and dollars of their audience for Christ. Can it, will it happen here? Jim Woolsey hopes so. He has sold the Jimmy Swaggart telecast to 148 countries. Now he wants to bring it to Britain. Hard on his heels are fervent British companies, with their own productions, who believe the BBC and IBA have sold viewers short on religion. Until now the costs have been too high for individual enterprise. But will the growth of cable and satellite mean the price is now right for the prophets of the electronic Gospel to enter the sitting rooms of the nation? Rosemary Hartill examines religious television today and asks whether change is in the air.
Introduced by Prunella Scales In the 16th century Mrs Cranmer , one of the earliest parsons' wives, was rumoured to have hidden in a box whenever she went out, for fear of embarrassing her husband. Four centuries later, clergy wives are finding life just as difficult. The fictional stereotype still dominates public perceptions: the dowdy figure who, as well as running her own home on a shoestring, teaches Sunday school, arranges flowers, organises fetes, runs the Mothers' Union and provides endless cups of tea and a sympathetic ear. In the past, wives have accepted their role as their husband's unpaid curate. But times are changing. Everyman meets five clergy wives who talk about the reality behind the stereotype.
On 4 April 1968 Martin Luther King was shot dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The night before he died, he spoke of his vision of 'the promised land of justice and freedom' for black Americans. Twenty years later, King's dream has turned sour. Montgomery, Alabama was at the centre of the civil rights struggle in the 50s and 60s. Indeed it all began there, with the famous 381-day bus boycott. led by Dr King. Today much has changed. There are black judges, lawyers, politicians. But Montgomery is still an oppressive, divided city. Many of the advances of the past 20 years have backfired against the black community. Many of the changes are skin deep. Through the eyes of an assortment of Montgomery's black citizens, this film explores the current tensions and frustrations, hopes and fears, and shows that King's vision remains more an inspiration than a reality.
'We are a tribe', claims a kibbutz veteran with pride. If so, it is a most astonishing tribe. It has no poverty, no snobbery, no class, no crime, no unemployment and no homelessness. It is a society of one for all and all for one. It ploughs all its profits back into social security and the common kitty. But in the past year or two the kibbutz movement has been plunged into crisis: partly economic, and partly the result of a widespread loss of confidence from within. The tribe has 128,000 members and has been going for nearly 80 years. Forty years ago it was vital to the setting up of the state of Israel. But in the tensions of today, can it survive?
Jeanette Roberts is the mother to 42 children. She is a tough East Ender with little money. She has never married or had children of her own. Her adoptive family are the abused, the neglected, the physically or mentally handicapped, the orphaned or the unacceptable. Jeanette was abused in her own childhood, but through sheer force of spirit she changed the course of her life. Breaking the Chain describes the positive story of what can be done to heal damaged children and build relationships where all else has failed.
People Dublin is celebrating its 1,000th birthday. The Irish are opening their doors and their hearts to the world. But hidden away from the celebrations, life in Ireland is harsh. One in five people is unemployed. Homelessness is on the increase as more and more Irish migrate to Dublin. Poverty is writ large. In a profoundly Catholic country, renowned for sending missionaries to the Third World, the Irish are suddenly finding the poor are on their own doorstep. Everyman reports from Ireland on the individual members of the Church who are responding in unexpected ways to the problems of Ireland's hidden people.
It's election year in the United States and middle America is worried: worried about the dramatic increase in drug abuse, abortion, AIDS and violent crime, a rising tide which is no longer just confined to the big cities. America is a deeply Christian country - 70 million Americans claim to be 'born again' - and many think that the only solution to this moral vacuum is to make sure God is returned to centre stage in American politics. Many others are fighting hard to maintain the constitutional separation of Church and State. Filmed against the colourful back-drop of the Presidential election, this programme explores the phenomenon of moral America on the march, and meets the two Christian candidates. Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson , who, from opposite ends of the political spectrum, are addressing the nation's moral misgivings.
The 'monsters' are the dark secrets which lurk in the minds of children who've been sexually abused. Madge Bray 's ambition is to get rid of the 'monsters', and see the children drawing rainbows again. Through play (which is how all small children communicate) and through painting and drawing, she helps them to find the language to describe those dark secrets. Madge Bray is a therapist who specialises in child abuse. She also helps run the only course in the country for other professionals - social workers, police, doctors, foster-parents - who have to deal with the problem. The course helps them explore, through role play, the terrible dilemmas they have to face in dealing with abused children. They also learn, through Madge Bray 's remarkable lectures, how to see things from the child's point of view, to speak the child's language, and to begin the process of healing the psychological damage that's been done.
It's been estimated that by the time most American children reach their teens they will have seen over 10,000 deaths in the cinema and on TV. But fiction puts a safe distance between the young and the realities of death. What's more, in the real world, the dying and the dead are removed from the house to the antiseptic confines of hospital and funeral home. As a result, most young people know little about what the death of a loved one means. To remedy this, 'death education' is being included in the curriculum in many schools throughout the United States. From kindergarten to high school, children are being asked to face the facts of death. What should children be told, and when? Everyman talks both to students and to professionals like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who, through her work in the hospice movement, encounters death every day. Is it right to expose children to the grim face of life's only certainty? Is death a necessary taboo, or can learning about it enrich young lives?
It's 40 years since the last Japanese soldiers surrendered, yet the Karen, Britain's wartime allies, are still fighting in the hills and jungles of Burma. Loyal servants of the Raj, the Karen felt betrayed by the hasty British withdrawal from Burma in 1948 which left power with the Burmese, the traditional enemies of the Karen, and denied them their autonomy. Since then, unrecognised by any nation, they've run their own state, Kawthoolei. They have their own government, they run their own schools and their own army. They are determined to resist Burmese rule. Stories abound of atrocities by the Burmese army. Many thousands of Karen have fled across the border to Thailand, to face rejection and disease. Every year they lose more ground, and their chances of success in their fight diminish further. So what is it that sustains the Karen in their seemingly hopeless struggle?
"It would be analogous to consecrating a meat pie on the altar of God to ordain a woman." These uncompromising words come from Fr Ian Herring, an ordinary Australian vicar. For nearly 2,000 years men have assumed that the role of women in the Church is to support them, not to be their equals. But now all that is changing. In the Anglican Church in the United States women have already been ordained as priests. In England they are practising as deacons, and the question of their full ordination is under active consideration. In Australia in October 1987 the Synod of the Anglican Church took a crucial vote on the subject. This film follows the women who were in the front line of the battle through the last tense stages of their campaign.
"We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth." One thousand years ago, this testimony to the splendour of the Greek Church in Constantinople persuaded the ruler of medieval Russia to choose Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. This choice had profound consequences for the development of Russia, helping to isolate it from the West and contributing to a sense of mystery which is still felt today. The history of the Russian state is inextricably linked with the Orthodox Church. The Church has consistently safeguarded national consciousness, despite centuries of invasions, internal conflict and oppression. This week the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates its millennium. How has it been able to survive when the state has taken on different forms, some alien to its doctrines, and what effect has this had on the Church in Russia?
For much of the past 70 years Christians in the Soviet Union have practised their religion in the face of great hostility. During Stalin's time many priests and believers were imprisoned, victimised and murdered. And under Khrushchev thousands of churches were closed. Today things are changing. Mr Gorbachev 's second revolution - his perestroika - is beginning to reach the Church. Some dissident priests and believers have been allowed out of prison; the supporters of religion are being given a voice in the normally atheist Soviet media; and there is even talk of the state returning some of the powers it removed from the Church after the revolution. But how far will glasnost go? As the Church celebrates the millennium of Christianity in Russia Everyman has been to the Soviet Union to find out what it's like to be a Christian in an atheist world.
First of nine programmes "Time does heal...' affirms the widow of one of the 16 People shot dead by Michael Ryan on 19 August last year in and around the Berkshire market town of Hungerford. Over the past 12 months, Everyman has paid regular visits to Hungerford, making a unique record of the process of grief and the beginnings of recovery in the town. In this specially extended programme, the bereaved and injured talk freely of their pain, anger and bewilderment - and of the emotional changes they've experienced as time has passed. The town has come together for civic events like the Memorial Service, the age-old Hungerford tradition of 'Tutti Day' which celebrates the coming of spring, and the Summer Carnival. What becomes evident as the months unfold is a remarkable story of the courage, resilience and quiet dignity of an English community in the face of tragic, inexplicable loss.
There is no reconciliation if it is not based on truth andjustice. Not the words of a Marxist revolutionary, but of Archbishop Manuel Santos of Concepcion, responding to the harshness of the Pinochet regime in Chile. With many forms of political dissent suppressed, the Roman Catholic Church in Chile has become a leading opponent of the Government. High-ranking clerics, once conservative figures in an increasingly secular society, are now outspoken political critics. The Church-run Vicariate of Solidarity is the foremost human rights organisation in the country. In the Name of God is an award-winning documentary by the Chilean director Patricio Guzman. Made in 1986, it provides a unique view of the work of the Vicariate and the Church, and of the way these institutions have given Chilean people a voice in their fight for democracy.
In 1942 the International Committee of the Red Cross made a dramatic decision: it chose to maintain its philosophy of confidentiality and remain silent about Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews. Why? Everyman has obtained exclusive access to new research about the controversy. Is confidentiality really the necessary price of access to the victims of war? And would the Red Cross do the same today? lain Guest talks to delegates who have faced similar heart-rending decisions in more recent conficts in El Salvador and the Gulf, and finds them facing impossible choices.
First in a three-part series On 16 October 1978, Karol Wojtyla , the Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow in Poland, was elected to the papacy. He was the youngest pope in a century and the first non-Italian in 450 years. He chose the name John Paul n. At the time, outside Poland, little or nothing was known about a man who has since become one of the best known popes in history. Papa Wojtyla goes behind the public face of the papacy to discover the human being. You Could Steal Horses with Wojtyla ... The behind-the-scenes story of how Wojtyla came to be elected, while at the same time tracing his early life and career. Wojtyla himself talks to Richard Denton about his late vocation and his own response to his election.
In the Third World, many Catholic priests are politically active in support of the poor. Latin America is the birthplace of 'liberation theology', seen by some as a misbegotten mixture of Christianity and Marxism. Elsewhere, particularly the United States, there are calls for a Church that would accept homosexuality, the ordination of women, married priests, divorce and contraception. This second film looks at how Wojtyla's papacy deals with some of these problems, at the Vatican's part in maintaining the structure and traditions of the Church, and at why Papa Wojtyla has been described as 'the most adored but the most disobeyed pope in recent history'.
It is perhaps Karol Wojtyla 's greatest departure from papal tradition that he has adopted the role of 'pilgrim pope', travelling, so far, to 77 countries. The third film in the series goes with him on his 37th international pilgrimage - to Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay, where Wojtyla must meet General Alfredo Stroessner , the world's longest-surviving dictator, who, after the Second World War, sheltered many of the Nazi criminals who desecrated Wojtyla's homeland.
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there. Santa Claus personifies the spirit of Christmas and embodies all our feelings of joy, faith, goodwill and renewed hope at the turn of the year. It is from the 19th-century American poem A Visit from St Nicholas that our modern image of the jolly, red-robed, gift-bearing Santa has emerged. This poem drew together many European myths and legends surrounding the celebration of the winter solstice; Odin, the Norse god; and St Nicholas , the 4th-century Bishop of Myra. It was syndicated by Harpers magazine and became enormously popular through the illustrations of THOMAS NAST. Everyman traces the evolution of Santa Claus and talks to Sir Yehudi Menuhin , Raymond Briggs , Bruno Bettelheim , Sheila Kitzinger and Count Andrew von Staufer about the magic and mystery of this timeless figure of C
Seven years ago Julia Knowles decided to set up a home for severely handicapped young people. So she set about raising the necessary quarter-of-a-million pounds and 18 months ago she succeeded. Martha House in Deal is now a loving home for eight young people, all of them severely handicapped, mentally and physically, all of them needing the constant care and attention of the 25 full-time staff. But Martha House still needs nearly £1,000 a week from charitable donations to keep it going. As a nation we are giving more and more to charity, but as demands on our generosity increase, how many more causes can we sustain? And what happens to the young people in Martha House if the giving stops?
Beelzebub... Ashtaroth.... Satan.... Lucifer: the Devil has many names and many guises, and he's been part of Jewish, Christian and Muslim culture for over 5,000 years. Everyman follows his tracks, from Mexican devil masks to an exorcism in Surrey, from Milton's Paradise Lost to the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and shows how his shape and meaning change according to the culture - even the person - in which he finds himself.
