In this program, Dennis Wholey continues a dialogue on the role of religion and faith in contemporary American culture with spokespeople from the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington; Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good; the Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship; the Islamic Society of North America; the Agudas Achim Conservative Jewish Congregation of Alexandria, Virginia; and the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, Maryland. Topics...

Rome was once the center of Christian persecution, but the martyrdom there of Paul and Peter began the unfolding of a historical epic that ended with the seat of empire becoming the spiritual capital of the Western Latin church. This program charts the development of Roman Catholicism, traveling to the ancient Port of Ostia, churches in Ravenna, and a remote Celtic monastery to show how Constantine took Christianity from a religion for the downtrodden...

Congregational music during worship owes its origin to Martin Luther, who used it to proclaim his bedrock message of the Protestant Reformation: God's grace as the sole ingredient for salvation. This elegant program explains how Luther changed the mode of public worship by integrating music into the divine service so that all Christians-not just the clergy-could express and celebrate their belief. It also highlights Luther's biography, from his time...

Written and presented by leading British writer Howard Jacobson, this program examines the story of the origins, and consequences, of Christian belief. The bare facts are that although Christianity originated in devout Judaism, for Jews, it has by and large been a calamity. The roots of anti-semitism that enabled the Holocaust lie in 2000 years of Christian vilification of the Jews based on the false accounts of Jesus's death written in the Christian...

“Jews of Cracow Await US Bar Mitzvah Boy,” read the New York Times headline, as Eric Strom, a 13-year-old Connecticut boy, stood at the center of a complex human drama that attracted world-wide attention. Cracow’s handful of Jews, survivors of one of the largest Jewish communities prior to World War II, were eager to participate in the first bar mitzvah in their synagogues since the War. In following the emotional journey of Eric and his family...

Richard Taylor uncovers evidence that shows how and why our parish churches came to play such a crucial role in the everyday life of the Middle Ages. He finds out how rites such as baptism and the largely forgotten ritual known as 'the churching of women' offered people protection from the cradle to the grave.

In this program, Bettany Hughes explores the lost era of the priestess as she explains the primacy of women in classical religion and in early Christianity. Visiting the Acropolis and