On 17 June 1987, the American journalist Charles Glass was kidnapped by Shi'ite gunmen in Beirut. After 62 days he escaped, closing the book on an association with a country and a people lasting 15 years. He cannot go back. But in this film he offers a personal impression of the most memorable moments in those years. He takes us behind the news to the realities of violence, the endurance of the people, the best and worst of the place. He provides a picture of a world whose slow disintegration he witnessed until finally he became its victim.
Every autumn, pilgrims arrive in thousands at a building in Brooklyn, New York. Members of a worldwide movement known as the Lubavitch Chabad, they come to ask advice and blessing from their leader, the 'Rebbe', whom some believe could be the Messiah. The Lubavitch are Hassidic Jews who preserve traditions and rituals which go back hundreds of years. Yet they also thrive in the modern world, active in local politics and influential in the politics of Israel. This Everyman film provides an insight into an extraordinary movement and the reasons for its power.
Elaine and Michael Counsell 's 5-year-old son was killed by a drunken driver. Five members of Colin Caffell 's family were shot dead. Catherine Hill was held hostage, then mutilated by a hand grenade, in the Karachi hijack. Ruth Fuller 's 19-year-old son was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack. Can victims ever come to forgive the people who have devastated their lives? Jenni Murray talks to these five individuals. They each explain what they think about forgiveness and how they now feel towards the person responsible.
We have become the displaced - refugees in our own land. Almost six years of civil war in Sudan have devastated a generation: hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes. Many have died from hunger. Many have been murdered. Children have been stolen from their parents. Voices of Sorrow reveals the magnitude of the human tragedies caused by the conflict and explains why the north and south of Sudan are unable to live together in peace.
'I was standing on a street corner and a man walked up to me and asked if I was an American soldier. I said, "Yes, I am." Hesaid, "Hello, I'm the enemy: I was the Viet Cong. " ' That remarkable encounter took place on the streets of Hanoi during a tour of Vietnam by ten US combat veterans. More Vietnam veterans have committed suicide since the war than died during it. For 20 years, thousands have lived with the trauma of that war. The tour was a radical attempt to deal with the trauma, by taking veterans back to the country where it all began. This is the story of that journey.
'I think cancer is just an illness, I think tuberculosis is just an illness, I think AIDS is just an illness. But we know that certain illnesses become the vessels of fantasy and anxiety: they become metaphoric.' The arrival of AIDS has uncovered fears and prejudices which have been associated with plagues and epidemics throughout history. With so much dread surrounding it, how can people find their way to a rational assessment of the disease? In this richly-textured film, Susan Sontag, the distinguished American writer, joins with Jonathan Miller, Bishop Richard Holloway and others to explore these dark images and to look for a way out of them.
'If a bird can have a nest and a fox can have a den, then why can't the sen of man have a roof over his head?' In 1984, the American government allowed an abandoned building near Capitol Hill in Washington to be used as a shelter. Despite being nearly derelict, the building soon housed 800 homeless people. But a series of bureaucratic delays prevented the building being restored and led ultimately to an eviction notice. The four-year battle against the Government was to bring the plight of the homeless to national attention. The campaign was led by Mitch Snyder , a dedicated but awkward figure prepared to risk his life in the struggle.
This year in Tibet, new riots against Chinese rule led to many deaths and the imposition of martial law. Tourists were expelled, but brought back eyewitness accounts and dramatic new pictures. Tibetan refugees in India also tell their tragic stories of life in Tibet, 30 years after the great Tibetan uprising against the Chinese. Exiled in India, the former God-king ruler of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and 100,000 followers have rebuilt their monasteries and kept alive their ancient religion. Their government-in-exile patiently awaits a recall to Tibet. But will it ever come? Tibet, for all the power of its religion and nationalism, may already be the latest in a long line of small nations swallowed up by powerful neighbours.
'I pray for people in Ethiopia ... and I do have a best friend who's got eczema and it's irritating her and I pray it gets better.' Just like that 10-year-old, believers and unbelievers pray for extra power in times of difficulty. Each faith reveals its personality in the way requests are made. But perhaps God shouldn't intervene if our freedom matters. What's more, if help comes for some worthy cases, why not for others? Some find it helpful to think of prayer releasing what's in nature rather than calling in power from outside. In spite of the puzzles, asking comes naturally and people feel it helps.
On 17 June 1987, the American journalist Charles Glass was kidnapped by Shi'ite gunmen in Beirut. After 62 days he escaped, closing the book on an association with a country and a people lasting 15 years. He cannot go back. But in this film he offers a personal impression of the most memorable moments in those years. He takes us behind the news to the realities of violence, the endurance of the people, the best and worst of the place. He provides a picture of a world whose slow disintegration he witnessed until finally he became its victim. One of the best and most heart-rending documentaries I've ever seen.
"It's not raving maniacs who take other people's lives, it's people who are inadequate to the stresses of life and finally crumple in an awful, destructive way." Eight years ago, Graham would never have thought he was capable of killing anyone. He is still struggling to understand why he did. The popular belief is that a typical murderer is a violent maniac who will kill again if not locked away. In reality, three murderers out of four are husbands, wives, lovers or children who fail to cope with difficult events. In this programme, two men who have been tried for murder talk about the family pressures which led them to kill.
On 7 December 1988, Soviet Armenia suffered a devastating earthquake. It was a catastrophic end to a year of political protests there which had put Gorbachev's reforms to their severest test. Yet it is not just in the Soviet Union that the Armenians have made their mark. In the West they have tried to get official recognition for what they regard as their greatest tragedy: the events of 1915 when they claim the Turks tried to wipe out their people. It is a claim the Turks have always denied. This film follows the fortunes of a people whose grievances have become a political factor East and West, a people who refuse to be ignored.
Toby was born in Nottingham on 15 January 1987, a normal healthy non-identical twin. At three months he developed Reyes syndrome and suffered severe brain damage. His twin sister was unaffected. At 11 months, Toby's parents had to face the agonising fact that they were unable to care for him themselves. This decision brought relatives, foster parents, social services and a charitable home in Kent into Toby's life. Everyman looks at the dilemmas faced by everyone concerned in trying to decide what is best for Toby.
Twenty-two years ago this week, Israel defeated her Arab neighbours in the Six-Day-War and took control of the Gaza strip: 140 square miles of land, with a Palestinian population which is now 650,000. This was the beginning of Israeli occupation. Eighteen months ago this week, violence broke out on the streets of Gaza: the Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, was born. Everyman tells the story of the people who live and work under occupation: Palestinians and Israelis - the occupied and the occupiers. At the heart of this film is a committed Christian, Dr Swee Chai Ang, who, after six years of work in Lebanon, has come to work in Gaza's Ahli Arab hospital.
Samuel Oliner was the only one of his family to survive the Holocaust. A Polish peasant risked her life to save him. For the last seven years, Oliner has been collecting stories from people who rescued Jews in the Second World War. It is a project inspired by a personal debt of gratitude and a desire to recover the light of human decency from the blackness of Nazi-occupied Europe. In Rescuers Speaking, dramatised by Wilfred Harrison from Oliner's research, actors retell the true stories of some of those anonymous heroes.
While much of Eastern Europe is looking towards democratic reform, President Ceausescu's Romania is pointing in the opposite direction. Traditional village communities are being destroyed, food is severely rationed and women of childbearing age are required to have at least five children. Romanians believe the rumour that one in five people is an informer for the securitate, the secret police. Filmed secretly inside Romania with tourist cameras, and in Hungary with refugees who have escaped across the border, this special edition of Everyman reports on the victims of President Ceausescu's reign of terror, in particular the people of Transylvania who are struggling against the odds to preserve their cultural identity.
Summer 1940: Britain faces the Nazis alone. Amid fears of blanket bombing and probable invasion, plans are afoot for a mass evacuation of British schoolchildren to safety in the Dominions and the USA. Fifty years on, the good intentions stand against a political background of muddle and cynicism. Was Churchill right to scorn the plan as defeatist? Was it safe to send evacuees across a North Atlantic full of German U-boats? Were the children used as pawns to increase American sympathy for the British war effort? How changed would they be when they returned? In this Everyman special, the parents who sent children, foster families who offered their homes, and the 'young ambassadors' themselves tell their stories.
For 20 years, thousands have lived with the trauma of the Vietnam war. A tour of Vietnam by ten US combat veterans was a radical attempt to deal with the trauma by taking them back to where it all began.
Sally is a grandmother in her 50s. She has AIDS-related complex. There are 1,300 women in Britain who are known to be carrying the human immuno-deficiency virus, HIV. Up to ten times as many may be infected and still undiagnosed. Unlike Sally, many are in their 20s and 30s and they want children. But there's a 25 per cent chance that a positive mother will pass the virus on to her child. Is this a risk she's entitled to take? And what about the fact that she may not live to see her children grow up? Some of the women who have been caught in this tragic dilemma talk to Sarah Dunant about the choices they have made, and about what it means to be an HIV-positive woman.
Ever since the Supreme Court ruled 16 years ago in 'Roe v Wade' that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion in early pregnancy, pro-life groups have been campaigning to overturn the ruling. Now, as the Court reconsiders its decision, the pro-choice lobby is fighting back. Everyman dicusses this major political issue with Sarah Weddington , the lawyer in Roe v Wade.
This week, after 16 years of military rule, Chileans will elect a successor to General Pinochet. During those years hundreds 'disappeared' and thousands were tortured by the military. Should Chile, like some other Latin American countries, grant amnesties to the torturers, or punish them? Through the testimony of three people - a member of a military death squad, a woman tortured by the same squad, and the widow of a man they murdered - lain Guest explores the dilemma facing Chileans.
A series of brutal murders has recently paralysed a rebel sect of over 100,000 fundamentalist Mormons in the US who practise polygamy as a way of showing devotion to God. The murderers justify these killings by quoting the doctrine of 'blood atonement', which allows the spilling of blood to avenge sins. Everyman examines the effect these killings have had on the fundamentalist Mormon community, and interviews former sect members, including one woman who admits she carried out 'blood atonement'. Where is the line to be drawn between fundamentalism and fanaticism?
Franklin lives in a children's home in Germany. His parents live in Sri Lanka. He is just one of the thousands of child refugees who have been sent, alone and bewildered, to claim asylum in Europe. Everyman explores the fear that makes parents send their children thousands of miles away from home with little hope of seeing them again. It exposes the world of forgers and smugglers that they are forced to enter in order to get their children out of danger, and examines the prospects for the children as they adjust to their new life in Europe.
Should the Government allow state funding for Muslim schools, as it already does for Christian and Jewish schools? As the Education Secretary, John MacGregor , decides an issue which many see as a test of our commitment to a multi-faith society, Everyman reports from schools in Bradford and London, including a Church of England primary school where 95 per cent of the pupils are Muslim. Is Muslim pressure for separate schooling the start of educational apartheid, as some fear? Or do Muslim parents have the right - as Christian and Jewish parents do - to choose their own type of education within the state system?
This week, 150 years ago, Britain signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Maori chiefs, and the new colony of New Zealand was founded. In this anniversary year, many Maori people are angry. They feel the rights guaranteed them by the Treaty have been ignored, and that this is no time for celebration. To throw light on the current tensions, two young New Zealanders retrace their family stories. Charles Royal is a Maori, John McDonald is from a white settler family. Their findings reveal two very different views of history and of their land, and point to the difficulties ahead for this 'troubled paradise'.
Within two years of parents divorcing, about half the fathers involved lose contact with their children. Everyman provides a personal insight into that frightening statistic through the eyes of five men who have struggled with different experiences of keeping, or losing, the link with their children.
On 2 September 1989, 150lbs of dynamite exploded at the headquarters of El Espectador, one of the largest national daily newspapers in Colombia. The next day the paper was published as normal - with the defiant headline: 'Nothing Will Stop Us!' The bomb was the most recent act of terrorism against El Espectador. The newspaper's crime? It dared to speak out against Colombia's drug barons. Everyman spent two weeks following El Espectador 's journalists.
Anthony Lennon was bom in Kilburn, west London. His parents both come from Ireland and are both indisputably white. Yet Anthony now earns his living as a black actor, because ever since he was a child he has looked black. When his friends, who are mostly black, find out about his background, fierce debates invariably follow; about whether Anthony really can call himself black, and about what black skin means to those who are born black. Chilling Out reproduces just such a set of conversations - funny, challenging, sometimes angry conversations, rarely heard by white people in Britain.
David Jenkins is the Church of England's most controversial bishop. Before he was appointed Bishop of Durham, while walking on Holy Island, Northumberland, he saw a playing card lying face down. Before he picked it up he knew what it would be - the Joker. He remembers thinking, 'I bet God's playing a trick on me!' Tonight he reflects on the questions and criticisms that he has provoked and, in the light of the Easter story, on his personal beliefs. 'What it comes down to is that I simply believe in God. I believe that there is a presence who is basically infinitely worthwhile and deeply caring.'
Social worker Martin Ruddock talks about his feelings of guilt on hearing that Kimberley Carlile , a 4-year-old in his care, had been brutally tortured and murdered by her stepfather. Jenni Murray meets four people who have inadvertently caused tragedy. Through a misjudgment at work, a lapse of concentration, taking a chance or just plain bad luck, it could happen to any of us.
On 24 May 1989, French police arrived at the Priory of St Joseph's in Nice to arrest France's most wanted war criminal, Paul Touvier. The first Frenchman to be charged with crimes against humanity, Touvier now faces trial. Many were involved in his protection since the war: politicians, police, and above all the Church. Every man examines the extraordinary career of a man who has forced the French to confront a past many of them would rather forget.
Psychologist James Thompson believes that by expecting soldiers to do our dirty work, we put them in an impossible situation. He knows the effect it can have on professionals trained to kill. Some hate it, some become addicted, but every soldier is affected. How do squaddies in the front lines live with these conflicting moral standards? Three ex-soldiers in the British army talk about the impact of fighting and killing.
Hell stands for that aspect of reality which we can't cope with and can't master, and which is horrifying and frightening to us ... Rowan Williams From the second century to the 19th, terrible sadomasochistic images have haunted the Christian tradition, far beyond anything described in the New Testament. Something in the human psyche seems to be drawn to dark and vengeful images. This unusual film explores our preoccupation with the 'nether regions' and goes on to discover what has happened to hell in the 20th century.
Will the March Go On? Ethiopia could be the breadbasket of Africa, instead of the basket case! Ethiopian scientist Michael Buerk takes up the issues raised earlier in the evening by The March. Every month 5,000 Africans arrive by boat at the Sicilian port of Trapani, hoping to make a living in Europe. They are just part of the current migration from Africa caused by the desperate conditions back home. More than a million have come to Italy alone. Africans from nine different countries - grass-root voices and policy-makers alike - give their views on what can be done to alleviate conditions and develop the rich resources of their continent. They focus on the unequal relationship between Africa and Europe and challenge Europeans to do something about it.
Amid the furore over Salman Rushdie 's novel The Satanic Verses, an unusual experiment takes place. Eight people with opposing views are invited to share a remote house for four days. There are three devout Muslims, two 'liberal' Muslims, a Christian businessman, a female deacon in the Church of England and a bookseller who have to find ways to live together. Words are exchanged in anger, sorrow, love and understanding with some surprising results.
A fusion of drama and documentary written and performed by Nabil Shaban (star of last year's Royal Court Theatre production of Iranian Nights) with Tina Leslie. 'Why me? Was my soul especially wicked that I should incur a greater curse? Do I want a miracle?' A young disabled pilgrim to Lourdes confronts her inner torments about the 'miracle' which might make her 'whole' and thus 'good'. Her guide is a Victorian magic lanternist who has strayed into the 20th century to ask some uncomfortable questions about the nature of miracles, and about how the Christian church has treated disability.
How bad does someone have to be to deserve to die? In California, the members of a jury who convict a murderer have to make that decision. Casey Cohen is an investigator who works for the defence on such trials. A Life on Trial retraces one of Casey's most difficult cases: that of Richard Ford, Los Angeles policeman-turned-contract killer.
Detroit, 1982: a young Chinese auto-worker is beaten to death with a baseball bat outside a nightclub. A barroom brawl which got out of hand, or a racist killing born out of hatred for the Japanese car industry that seemed to-be squeezing the lifeblood out of Detroit? This film follows one family's quest to win justice for a dead son.
Going Home Pedro and Blanca are 9-year-old twins from Colombia. At the age of 6 months they were adopted by a couple from Norwich and came to live in England. Now the twins have returned to Colombia and are going in search of their roots.
How bad does someone have to be to deserve to die? In California, the members of a jury who convict a first-degree murderer have to make that decision. Casey Cohen is a private investigator who works for the defence on such trials. His brief is to prepare a picture of the accused to put before the jury, presenting a positive image using personal testimony of friends and relatives. A Life on Trial retraces one of his most difficult cases; that of Richard Ford , a former Los Angeles police officer turned contract killer. The programme features interviews with some of the people Cohen tracked down to testify in favour of Ford, the jurors who had to decide his fate, and Ford himself.
'Why me? Was my soul especially wicked that I should incur a greater curse? Should I wish for a cure? Do I want a miracle? Do I believe in them?' With these anguished questions, a young disabled pilgrim travelling to Lourdes confronts her inner torments about the 'miracle' which might make her 'whole' and thus 'good'. Her guide is a Victorian magic lanternist who has strayed into the 20th century to ask some uncomfortable questions about the nature of miracles and how the Christian church has treated disability.
'No great trauma' was the phrase used by the judge in the Ealing vicarage case to describe Jill Saward 's experience of rape, which at the time attracted enormous publicity. Few women report rape. Even fewer talk openly about their suffering. Jill is an exception. She has decided to break the silence in order to explain the long-term effects rape has on women.
For over a decade Edward Daly , the Bishop of Londonderry, has campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six, convinced they are innocent men. For Bishop Daly , that case is just part of a whole cycle of injustice, IRA as well as British, which has scarred his world. This film is a deeply personal record of that experience: the friends who have been killed, the bombs, the knee-cappings and the cover-ups.
How does the Muslim conscience face up to the agonising dilemma posed for Islam by Saddam Hussein 's invasion of Kuwait? On the one hand, such aggression by one Muslim country against another must be condemned; on the other, the intrusion of the forces of the west in Saudi Arabia, guardian of the Holy Places, must be resisted. Why is the Muslim world so divided? And why is it so often thrown into conflict with western values? Many Muslims yearn for the supremacy of 'umma, the universal community of all Muslims, but must their faith in Islam override their allegiance to the State?
'I've got a tune that will knock 'em, knock 'em flat', said Elgar, of the melody we know as Land of Hope and Glory. It is a song that brings a lump to the throat for millions when it is sung at the Proms and has become a second national anthem. In time of war it becomes a rallying cry. And yet for many it is aggressive and outdated and belongs to an imperial past that bears no relation to the Britain of today. Everyman dips a toe in to the current waters of patriotism by taking a fresh look at an old song through the eyes of five people in and around this year's Last Night of the Proms.
Ten years ago, four American churchwomen were raped and murdered by Salvadorean soldiers. Their deaths marked the start of a decade of persecution against the church in El Salvador. The carnage culminated in the killing of six Jesuit priests in November last year. Everyman tells the story of three men whose lives have been profoundly affected by these killings. Each of them - a Wall Street lawyer, a Salvadorean priest, and a social activist from New York's South Bronx - has reached an extraordinary conclusion: that hope can emerge from tragedy, that murder can be good news.
One evening more than 16 years ago, six men walked out of their front doors and have yet to return. They were arrested, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of 21 people in the 1974 bombing of two Birmingham pubs. This is the story of the wives and daughters of the Birmingham Six, the women who wait. They talk about the pain of lost relationships, the isolation and insecurity, the threats and the shattered expectations. Above all, they are driven by an absolute faith in the men's innocence and a determination to see their names cleared.
A year after the revolution which overthrew the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaus. escu, Everyman returns to the towns and villages of Transylvania. In some villages, peasants are recovering their sense of trust. In others, old conflicts are revived as the rich peasants reclaim their land from the collectives and the landless poor fear for the future. And in the beautiful village of Hadoc, villagers describe the murderous conflicts that have broken out between Romanians and Hungarian-speakers.
Sam Oliner has devoted his life to the study of why some people give while others walk on by. His research shows some surprising results. James Thompson looks at Oliner's work and meets two people who have made a choice: one to donate bone marrow to a stranger and the other to risk her life in order to save a family of social outcasts.
Fr Benedict Ramsden is a Russian Orthodox priest who lives with his wife Lilah and three of their eight children in a 17th-century priory in Devon. For the last 20 years they have shared their home with potentially violent young schizophrenics - giving them a chance of independence. Benedict and Lilah believe that mental patients should live alongside the rest of society. But strong and humane support is needed if they are to survive the trauma of being let out.
Everyman investigates the nature and level of prejudice against Jews - looking beyond the headline incidents of graveyard desecration to the everyday experience of British Jews. Contributors include taxi drivers, a television presenter, a teacher, some teenagers, a rabbi, a football club, a peer and a knight of the realm. What emerges is a very British form of prejudice - its very subtlety making it hard to prove and harder still to fight.
Aleida Hartstra , a doctor training to be a humanist counsellor, died of leukaemia at the age of 29. She said: 'When you are lucky enough to die surrounded by love, it's nothing to be afraid of.' Knowing her diagnosis allowed her, her family and friends to prepare for her death. This film, made in the Netherlands, is about their time together in the last two months of her life and reveals that death doesn't have to be heartbreaking, it can be uplifting, too.
Englishman Bruce Harris took on more than he bargained for when he accepted the job of boss at a refuge for street children in Guatemala City. He has now become the not so local hero. This film documents his investigations into violent acts, including murder, against Guatemala's street children by the national police. His pursuit of justice on behalf of these children is legendary but has placed him in a personally dangerous position: 'A lot of people say to me; "You are stupid! Don't you know where you are? Don't you know what you are up against?" - I am not looking for heroes or martyrs but nobody is going to kill these kids - nobody.'
'It is extreme, ... it is inadequate, and ... it will create more problems than it solves'. This was the verdict, in 1968, of one eminent Roman Catholic on the publication of the Pope's encyclical barring Catholics from using artificial birth control. Many left the Church. Many ignored the official teaching and decided that it was a matter between themselves and God. Four years ago, the Vatican went on to ban in-vitro fertilisation. So is the Church 'suffering from celibate psychosis on anything that has to do with sex'? Or is it proclaiming 'the truth of the law of God'?
'That's basically what the whole population of Burma is - hostages,' says a Burmese man in tonight's programme. For the people of Burma (recently renamed Myanmar), the last few years have been gruelling. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the crackdown which followed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. Hopes were raised by free elections last year, only to be dashed, as the military dictatorship imprisoned the elected leaders and continued its decades-long repression and abuse of human rights. Everyman documents those abuses through the graphic testimony of refugees.
Wealthy South African Charles Ochse murdered his wife and five children before killing himself. Relatives say it was a loving family, now united in heaven. This film asks why the incidence of family killings among Afrikaners is one of the highest in the world.
Mother-of-five Penny Butterell risked everything, including her life, when she joined the Gulf Peace Camp. Everyman looks at the effects of her stand for peace.
MPW The Archbishop and NEW the Psychiatrist As he prepares for his enthronement on Friday as the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey examines his inner beliefs and vision for the church in a revealing interview with Irish psychiatrist Anthony Clare. Producer Angela Tilby Editor Jane Drabble
Extraordinary People. It's 30 years since the world's greatest prescription drug disaster. Thalidomide was 'safe for pregnant women', yet 10,000 babies were born deformed. In Canada the drug stayed on the shelves for three months after being banned in Europe. This Emmy award-winning film follows three Canadians fighting for government compensation.
In January, a white man stabbed the 23-stone Pentecostal minister known as 'Big Al'. The attempt once again focused attention on New York's most flamboyant and controversial black civil rights leader.
Calabria, in southern Italy, has a higher death rate than New York, with 82 Mafia killings in the first three months of this year. The Catholic Church, the other great power in the region, has traditionally remained silent about the Mafia. Now a few individuals, priests and lay people, are speaking out, and so living under the threat of death.
One night in January this year, Soviet troops stormed the Lithuanian television transmitter tower. Disbelieving nationalists stood their ground, shouting 'Fascists! Fascists!' Then the shooting began. Fourteen unarmed civilians were killed, more than 700 injured. Harrowing eyewitness accounts include interviews with the man who carried the body of Loreta, a 23-year-old girl crushed to death by Soviet tanks, and with Liucija, who shared an ambulance with the dying woman, having sustained severe head wounds herself from being rifle-butted. How do they feel about independence now?
It was clear that change had come to Albania when they opened the doors of Burrel - the country's most infamous jail. The prisoners who emerged are witnesses to the scale of inhumanity of the past 40 years in Europe's last Communist redoubt.
The Shi'a uprising against Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the Gulf War has fallen foul not only of American fears of an Iran-style Islamic republic in Iraq, but of Arab solidarity with the defeated dictator. The Shi'a rebellion was part of a democratic coalition of opposition, including the Kurds. Although ignored by the west, it is seen by Arabs and Sunni fundamentalists as a US-inspired conspiracy against Islam and the Arab world. Everyman asks whether conflicting loyalties may yet bolster Saddam Hussein.
As a teenager John Hull stood in front of the mirror and said goodbye to his right shoulder. Ten years ago he disappeared altogether. After fighting for nearly 30 years against the dark discs that had been gradually gathering across his eyes he went blind and 'began to take up residence in another world'.
At the Sudanese embassy they hand out raffle tickets to aid workers applying for visas. Some of the numbers come good, others never do. Riding on ticket number 494 is the fate of Milk-Aid - a campaign organised by British farmers to bring help to tens of thousands of Sudanese men, women and children. From a farmyard in Dorset to the desert towns of northern Sudan, Everyman follows the fortunes of Milk-Aid, as good intentions come face to face with the politics of famine.
An Everyman special. The Battle of the Somme began on 1 July 1916. On that day, 21,000 men were killed. By the battle's end, that number had risen to one-and-a-quarter million. Those who survived can never forget. They are now in their 90s. Some still have nightmares, others are haunted by guilt. This film explores the legacy of pain and anguish dealt by a battle fought exactly 75 years ago.
Return of the series examining the issues which shape life today. The story of a 50-year-old love affair between the inhabitants of Tanna in the South Pacific Vanuatu islands and America. In 1939 Jon Frum, a mysterious man with a walking stick that is said to have 'shone', appeared on one of the island's beaches announcing he was from America and that the Americans would come to the island's aid. Three years later 300,000 Americans did suddenly arrive to set up their largest base in the Pacific. The generosity and openness of the troops overwhelmed the islanders and the 'American Dream' became a formal religion.
A drug-dealer turned minister, a yuppie turned disciple and a jilted wife converted by a lookalike of her husband's lover are just three of the 5,000 members of the 'saved' at Kensington Temple, a Pentecostal church. This programme looks at the world through the eyes of some new disciples. Neither the embarrassment of street preaching nor a 'just-say-no' sexual morality dampen the spirits of these eager Christians.
Anna Grace runs the Spafford clinic in the Muslim quarter of Old Jerusalem which treats Palestinian children whose lives have been severely affected by the Intifada. Everyone, whether starving, sick or injured is welcome. No one is turned away. But Anna Grace is 86 years old and Mercy Corps, the American charity who want to take it over, have very different ideas for its future.
How far should we go to protect the health of unborn children? A growing number of people in the USA are now advocating stern measures against mothers-to-be who harm their babies through drugs and alcohol. Jenni Murray reports on a project in Charleston, South Carolina where pregnant women who continue to abuse drugs are jailed.
For 13 years as a young priest, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston lived in the townships around Johannesburg in South Africa, ministering to the Africans and fighting for their rights. Since he left 35 years ago he has been a tireless campaigner against apartheid. This summer he finally returned to the country, invited by the African National Congress to open its conference in Durban. He received a heartwarming welcome, met many old friends and investigated at first hand conditions of today.
At the Battle of the Somme in 1916 one-and-a-quarter million men were killed. Those who survived can never forget. They are now in their 90s. Some still have nightmares, others are haunted by guilt. This film explores the legacy of pain and anguish dealt by a battle fought 75 years ago.
A week in the life of the Rev Alfred Sharpton , New York's most flamboyant black civil rights leader. Is he a help or a hindrance to the cause?
In her time with the Metropolitan Police, Detective Inspector Carol Bristow has seen many women who have been raped, battered and murdered and has dealt with countless others who have been attacked just because they are women. It seems that some men at least are misogynists. Everyman unravels a cultural detective story to discover the background to this hatred of women. Clues come from surprising quarters: the Church, the National Gallery, a local newsagent. DI Bristow investigates the web of images and attitudes which lie deep in the minds of even the newest of new men.
After 70 years of the suppression of Christian faith in Russia, people are turning to a bizarre blend of the traditional and the trendy. The Russian Orthodox Church vies with astrology and New Age teaching for the attention of the devout, the disillusioned and the desperate. In Shelkovo, a small community outside Moscow, Everyman asks why faith is in fashion.
Jack Preger runs a surgery in Calcutta and to many he is a living example of sainthood. But he considers himself a failure; his own life has left a trail of disaster and pain. Everyman explores the consequences and casualties of caring too much.
Two young lovers arrange to meet for a weekend rendezvous. But this is war-torn Yugoslavia; he is a Serb, she is a Croat, and the war has separated them for many months. Jasmina lives in the besieged front-line city of Osijek, sheltering in the cellars from the constant bombardments. Nikola is in Belgrade, facing assault on the Croatian cities. Everyman cameras followed both lovers on their risky journeys to neutral territory in Bosnia. Here, for Jasmina and Nikola, a complex war of national and religious rivalry becomes a simple question: can human love survive it?
Angus MacQueen has returned as Priest of Bornish, a remote parish in the Hebridean island of his boyhood, South Uist, lying west of the Scottish mainland. The power of the elements still shapes the day-today living of the islanders, and Celtic beliefs in the supernatural lie easily with devout Catholicism. Absorbed in his wild environment, MacQueen is determined to pass on the riches of the Gaelic culture, its language, songs and stories, to a younger generation.
Choenzey is a 47-year-old Tibetan monk living in a monastery in southern India. His spiritual master, Khensur Rinpoche , has been dead for four years. According to Tibetan belief, he will soon be reincarnated. It is Choenzey's responsibility to find the reincarnation and look after him. Everyman follows Choenzey's search for - and eventual discovery of - an impish 4-year-old who is recognised by the Dalai Lama to be the reincarnation. The boy sits through his first ritual ceremony with grave dignity. Soon a moving relationship develops between the monk and the boy as Choenzey has to cope with new responsibilities as a "father".
From liberated secret security files, dissident Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya uncovers a systematic campaign to exterminate hundreds of thousands of Kurds in southern Iraq.
A network of people in Leeds offer simple hospitality to young people who have nowhere to live. It's a last resort when society is unable to provide anything more, but it's not only the young people who benefit. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
In 1990, a retired music teacher from Hungerford began a two-month relationship with a man who had spent 13 years imprisoned next door to the electric chair in Florida. Mary Grayson wrote to Ray Clark after reading a newspaper article about Lifelines, an organisation which puts death-row prisoners in touch with people in the outside world. This film tells of their extraordinary friendship.
The Rt Rev David Hope became Bishop of London in September. In his first few months he has to tackle many of the key issues that threaten to split the Church of England. The Church still cannot decide whether to ordain women priests. This week, the General Synod will be discussing how homosexual clergy should behave. And the decade of evangelism has offended other religions. Faced with these issues, can the Church survive united?
In the old days they wore a blouse inside their swimsuits and a habit on top. They dressed up as brides and had their heads shaved. They weren't allowed to go to their mother's funeral. Using unique archive material shot by the nuns themselves as a recruitment film for the order, members and ex-members of one community reflect on the way things used to be and how they've changed.
Geel, in Belgium, is unique in psychiatric history. Since medieval times pilgrims have sought their cure at the shrine of St Dymphna, patron saint of madness. Over the years the townspeople opened their doors to the mentally ill as "boarders" - 600 years later this remarkable system of family foster care still exists. Today over 800 mentally ill people live freely in this community.
There are half a million squatters in Davao City in the southern Philippines. For six weeks last year, film-maker John Goodyer recorded their struggles to lead a normal life below the poverty line. Rosa has turned half her house into a piggery; Loma fears her brother has died in a typhoon; while Bing Bing and Bobby gamble away their meagre earnings.
The Jewish Gush Emunim settlers in Palestinian territory on the West Bank are the cause of deteriorating relations between Israel, the United States and the rest of the world. America is threatening to cut off loans if the settlements continue. This film penetrates the rhetoric of the Gush Emunim and explores the religious root of their claims. They argue that God commands them to occupy Biblical lands and that the world's salvation depends on it.
Protestant fundamentalists in the United States are waging war against America's moral decline. At Bob Jones University, students learn to defend, proclaim and obey the word of God. According to Bob Jones III, inter-racial dating is banned, women learn to submit to men, and any kind of pre-marital sexual contact is grounds for expulsion.
An examination of the lives and hopes of activist Muslims in Egypt, where a new Islamic identity is being forged.
Saints are made in Rome - but the question of saintliness, and how it is defined by the Vatican, has always been controversial. Today, at St Peter's, the Pope's contentious beatification of Monsignor Josemaria Escriva, the founder of the Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, upholds that tradition. Britain and Ireland have their own contenders for the sainthood, like Cardinal Newman and Matt Talbot, a Dublin alcoholic who took the pledge. But why do some candidates get there faster than others and how is sanctity decided?
Why are half a million young people in Britain determined to risk the dangers of the drug Ecstasy? The cult drug first made the headlines in 1988 when thousands of young people started taking it at "raves" in disused warehouses and old aerodromes. Its notoriety spread when several young people mysteriously died while using it. Yet experts know little about the drug, and even less about the young people who take it.
On the eve of the Earth Summit in Brazil, a look at the contrasting prospects for children in Britain and the developing world. The film explores what the future holds for one young girl from Bangladesh, as experts predict that her country's population will have doubled by the year 2025, a growth that resources will be unable to sustain.
In the concentration camp of Auschwitz, Dr Josef Mengele performed experiments on more than 3,000 twin children. Only 200 survived. Tonight's Everyman focuses on the lives of five of them. Peter Greenfeld still has nightmares every time he visits a hospital. He is convinced that his twin sister Miriam survived, and he has spent the past 25 years searching for her. Other survivors, like Vera Kriegal , have broken all contact with their twin because of memories too painful to bear.
People with profound learning disabilities are difficult to get to know. Often without language, speech or a recognisable sense of self, they sometimes present a heartbreaking challenge to those who care for them. Phoebe Caldwell has pioneered new ways of getting close to these people, and her skills are much in demand as they help them take their place in the community. This moving and sometimes disturbing film shows Phoebe at work, and raises uncomfortable questions about the value we put on personal growth and freedom for those whose abilities are so severely limited.
When Madeline Manning-Mims won her gold medal at the 1968 Mexican Olympics, she believed she was running in praise of the Lord. Next month, as an Olympic chaplain, she will be telling America's athletes that they have God on their side. She is part of the growing connection between Christianity and sport in the United States. Forty per cent of professional athletes claim to be believers, but there are those who question that faith and accuse them of merely praying to win.
Explorations of the I faith and beliefs of people in ordinary and extraordinary circumstances Livingforjason. Wendy Hayhoe is convinced of the purpose of her son Jason's life, although, at 41/2 years old, he is dying. A perfectly normal, healthy baby until he was 8 months, Jason then began to suffer a series of fits. He was eventually diagnosed as having Alpers disease, a degenerative condition affecting the brain. Supported by the staff at a children's hospice in Cambridge, Wendy and her husband Martin are preparing to face the inevitable. But this is not a film about dying. It is about the extraordinary strength, courage and unconditional love two parents give as they come to terms with their son's impending death.
The Hutterites, one of America's fastest-growing Christian sects, have rigidly maintained their traditions, dress and language for over 400 years. Originally immigrants from Central Europe, they now live in 300 communities in the US and Canada, with families that marry and reproduce among themselves - closed groups of people who are religious cousins to the Amish. But recently they have been rocked by a wave of desertions. Tonight's film follows the crisis at the Flat Willow colony in Montana, where two-thirds of the Hutterite community have become born-again Christians. Families are divided and the future is bleak as a religious dispute looks set to destroy the Hutterite way of life forever.
There are 40,000 Jews in Germany but with a disturbing increase in anti-Semitism, a low birth rate and high emigration to Israel and America, many predict a future Germany without Jews. Everyman traces the impressions of Jews, young and old, living in post-Holocaust Germany today.
When eight Oxfam volunteers went on a tour of Oxfam-supported projects in north-west India to find out how the money they raised in the UK was being spent, they found themselves questioning their western view of charity. As Oxfam celebrates its 50th anniversary, Everyman examines what direction charity should take. Must India imitate the west to succeed? Or should the west respect a country's own solutions? Producers Peter Armstrongand Anuradha Vittachi
On 16 September 1982 a force of Christian Lebanese militiamen entered two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and killed approximately 2,000 Palestinians, while their allies, the Israelis, surrounded the camps. Did the Israelis see the slaughter, and if so, did any of them try to prevent it?
Two Somali women, long resident in Liverpool, return to their homeland in the war-torn north of Somalia. Amina is searching for the mother she last saw 20 years ago; Khadege is returning to the place where she spent her early teenage years. They find a land changed beyond recognition.
Two church ministers hold sway in Boipatong, South Africa. One preaches love, the other war. In the last year, violence has torn apart their once quiet community and South Africa has see-sawed between peace and civil war. Is it time for the last battle with the forces of apartheid or is it simply time to forgive?
At the Celtic New Year, which survives as Hallowe'en, and was adopted by the Church as All Souls', Everyman explores the common British inheritance and the ways in which the deep tribal roots of these islands are still discernible today.
This week the General Synod of the Church of England debates whether women should be ordained to the priesthood. Everyman explores the vital role women played in the early Christian church.
Every five minutes, someone in Britain tries to commit suicide but survives. When Beth was 18, she took an overdose and slit her wrists. Her mother managed to get Beth to hospital in time to save her life. This programme explores the complex reactions of the family, and how they finally came to understand each other.
Karl is only 7 years old but he's been involved in stealing cars, solvent abuse and vandalism, despite efforts to keep him and the other children on his tough Newcastle upon Tyne estate out of trouble. Everyman follows him and his mother as he starts at a special school to find out whether he is the product of his environment or whether his problems are more deep-seated.
An exploration of the relationship between father and son through the stories of three men whose fathers were not there for them - either physically or emotionally. They talk with affection and understanding about the influence their father, present or absent, has had in their lives. It is not a film about blame but acceptance - suggesting that perhaps we ask the impossible of our parents in wanting them to give us everything we need.
The haunting music of Evensong has the power to move believers and non-believers alike. Dame Betty Ridley is 84, and she has been going to Evensong since she was a child. This elegiac film weaves Stanford's Magnificat and Howells's Nunc Dimittis with reminiscences and reflections on her faith.
An intimate portrait of some of the 900 miners and their families of the South Yorkshire village of Grimethorpe. On 13 October this year - "Black Tuesday" - it was announced that the colliery would have 90 days in which its fate would be decided. Three weeks later coal production stopped. Shot above and below ground during the run-up to probable closure, this film shows that, for many, loss of work will mean a loss of self-esteem in a community that's losing its reason for existence.
In one corner of Gloucestershire a number of people are preparing for Christmas. An artist is at work on a Christmas card, a group of people gather in silence in a converted cow shed, a Meals on Wheels Christmas dinner is delivered, and a community of young adults with special needs rehearse a nativity play. Each is struggling to find relevance and meaning in the midwinter festival.
Two British women, Sally Croft and Susan Hagan , are facing extradition to America on murder conspiracy charges as the result of their devotion to the controversial guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. They were key figures in the Bhagwan's inner circle in when the cult set up a new religious retreat in Oregon, despite opposition from the local authorities. Guns were bought, local people poisoned and their leader escaped in a private plane. Everyman examines how they became involved in this conflict.
For the first time, the Samaritans have allowed filming of a branch at work and this powerful documentary follows one night in their busy Birmingham office. Each year the organisation deals with two-and-a-half million calls from people feeling desperate or suicidal, and yet, until now, their workings have been secretive, the volunteers not free to talk about their work.
Foreign Correspondent of the Year, Ed Vulliamy of The Guardian, first broke the story of the Serbian detention camps that shocked the world. In this bitter, elegiac film he travels back to the Bosnian town of Travnik to honour a way of life almost destroyed by "brutish nationalism" and the world's inertia. Before the end, he wants Bosnia's last testament to be heard.
For the first time the 16 survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash, who managed to live for three months by eating the bodies of their dead friends, have agreed to participate in a documentary. They are still close friends, living within half a mile of each other in Montevideo, and this compelling and sometimes disquieting film shows how for 20 years they have been unable to escape the consequences of their decision. They live beside the families of those who died, and whose bodies saved them, but they have never talked to them about the human taboo they broke and the relatives interviewed in the film continue to grieve their loss.
Are the British anti-German? Do we talk too much about the war? Everyman takes a wry look at the experience of people with a foot in each camp; Germans living in Britain, a British ex-soldier born in Germany and a British Jew who lived there. As we approach the 50th anniversary of many of the victories that led to the defeat of Nazism, this sometimes ironic and challenging film asks uncomfortable questions about attitudes to one of our European Community partners.
The pre-meditated murder of a young British Unicef worker in Somalia earlier this year shocked the world. Four months on, the precise motives for Sean Devereux 's death still remain unclear. But what is certain is that children all over Africa have lost a remarkable and dedicated friend. Everyman celebrates the commitment shown by "Mr Sean " during his brief life, from his time as a 24-year-old mission teacher in Liberia until he became an assassin's target in Somalia four years later.
Since the tragic death in Liverpool of toddler Jamie Bulger , much has been said and written about the morality of the nation's youth. But one voice has remained unheard - that of the children themselves. Now Everyman talks to young people about their own values. Sharon wants to clear the drug addicts out of Liverpool and her ambition is to be a zoologist or a hairdresser. Nirena wants to improve school dinners and stop racism. Dave wants to avoid having his kneecaps broken by local drug dealers. Using a study of 15,000 teenagers, the programme reveals their hopes for the future and their fears of what may prevent them making the distinction between what is right and wrong.
The civil war in Yugoslavia has horrified the outside world, yet the causes of such hatred seem unfathomable. As the war threatens to spill over more Balkan borders, Everyman travels to one of the next potential flashpoints, Kosovo in the Serbian heartland, and meets two families - one Orthodox Serb, one Albanian Muslim. On opposite sides, the families have never met. but they are locked in conflict, sharing claims to the land on which they live.
Father Samuel Penney sexually abused children in parishes within the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham for 25 years. He was arrested in July 1992 and convicted this March after three families gave evidence in his prosecution. Penney pleaded guilty to ten charges of indecent assault against boys and girls aged between 8 and 14. Everyman investigates why it took the Church so long to recognise Penney was a paedophile. In this film, the families speak out for the first time about the abuse they suffered. They say several officials within the Archdiocese of Birmingham knew of Penney's activities years before his prosecution. One parent says: "You never want to hear the word 'yes' when you ask your child about abuse." Last in the series.
Over the centuries people who have been to the brink of death have reported strange experiences after they had apparently lost consciousness. Recent medical advances in revival techniques have led to a great increase in people having these near death experiences. Everyman meets three people who have had these sensations and two experts, a psychologist and a theologist, whose views of the meaning of near death experiences are worlds apart.
When Dublin housewife Susan McHugh heard that an IRA bomb had killed 3-year-old Jonathan Ball in Warrington she expressed what was in the hearts of many: "enough is enough". Four days later she launched Peace 93. This film tells the story of her journey of learning, from her first emotional outcry to confrontational meetings with Republicans and Loyalists. But can peace movements influence those who have chosen violence?
Since her draughty caravan trailer was blown away in a gale, Irene Gibson has had to move from under the shadow of Ireland's holy mountain, Croagh Patrick. Irene is a hermit. Now she lives in a cottage, but plans tobuildaseriesofcellsfor fellow hermits. It is an extraordinary plan for the late 20th century, a life of frugality, solitude and prayer, of sharing "the loneliness of Christ" in a remote corner of County Mayo. Six years ago, as Sister Irene , she left the Benedictine monastery where she was a nun. She says, "You can't survive in solitude if you're running away from people, because solitude is communion.... people are with you in prayer and in your heart."
Dot Burrows is the down-to-earth warden of a hostel for young male offenders. Her aim is to help them find a way of going straight. This difficult job is made more dangerous by the threats and intimidation that the "Top Men" within the hostel direct at the more vulnerable residents, known as "Joeys". Somehow, Dot has to deal with this often violent conflict, and this documentary, filmed over two months at the hostel, shows how her faith in human nature is tested to the full.
Contemporary culture bombards us with images of erotic athleticism. Celibacy, we are led to believe, belongs to certain strict religious orders - but does it? Tonight Everyman examines the role celibacy plays in an increasing number of lives.
Imagine befriending a stranger who has Aids. This is what a "buddy" does. Why do they undertake the commitment involved in being a buddy? What does a person with Aids want from them? Filmed over six months, the programme follows the lives of four buddies and the people they have befriended.
Disputes between neighbours are on the increase. They often end in violence.... and in a court of law. Tonight's programme looks at an organisation called Bristol Mediation, a voluntary group which aims to resolve disputes without resort to conflict or the law. Inspired by Quakerism, mediators hope to bring the parties together to talk. But can they succeed where emotions are running high?
Why do young women, and sometimes men, become obsessed by the fear of putting on weight? With past and present patients, a specialist in eating disorders explores the painful struggle of those for whom fat is the ultimate enemy.
Since the late 80s there have been disturbing allegations from several Third World countries that children are killed and their organs used for transplants. This film brings the first evidence that a vicious black market in organs is indeed developing.
In the first of an Everyman series of four modern pilgrimages, Alexander Frater journeys through Nepal to Bodh Gaya in northern India, where Buddha gained enlightenment. On the way he watches Keanu Reeves on location in Bertolucci's latest epic Little Buddha, meets a 2-year-old reincarnated monk, gets caught up in the curfew following the destruction of the Ayodhya temple and enters a world tourists rarely glimpse. Archaeological digs in 19th-century India uncovered evidence of the life of Prince Siddhartha who, as Buddha, became the inspiration for a worldwide spiritual awareness. The discoveries revealed episodes in his life and became shrines: Frater retraces the trail from high up in the Himalayas to the plains of the Ganges.
In the second of an Everyman series of four modern pilgrimages, Nicholas Shakespeare goes to the Andes in Peru, where the beliefs of imported Christianity blend with the rituals of Inca religion. Each year, to commemorate a miracle in which Christ appeared to a boy herding alpacas, thousands of people dance and sing their way to Q'olloritti, a mountain 16,000 feet above sea level that stands in the shadow of a glacier. Numb from the music, local beer and the fatigue of three days and nights without rest, Shakespeare watches the secret ceremonies and ritual battles.
In the third of an Everyman series of four modern pilgrimages, writer David Lodge follows the ancient route of St James to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. During the 1,000-mile trek he meets some of the 30,000 people who attempt the mammoth journey every year, and encounters a dazzling mixture of the sacred and profane, including the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
In the last of this special Everyman series, Emma Freud goes on a trek across the Arabian deserts in search of frankincense - one of the gifts of the Three Wise Men. She travels the route taken 2,000 years ago when the incense, then as valuable as gold, was carried to temples in the Mediterranean. The journey takes her from the wildness of the frankincense groves in Oman to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. She uncovers an ancient and mysterious world of lost cities, strange customs and passionate beliefs.
Last year Magdalena Babicka delighted the audience at the Miss Czech-Slovak beauty contest by stating that she wanted to cleanse her city of all its brown-skinned inhabitants. Do her comments suggest that the gypsies of eastern Europe are becoming nationalism's latest scapegoats?
To many children, experience of family life has meant only fear, tragedy or violence. This special edition of Everyman explores what the concept of "family" means to children who have never known one. Adoption these days does not only Involve babies. The film looks at the lives of three young boys, aged from 9 to 11, who are waiting to be adopted. They are difficult cases, as yet unplaced by overworked local authorities, who are now in the hands of a specialist agency. Can a family answer their needs?
How does a 21-year-old American come to terms with being regarded as a messiah? Telo Rinpoche, aka Eddie Ombadykow , was brought up in a Tibetan monastery and recognised by the Dalai Lama as a high reincarnate lama. Now back in his homeland, Kalmykia in Russia, the young Buddhist monk struggles to accept his unusual destiny.
Recovering from illness, Mavis Pittilla had her first glimpse of the spirit world. Now this former member of the Church of England has introduced her faith in spiritualism to people devastated by grief. Like Rose and David Foster , whose son died in a car crash, and who insist that receiving "proof" of his life after death has helped them deal with their loss. But opponents of spiritualism argue it can stop the natural grieving process.
As many Anglicans consider following the Duchess of Kent and John Gummer over to Rome, Everyman explores the state of Catholicism in Britain today. How much does the Pope really have to do with the beliefs and practices of ordinary Catholics? Is there such a thing as a "Catholic identity"? And what is the church's relationship with other denominations? Vin and Dorothy Jones from Birkenhead are "model Catholics": they have eight children and entertain their priest to Sunday lunch. Father Edward Black objects to the Second Vatican Council and regards the Pope as a heretic, while aristocrat Leanda de Lisle believes she is in a liberal church. These and other Catholics attest to a broad church embracing everything from dogma to radicalism.
Eighteen years ago Sarah Boston gave birth to a son, Will. He had Down's syndrome and died while still a baby. Medical tests now widely available give women the option to terminate Down's pregnancies, so society could virtually screen out Down's syndrome. In the year that Will would have come of age, Sarah celebrates his birthday with an appreciation of the contribution that Down's people make to our humanity. This is an intensely personal film in which Sarah still feels Will's absence from her life, and questions the set of values we have when we make choices about genetic screening. Director Nikki Stockley Editor John Blake
A Holy Land without a living Christian population? The rapidly increasing emigration of Christian Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories to the United States, Canada and Australia has led church leaders to appeal to western consulates to stop issuing emigration visas. This appeal has failed and the dwindling number is felt very strongly in the Holy City of Jerusalem where the Christian community is down to a quarter of what it was 50 years ago. Against the backdrop of the recent massacre at Hebron, reporter Charles Glass investigates the reasons behind this exodus and the difficulties faced by the Christians who remain.
Abortion is illegal in Ireland. As a result, at least 100 Irish women travel to England each week to terminate their pregnancies. Condemned by Church, state and sometimes their families, the women face immense practical and emotional difficulties. Tonight's programme charts the experiences of four women who had to overcome an information ban, a hostile medical establishment, economic hardship, and the trauma of doing something they had been taught from childhood was a sin.
Western society may be turning away from organised religion, but conversions to Islam in this country are increasing at a remarkable rate. The rules of the faith are unchanged since they were formulated 1,400 years ago: followers must wash and pray five times a day, fast for four weeks every year, give two-and-a-half per cent of their income to charity, and abstain from smoking, drinking and extra-marital sex. Women are expected to cover their hair and bodily shape. To renounce the faith is punishable by death. This film examines the appeal of Islam through the eyes of two potential converts. Both are parents with young children. One is frustrated by a society that "promises freedom and prosperity but delivers racism and poverty". The other explains: "Islam offers clear guidelines, values, to bring up your kids. In Britain today no kid is safe - kids are going round murdering other children."
Eighty-five per cent of British people get married at some point in their lives. Half of these marriages fail and yet many people remarry - some of them more than once. For Better.... is the first of a two-part documentary examining matrimony in Britain today. Eight people who have each tied the knot at least four times describe why they felt compelled to repeat the experience so many times. For some the reasons are religious or moral, for others they are romantic or sexual. Among those contributing are 42-year-old Patricia, who has already wed five times yet is still searching for the ideal husband, and 48-year-old Tony who is divorcing for the fourth and, he says, final time. "Marriage no longer means what it used to mean," he confesses. Next week's programme, entitled.... for Worse, finds out how people feel about repeated marital breakdown.
A second marriage, Dr Johnson once observed, is the triumph of hope over experience. In ... for Worse the second of two documentaries about matrimony in Britain, six people who have each been married at least four times talk about their experience of divorce and repeated marital failures. The programme opens at one couple's divorce party, but not all the splits were so amicable and some of them resulted from physical abuse. Among those sharing their views is Annabel, a Catholic who is about to marry for the fifth time and yet still believes it will be for ever, and four-times-divorced Tony who thinks it is the exclusivity of a marriage contract that results in its failure.
"I wasn't the person thought I was," said Jon Bradley when,aged 28,he finally found his birth parents. Jon had been adopted by a Jewish couple and brought up in the Jewish faith, although his birth mother was an unmarried English Catholic and his father was a Kuwaiti Muslim. Now working with an organisation that attempts to break down the barriers between Jews and Arabs, Jon has come to identify strongly with the current situation in Israel and the occupied territories. In the wake of the Hebron massacre, he travels to Israel to meet both Israelis and Palestinians who are fascinated by his story. Jon 's Journey retraces each step of his discovery and explores the revelations which continue to affect his sense of identity and belonging.
When Mike and Gill West-Eacott discovered that their daughter Alison was caught up in a religious cult, they feared she would be lost to them for ever. The Church of Christ is one of the fastest growing cults in the world and is alleged to use techniques of mind control to keep its members in its power. Eventually, the West-Eacotts were put in contact with a "cult-breaker" - a counsellor who specialises in persuading cult followers to return to normal life. Using hidden cameras, Everyman follows the attempt to get Alison to leave the Church of Christ and examines the techniques used by both cult and breaker.
The seal trade enabled the Inuit people, the Eskimos, to hold on to their traditions. But pressure from the anti-fur trade lobby to stop the killing led to an international boycott supported by the Church of England but not the Bishop of the Arctic, Christopher Williams. He believes his own colleagues are helping to destroy a way of life. This programme profiles the lives of the Inuit and shows how the Bishop's personal beliefs have been transformed since he has been living with them.
After 25 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, why does religion remain part of the problem, offering no prospect of an end to the violence? Colin Morris cross-examines clergy on both sides of the divide and asks whether far from offering a way out of the violence and hatred, the churches have themselves been sucked into the sectarian power struggle. Producer Roger Childs
An apple a day might keep the doctor away but many of the inhabitants of Wenatchee in America prefer a Prozac a day to keep them happy and healthy. This documentary takes a look at the most prescribed anti-depressant drug in America by visiting Wenatchee - or "Happy Valley, Prozac Capital of the World" as it is known. Wenatchee psychologist Dr Jim Goodwin prescribes Prozac for all his clients because he believes everyone is depressed, they just don't realise it. He argues that Prozac is "probably less toxic than salt" - he even takes it himself. Not surprisingly he has his critics. Psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin puts forward his theory that suffering is a necessary fact of life, while members of the Prozac Survivors Support Group give some harrowing accounts of how their lives have been destroyed by the drug.
Thirty years ago, when there was no access to the Family Planning Association without a wedding ring, Lady Brook founded the Brook Advisory Centre to give contraceptive advice to unmarried women. How has the moral climate in Britain changed? The Ostrich Position reveals that when it comes to sex, we still prefer to keep our heads in the sand.
This is the International Year of the Family and yet the media is full of stories about family breakdown and the social problems it causes. In this documentary, the Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks examines whether the shift away from a traditional family unit is a threat to society. If the family is broken, he asks, can we mend it? Among those he talks to are a single parent, who believes her children cannot miss the fathers they have never known, and a young offender who says he would not wish his fatherless background on any child. He also talks to the experts, who agree there is a problem but have different solutions - some are sympathetic, others take a tough line.
Rumours about the failing health of Pope John Paul have prompted speculation about who might succeed him. Whether from Africa, the Americas, Europe or Asia, the next Pontiff will represent 900 million Roman Catholics, 2,000 years of history and an increasingly uncertain future. In what direction will the next Pope take the Church?
Since 1947, when they were first found, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Recently, the scrolls went on public display but gave few clues to their true content and meaning. So how is it that the writings of a strange and ancient desert community can still outwit the 20th-century mind?
In 1973 former Beatie George Harrison donated a manor house in leafy Letchmore Heath , Hertfordshire to the Hindu Hare Krishna movement. But this act of generosity has tested the tolerance of villagers, who have had to face a regular influx of worshippers which reachesa peak of 35,000 during Krishna's two-day birthday celebrations. To appease residents and provide access to this important temple, devotees have applied for planning permission to build an approach road bypassing the village. Everyman reports on an issue that for worshippers has become "an emblem of injustice", for villagers a case of "not in my back yard and for religious tolerance a row of national proportions.
Lionel Dahmer talks about living with the discovery that his son, Jeffrey Dahmer, is a serial killer.
A group of young American evangelicals, aiming to convert as much of the former Soviet Union to Christianity as possible, find the people of Ternopol, in the Ukraine, less than receptive to their message.
In the year that her son Will would have come of age, Sarah Boston celebrates his birthday with an appreciation of people with Down's syndrome and questions the values behind the choices made about genetic screening.
Since the Salman Rushdie affair, the religious Fatwa has been regarded by the non-Muslim world as an oppressive tool designed to silence dissent with the threat of death. But to Muslims it is central to Islamic life, guiding them through everyday existence.
Ever since Mary Murray rang the local radio station to report that the statue of the Mother of God in her back room was shedding blood and tears from its face, pilgrims from all over the world have descended upon the tiny Irish village of Grange Con in County Wicklow. The villagers themselves, however, are less willing the accept the validity of this "miracle".
High in the Himalayas, Mustang is cut off from the outside world. The Dalai Lama sends an envoy to the region to bring back two boys who will learn to preserve the old ways.
Twenty-two million people in this country call themselves C of E but only use the church for weddings and funerals. With a cash crisis and falling clergy numbers, the Bishop of Durham has invited "anyone with an interest in Anglican affairs" to write to him with advice on the future structure of the Church. Everyman presents a selection of video responses to the Church of England's dilemma.
Simon Bailey is the first Anglican clergyman to carry on his ministry while suffering from Aids. As the rector of Dinnington, he is parish priest in a close-knit former pit village in South Yorkshire. Simon has kept a video diary which reflects on how he is attempting to come to terms with his terminal illness. This moving documentary also shows how parishioners, at first shocked by the revelation that their rector was gay, have been changed by sharing his burden.
Filmed on the streets of Manchester, this programme offers a beggar's-eye view of the search for a living, a home and happiness.
Liverpool was all set to have its first black mayor, 53-year-old mother Petrona Lashley. But tabloid press revelations about her convictions for prostitution brought moves to prevent hertaking office, even though the offences have been wiped from the record. Tonight she speaks openly about her life and her fight to be reinstated.
Everyman visits the Salisbury Cathedral Choir School. It looks at how the lives of the choristers compare with those of the fictional characters.
In the first programme of the human-interest series, Bruce Reynolds , who planned the Great Train Robbery, breaks a 30-year silence to tell his story as part of an examination of society's attitudes to criminals and crime.
Many of the rituals of death are shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Everyman ventures into a rarely glimpsed world to meet the mortuary technicians and cremator operators whose work starts when our lives end.
The Rev Joy Carroll provided the inspiration for Dawn French's character in The Vicar of Dibley. But the reality of her inner-city life in Streathamisfar removed from the rural idyll of the BBC comedy series, as this portrait of the outspoken churchwoman reveals.
Twenty years on, first-hand evidence recounting one of the most humiliating episodes in American history. In the final hours of defeat by North Vietnam in 1975, the USA staged a massive helicopter evacuation, fleeing South Vietnam having lost their most important engagement since the Second World War. The human interest series relives the withdrawal through eye-witness testimony from those at the US Embassy, in the cockpits, at the White House, in the streets of Saigon and also from the forgotten South Vietnamese left to face 300,000 North Vietnamese troops.
In the United States the death penalty has been extended to those who committed their crimes before they were 18. Amnesty International claims America is flouting international law, but the US plans to go ahead with 33 such executions, despite evidence that these young offenders are particularly susceptible to rehabilitative therapy.
Nearly 4,000 churches in Britain claim to have been touched by a new incarnation of God's miraculous power. One in three churches in Britain is now holding healing services. But this charismatic revival, with its belief in demons of darkness, spirits, angels and miracles, is dividing the Christian world. Everyman uncovers practices of healing and deliverances that have destroyed people's faith and shattered their lives.
Alan Bennett celebrates the talents of the late Sir John Betjeman when he introduces two films made by the former Poet Laureate.
Erotica has traditionally been the preserve of the male consumer, with the female filling the fantasy role. But now men are starting to express unease about pornographic images while women are demanding erotica of their own. This frank investigation asks if there is a post-feminist form of erotica both men and women can enjoy.
Life-threatening illnesses are not always accompanied by self-pitying outlook on life, as this poignant portrait of teenagers facing great adversity with maturity demonstrates.
he famous photograph of America's dark era of lynching was taken not in the Deep South but in the northern town of Marion, Indiana, USA, on 7 August 1930. The photograph shows two black men hangingfrom a tree, with a huge crowd of white people looking on. There should, however, have been a third man hanged that day, but at the last moment the 1 6-year-old James Cameron was, he believes, miraculously spared. Everyman goes to Marion to trace the legacy of its famous lynching and to examine race relations in the town today and visits Cameron, now 81, who talks about the events of that night.
The American Catholic Church is in crisis amid mounting evidence that many priests do not observe their vows of celibacy. Some priests are leaving the Church to marry, others are carrying on secret heterosexual or gay relationships in defiance of Church doctrine. But at the heart of this crisis is the scandal involving sexual abuse of children by priests with more than priests reported to the law in the last ten years. Everyman investigates.
At Long Lartin maximum security prison in Worcestershire, Monica Lloyd , who runs the psychology unit, heads a pioneering new rehabilitation programme.
Using miniature cameras, Everyman goes doorstopping in town and country with the Mormons. Their mission is to bring the word of God to every home in Britain. Reactions vary from the philosophical, through the bizarre to the hostile.
Over the last 13 years Sister Helen Prejean has been putting Christian forgiveness to the test as she works with murderers on death row in the American state of Louisiana. As a result she has become an icon of the anti-death penalty movement.
Ten years on from the Church of England's "Faith in the City" initiative to tackle inner city problems, this special programme confronts leading Christian voices with a nightmare vision of Britain - seen from the bottom of the social and economic ladder, where young people are trapped in a cycle of hopelessness, alienation, boredom and addiction.
For centuries the Turin Shroud - the ultimate relic - was thought to be the image of the crucified Christ. In 1988, the shroud was scientifically proved to be a fake but this has merely fuelled a new controversy. While some search for evidence to authenticate the shroud, for others the burning questions are what is it, who made it and why?
An examination of the controversial Christian Channel Europe (CCE), which has since October 1995 been broadcasting Christianity to Europe via satellite. Its founders, a born-again couple from South Africa, believe that God has personally called them to the task. But critics fear that the CCE may do more harm than good.
A portrait of an enclosed order at a Benedictine Convent in Chester. See today's choices.
A film following patients facing death at St Christopher's Hospice in south east London, to discover how they and their families cope with the knowledge and implications of their dying.
One day Mary Murray rang the local radio station to report blood and tears falling from the face of the statue of the Mother of God in her home. Since then the tiny Irish village of Grangecon has been the destination for pilgrims from around the world and a centre of controversy among the villagers.
The first of a new five-part series of Everyman documentaries. In January 1989, one of Tibet's most holy men, the Panchen Lama, died. It is the responsibility of the Dalai Lama to name the child who will be the reincarnation of the Panchen, but since the Chinese invasion of Tibet 40 years ago he has lived in exile and the Chinese government has sought to repress traditional Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama did chose a boy to be the Panchen Lama but the child has disappeared. The Chinese have now enthroned their own choice, an act that could put the spiritual and political future of Tibet at stake.
American-born Rabbi Shmuel Boteach has taken the Jewish community by storm. He is determined to make Oxford a Jewish city, will go to any lengths to seek publicity, and promotes new attitudes to sex.
Many people believe that the Jesus Army has all the hallmarks of a cult. It has been portrayed by the media as evil and manipulative, often recruits vulnerable members of society, and encourages followers to live in closed communities, cut off from friends and family. This film examines the lives of people once they join.
Traditionally the sky has been the abode of the gods and the settingfor heaven. Modern day science has stripped away much of ourmythology, but there's evidence that many people - and some scientists - still have a need to believe in something above the clouds. From theology to ufology and cosmology to astrology, Everyman explores belief in the heavens above.
A search to discover the secrets of the crystal skulls takes Everyman on an adventure from Canada and the US through Mexico and Central America to the British Museum in London. Do the skulls really have incredible powers?
The first of three documentaries looking into the ongoing struggle between the belief systems of religion and science. Over 70 years ago, the "Monkey Trial" brought the debate between creation and evolution to public prominence. Today, half of the US population still believe in the former, condemning the latter as a heresy responsible for the current moral crisis. In the state of Tennessee, the battle is being fought out in the arena of the education system. An anti-evolution bill being debated by the US Senate would ban its teaching as anything other than a theory. Presenting evolutionary biology as fact could result in prosecution. With the US Presidential election looming, the debate has assumed even more importance with priests, politicians and professors taking a stand as they await the verdict of the Senate.
The second of three Everyman documentaries looking into the ongoing struggle between religion and science. Genetics research is perhaps the most dangerous cutti ng edge of scientific enquiry. The dark history of Nazi eugenics casts a disturbing shadow over a future that promises an end to all inherited illness and the perfection of the species. Meanwhile, the L'Arche community in France offers a challenging alternative with the able-bodied and the handicapped living and working together.
Last of three Everyman documentaries looking into the ongoing struggle between religion and science. Italy is gripped by miracle fever with statues weeping, the dying being cured and sceptical scientists keen to investigate. The Vatican is questioning its own historical commitmentto the miraculous power of the saints with theologians and scientists meeting to see if they can sign a peace treaty.
For many Jews the warwas not over in May 1945 and the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals was not enough. Under the leadership of the charismatic young poet and partisan Abba Kovner , theyformed a group of avengers to track down and execute known Nazis. Now 50 years afterthe judgement at the Nurembergtrials, the surviving avengers, including Kovner's widow, tell for the first time the story of how the group set out on a campaign of mass murder.
After the vicar for St Mark's and St Martin's died, a new one had to be found - a task that was not at all straightforward. In this multiracial north London parish, the demands of the parishioners, the wishes of the local bishop and the thoughts of the trustees (a group of businessmen from the City of London) all had to be taken into account. This programme follows the shortlisted candidates for the post through the selection process - which included an interview in front of 11 elders and a right of veto that rested with two parishioners - and discovers how a decision was reached.
In the beginning, the church wanted nothing to do with broadcasting. More than half-a-century later, the message and the medium have come to terms with each other. From drama to documentary, from satire to Songs of Praise, actor Stephen Tompkinson (Father Clifford in Ballykissangel) looks back at 60 years of God on the box.
A report on the controversy surrounding last night's service at Southwark Cathedral marking 20 years of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. Including interviews with those who took part and with members of the Church of England's "Reform" movement which condemns homosexuality in the church.
In the last of the present series Everyman follows four women from the north of England on a package-tour pilgrimage to Bosnia in search of a miraculous vision of the Virgin Mary.
This Everyman special tells the story of the charismatic, but enigmatic, Imran Khan, who was once celebrated as Pakistan's greatest cricket captain and renowned as something of a playboy. Now married to financier Sir James Goldsmith's daughter, Jemima, he has reaffirmed his Muslim faith and embarked upon a quest-which received a major setback in the recent elections - to become his country's political leader.
The first of eight documentaries looks at Father Louis Gigante, a Roman Catholic priest in New York, and his brother Vincent Gigante, who is accused of being the head of the Genovese organised crime family. Father Louis has not lived his life in his brother's shadow. As priest, politician and property developer, his work on behalf of the poor has transformed the South Bronx, but his controversial methods have led some to accuse him of using his family connections with organised crime to further his cause. Certainly he has not turned his back upon his roots. Father Louis will be there to offer comfort to his family as the FBI finally take his brother to court to face trial on charges of extortion and murder.
Juliet is a Jew, Paragis a Hindu, Susan is a Christian. They are all lookingfora partner, but they want a partner who will share their faith. It is increasingly common for people to specify the religion of a prospective mate, and the singles market is beginningto respond to that demand with specialist agencies and functions. From blind dates to astrologers' predictions, SoulMates follows the three on their quest for a partner. By the end of the film they have each found someone but is it the right one?
Pope Who will be the next Pope- God's representative on earth to almost one billion Roman Catholics? As the papacy of John Paul II enters its final phase, the powerbrokers of the Vatican inevitably begin to considertheiroptions. Everyman goes behind the scenes to reveal some of the secrets of the Conclave -the Papal election process - and gets the inside track" on which of the potential candidates might emerge as a Pope forthe 21st century.
The story of the career, crusades and conversions of the veteran American preacher Dr Billy Graham. Since his earliest bible thumping sermons in trailer parks and circus tents, he has preached to over 210 million people in countries without a trace of the scandal and controversy that has dogged other mass evangelists. What has shaped the soul of this "salesman of salvation"?
Every year thousands of people over 50 years of age take advantage of cheap holidays in the winter sun of Spain's Costa Blanca. Accompanying the holidaymakers are three retired Church of England clerics who work as chaplains, catering to the thorny theological dilemmas of mature sunseekers. During their six-week ministry they have to cope with a number of problems from trying to take communion on a hotel building site to blessing marriages and bereavement counselling.
If there was one photograph from the Vietnam War that touched the world, it was the one of a little girl running naked down a road after a napalm bombing raid. That girl was Kim. Though horrifically burned, she survived and, 25 years on, she tells the story of that raid, of her suffering and recovery, of the way the North Vietnamese used her as a propaganda weapon and of how she had to leave her home to find freedom. Now she travels to the US on a mission of forgiveness and reconciliation.
For Rastafarians, Babylon is despair and damnation and Zion is Paradise. ForToxteth-born Rasta poet Levi Tefari .Babylon is Liverpool and Zion is Ethiopia where Emperor Haile Selassie, the God of the Rastafarian faith, has bequeathed land for all those who wish to return to their spiritual home. As Levi embarks on this journey, will the Promised Land fulfil its promise?
History of Astrology Astrology has been around for thousands of years and is as populartoday as it has ever been. Everyman traces the history of astrology from the Stone Age to the Age of Aquarius via Nostradamus and Nancy Reagan , Shakespeare and Shelley von Strunckel.
Tonight Everyman looks at how many Elvis Presley fans find the same sense of comfort and fellowship from their devotion to the king of rock 'n' roll as they do from worshipping Jesus. See today's choices.
The first of two programmes from Everyman marking the 1,400th anniversary of the founding of Canterbury Cathedral. Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, spiritual home for 70 million Anglicans around the world, is the legacy of a pilgrimage made exactly 1,400 years ago. In AD 597 St Augustine arrived in Britain on a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Presenter Nigel Hawthorne retraces his perilous journey from Rome across sixth-century Europe to southern England, where he laid the foundations of Canterbury Cathedral.
The second of two Everyman programmes marking the 1,400th anniversary of the founding of Canterbury Cathedral. Having arrived in Canterbury Nigel Hawthorne explores the cathedral's history and examines how it functions today as a multi-million pound business, a tourist site and a place of worship. The clash between commerce and Christianity is most heightened in Holy Week and, as the cathedral prepares for Easter and its 1,400th birthday, all is far from calm in the cloisters.
A special programme to celebrate the life and work of Mother Teresa who died on the 5 September 1997.
The religious documentary series returns with an extended edition revealing the secret war between the Vatican and the Kremlin that has lasted for 80 years. The programme produces evidence that the Vatican ran covert operations inside the emerging Soviet Communist state while the Soviets executed Roman Catholic priests as spies. It is also revealed that in lateryearstheUSA, underthe leadershi p of President Reagan, put huge intelligence and financial resources at the disposal of the Catholic Church in an attempt to bring an end to Soviet Communism.
The poetry of standup comedian John Hegley explores the uneasy relationship between religion and comedy, as contributors such as David Baddiel , Paul Whitehouse and Jonathan Miller ask whether religion is a suitable topic for humour, or no laughing matter.
DrJack Kevorkian has helped more than 50 people to commit suicide in the United States, defended by his controversial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger. Now Michigan attorney Ray Voet believes he has a legal case that will stoptheir activities. Everyman follows the unfolding trial of the man the USA knows as Dr Death.
Paganism is claimed to be the fastest growing religion in Britain. Everyman examines the rituals of a witches' coven and the practices of druids and shamans and asks whether these faiths are genuine religions or seductive and dangerous superstitions. Narrated by Jenny Agutter.
It is 150 years since the original Mormon pioneers set off across the USA to escape from religious persecution and to found Salt Lake City. Everyman follows two British Mormons as they join the anniversary wagon train that seeks to re-create that journey with a gruelling 1,100-mile trek.
After 15 years of bloody civil war, the Hindu Tamils of Sri Lanka are turning in desperation to the cruel goddess Kali. Everyman follows the quest of Shanthi, whose husband is missing and brother imprisoned due to the war. The goddess has demanded that she walkthrough the Fire of Kali in the annual Hindu festival to find them.
The first of two Everyman programmes marking the 1,400th anniversary of Canterbury Cathedral. Nigel Hawthorne retraces St Augustine's sixth-century journey from Rome to southern England.
The second of two Everyman programmes marking the 1,400th anniversary of Canterbury Cathedral. Actor Nigel Hawthorne explores how the cathedral functions as a multi-million-pound business, a tourist site, as well as a place of worship.
The first of five documentaries. With belief in the phenomenon of alien abductions growing, tonight's film hears from people who claim to have been victims of extraterrestial abductions and from academics, researchers and theologians who attempt to explain these alien encounters.
Despite their success across Europe and America, Christian rap and dance group World Wide Message Tribe still spend ten months of the year preaching their message in their home town, Manchester. This documentary follows the group as they tour the North West's schools and visit Nashville, USA, and charts the reaction to the group's brand of evangelical fervour.
A documentary that introduces the colourful characters that work for Brighton and Hove bereavement services. They are the men and woman who bury or cremate the dead and for whom humour is a saving grace and death a way of life.
The controversial religious group Nation of Islam is growing in popularity among black people on both sides of the Atlantic but its leader, Louis Farrakhan , is banned from entering the UK. This film traces the organisation's history while Farrakhan talks about his own career and the accusations of murder and racism he has faced.
This powerful and revealing Everyman special explores the experience of a number of people who, for whatever reason, have taken a human life. Using their often disturbing and frank testimony, the programme challenges perceptions of guilt, innocence, forgiveness and blame, and shows that the act of taking a life is somethingwhich could befall anyone.
On 7 June, the remains of a black male were found in Jasper, Texas. The victim, James Byrd , had been chained to a pick-up truck and dragged to his death. The suspects arrested forthe murder were affiliated with the Ku-Klux-Klan and Christian Identity churches. This Everyman special includes interviews with the Byrd family, the Ku-Klux-Klan, the actual leaders of the white supremacy organisations, the New Black Panthers and the FBI, and reveals that a holy race war is being planned across the States.
Sister Helen Prejean , whose story was told in the film Dead Man Walking, hoped she would never again have to watch a man being executed. Two years later Dobie Williams is scheduled to die. Sister Helen struggles to comfort Dobie as the execution approaches, while his lawyer works for a last minute stay.
Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, some get rather more. From wannabees to has-beens, soap stars to superstars, publicists to paparazzi, this documentary turns the spotlight on the fame game, with the help of John Travolta, Bob Geldof, Michael Parkinson, Chris Eubank, Max Clifford, David Soul and many others.
In the fifties many thousands of Tibetans became CIA-trained killers to fight a brutal campaign against the Chinese who had invaded their country. But when America's political priorities changed the CIA abandoned the Tibetans' struggle.
Some peoplebelieve that it is possible to talk to the dead. The Joseph family are searching for contact with the spirit of their dead father, while Gaynor Gittos claims a 300-year-old American shares her body while she is in a trance. Everyman enters the strange world of mediums, spiritualists and psychics.
Fourdays before Christmas 1988, Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York exploded in the air five miles above the Borders town of Lockerbie. Michelle Ciulla's father was one of the victims. Ten years after the event, Michelle finally visits the site of the crash, and gains an insight into an untold story of horror, heroism and generosity. See today's choices.
Every year thousands of children lose a parent. Everyman tells the story of some of them. Charlotte was just nine when her mother died of cancer, a year after her father, but is now coming to terms with her loss; five-year-old Alistair is obsessed by illness after his father died of a brain tumour; and following his mother's suicide Ben is being encouraged to share his feelings.
Can love survive across the religious divide? Couples where each partner follows a different religion discuss the conflicts and compromises within these relationships. For some, like the Rev David Barnes and his Hindu wife Rohini, it has been possible to remain committed to their faiths and their love. But for others a difference of religion can threaten their relationship - or even their lives.
Tonight's Everyman special looks back at the tragedy ten years ago when 96 Liverpool supporters were killed at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. The survivors and the relatives of the victims have been trying to come to terms with what happened, but with many questions still unanswered, the wounds inflicted by this tragedy will not heal.
In 1992, following similar projects in Britain, Russia and the United States, director Angus Gibson filmed a diverse group of seven-year-olds in South Africa. The children were black and white, rich and poor, from leafy suburbs and city slums. This Everyman special records his return visit to meet them, now aged 14.
In a world of high-tech medicine many people - both the genuinely ill and the worried-well - turn to faith healers to give them peace of mind. In the first of a four-part series Everyman follows three very different and extraordinary healers as they go about their business. See today's choices. Producer Mark Jones
Lucy, Abby and Joseph are eight years old and awaiting their first Holy Communion at their Roman Catholic church. For their parents this is a tradition that goes back generations. The children may not understand the religious implications, but look forward to being "saints for a day".
A film which meets three people for whom sex has become a powerful and potentially destructive force in their lives. Andrea has three or four partners a week: David's obsessions destroyed his family; and Chris's habitual infidelity has forced his fiancee to book him into a famous clinic. The programme goes behind closed doors as doctors seek to treat them of their addiction.
Continuing the factual documentary series that concentrates on religious, spiritual and ethical issues.
The first in a new series of four religious documentaries. A portrait of Sir Harry Secombe as he struggles to recover from a major stroke which has left him paralysed down one side of his body.
Charismatic beauty queen Rana Rasian made history earlier this year when she became the first Arab woman ever to be elected Miss Israel. Some felt the move signalled a new improvement in Arab-Jewish relations while others saw it as tokenism of the worst kind. Rasian takes her role very seriously and strives to represent her fellow Israelis whatever their views.
An Ordinary Marriage. Janeen and Dave Willis have been together for ten years. They live in a suburban house near Grimsby and are committed Christians. However, they found that when they decided to get married, they were unable to do so in this country. The reason is that Janeen was born a man and David, a woman.
Inspired by his own experiences as Britain's youngest PoW, John Hipkin stages silent vigils throughout Britain, Ireland, Canada and the USA hoping to secure pardons for over 300 British soldiers executed by their own comrades during the First World War.
A three-part series of the ethical documentary strand. A film following Marion Cox, the Orpington branch coordinator of Weigh Down Workshop, an evangelical weight-loss business, as she helps members through the course of dieting, listening to tapes and praying.
A documentary following two officers from east London's Hackney Council as they try establishing the identity of people who die in isolation and tie up the loose ends of their lives.
A film following the controversial work of Roseanne Reddy, a Catholic anti-abortionist who counsels women and girls as young as 12 through crisis pregnancies as part of Cardinal Thomas Winning's Pro-Life Initiative. Last in the current series.
A documentary which follows Grace, who killed a man while she was a prostitute, as she is released from prison to start a new life having served an 18-year sentence. Four years ago she became a born-again Christian and believes that God has forgiven her. But will others agree as she struggles to get a job, learn to drive, do voluntary work, and keep her increasingly fragile marriage in one piece?
The second in the new six-part series of documentaries charts the search for their British fathers by the Dutch people conceived during the country's liberation in 1945.
A documentary giving a "kids' eye" view of children caught in the crossfire on the frontline of family warfare.
A documentary following journalist Ken Wiwa as he travels to Nigeria to bury his father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a political activist and writer who was executed by the Nigerian dictatorship to international outrage in November 1995.
Unconventional 70-year-old Rabbi Lionel Blue embarks on an exploration of what it means to be old.
The series concludes with a look at the work of Emma Heathcote, who has carried out the first academic study in the UK, into people's alleged encounters with angels.
A special edition of Everyman examines the impact on the small coastal communities of Dumfries and Galloway following the sinking of the scallop boat So/way Harvester off the Isle of Man in January last year.
Director Christopher Morris returns to Indiana in search of a remarkable child evangelist he first filmed five years ago. Shaun Walters was ordained at the age of eight and mesmerised audiences with his preaching as he travelled across the United States with his father. Now they have formed their own church, and Shaun's younger brother is also about to be ordained, but tonight's film reveals that Shaun is a troubled teenager, withdrawn and unhappy.
Another story of how ordinary people cope with extraordinary challenges and crises of faith in modern society.
Cameras follow Baroness Cox, Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, as she flies into an African warzone to buy back several hundred Sudanese who have been sold into slavery. Undaunted by critics who claim that she is fuelling the slave trade in southern Sudan, the Baroness is the target of fighters, bombers and hit squads as she tries to reunite families torn apart by conflict.
Under Orthodox Jewish law, a woman wishing to end her marriage must be granted a bill of divorce, or a "get", by her husband. If he refuses, she becomes "chained" to him until he relents. With Jewish law considering any of her subsequent relationships adulterous and any resulting children illegitimate, a "chained" woman's only choice is to comply with the demands of her religion, or leave it. However, this is not an easy choice to make.
James Mawdsley is a 27-year-old Englishman who has been arrested four times by the Burmese authorities for publicly protesting against military atrocities in Burma. This culminated in him serving 14 months of a 17-year sentence during which he was kept in solitary confinement and tortured. This profile follows him from his release last October as he adjusts to the media spotlight.
Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe has spent 20 years in prison. During that time he has conducted intense relationships with dozens of women who have chosen to write to him.
MP Sir Anthony Berry was one of five people killed by the IRA attack on Brighton's Grand hotel during the Conservative Party conference of October 1984. This documentary from the Everyman strand follows his daughter Jo Tuffnell's meetings with the man responsible, Patrick Magee, after his early release under the Good Friday Agreement.
Over the course of one summer in Leeds, cameras record the lives and insights of a group of people who are all facing their own death, showing how they communicate their hopes and fears in the absence of any religious faith. Among the subjects are a mother of three, a single woman and a man desperately in need of a transplant.
The story of two thirty-something siblings from New Jersey, USA, who claim to have recovered childhood memories of their father killing dozens of people. While the accusers undergo extensive psychological tests that suggest the pair sincerely believe in their assertions, this film visits many of the alleged scenes of crime, and concludes by confronting the elderly father in his home.
Retired parish priest Tom Willis is also an exorcist, one of 12 working in the diocese of York alone. The demand for exorcisms is greater than ever before, with some people accusing those who dabble in the occult of provoking the spiritual world. This film follows the mild-mannered Willis as he meets some of the men and women who believe the legacy of past evils is haunting their present.
What makes someone become a human time-bomb willing to die for their cause? And what are the effects on those who lose loved ones as a result? This film hears from a woman bereaved on 11 September and a British backpacker who unwittingly shared a guest house with suicide bombers.
Fraudster Paul Bint has been dubbed "King Con" by the tabloid press for passing himself off as a doctor, barrister, businessman and aristocrat. In this revealing documentary, Dominique Walker challenges Bint to set the record straight about his extraordinary past, and finds that compulsive lying is a habit he seems unable to kick.
Spinsterhood was once regarded as being a sign of failure, and spinsters were relegated to a life on the margins of society. But in the 21st century they exist in record numbers. Tina Mo, who has just turned 40, is the envy of her married friends, while wedding-dress designer Elaine baffles clients with her happy singleton existence at the age of 57. This film asks if spinsterhood is the new "happy ever after"?
Tonight's documentary concludes the Buddhism season, profiling number of converts to the faith, including an IT consultant who has given up a lucrative career to work in a restaurant, and featuring a harrowing visit to Auschwitz.
Moody teenagers and religion rarely mix - so when the Eden Project, a group of evangelical Christians, arrived on Greater Manchester's tough Hattersley estate, they were initially viewed with suspicion. The first of this two-parter looks at how perseverance and a bus equipped with video games helped to win over new recruits - as well as the impact of new-found faith on young troubled minds.
Concluding the two-part documentary following a group of evangelical Christians working to save the souls on Greater Manchester's tough Hattersley estate. Teenage converts Tash and Linda reach a crossroads with the new Christian faith as the power of their beliefs begins to impact on their troubled lives. Will the Eden Project really provide the answers forTash's problems at home and Linda's struggle with self harm?
A three-year scientific study led by cardiologists from the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina set out to establish whether heart patients would recover more readily if they were prayed for. Twelve multi-faith prayer groups from around the world took part, and Everyman followed this intriguing experiment from its early stages. What was the outcome? Narrated by Zoe Wanamaker. Two more programmes examining the efficacy of meditation and spiritual healing will be shown over the next two weeks.
Can months of meditation change the lives of managers and workers from a small sheet metal factory in Wigan? Guru Paul Darby hopes to lead reluctant boss Chris and his team to a deep state of calm. The course starts off well but takes a turn for the worse when the group spends a weekend away at a remote hillside retreat - especially when they realise that sleeping bags are involved.
The concept of faith healing comes under scrutiny in the last of three films as healer Maureen Ramm treats three patients suffering from chronic illnesses that medical science has been unable to cure. Meanwhile, their GP visits a healer who claims to have rid himself of cancer. Is there any truth to the claims that spiritual healers can stimulate the body's natural healing process by the laying on of hands?
Striving to prevent more killings, two mothers of murder victims from Manchester's gang wars travel to Boston to see how the city reduced its homicide rate by 80 per cent during the 1990s. Showing as part of the Guns and Gangs season.
Two new Muslim companies have the same extraordinary goal-to replace the world's biggest brand, Coca-Cola, in the affections of over a billion consumers. Mecca Cola and Qibla Cola are among a growing wave of Islamic campaigners seeking to boycott US products, and as Everyman shows, the threat to the iconic drink is serious and unprecedented.
Do mediums spread false hope or provide much-needed comfort for the bereaved? This investigation follows four mediums who claim to receive messages from beyond the grave. Dubbed "The Psychic Barber", Gordon Smith's unnerving accuracy has silenced even the most hardened of cynics. Can he get to the bottom of some ghostly goings-on? Meanwhile, husband-and-wife team Jane and Craig Hamilton-Parker help a group of student psychics to tune into the other side, while blind medium Sharon Neill embarks on a sell-out UK tour.
Southampton woman attempts to contact her best friend, who suffered a violent death, blind medium. Sharon Neill confronts a spirit that is ruining a young man's life and, in an item incorrectly billed last week, medium Gordon Smith investigates uncanny happenings in a Glasgow pub.
As word spreads about his amazing accuracy, medium Gordon Smith travels to San Francisco to work on stage with his top American counterparts. This absorbing Everyman investigation into those who claim to receive messages from beyond the grave concludes with the spotlight on Jane and Craig Hamilton-Parker. They're about to put one of their student mediums on stage, but how will he perform in public for the very first time?
The trait of forgiveness is explored in this one-off Everyman documentary. Graham Dudman, managing editor of The Sun, travels to Liverpool to try to apologise for the paper's coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster; the parents of a murdered teenager have contrasting attitudes to their son's killers; a mother and daughter try to heal a romantic rift; and a man in his early 40s seeks an apology for a teacher's childhood criticism.
A tribute to the deceased pontiff, Pope John Paul II, from his early days as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, to his ascent to the papacy.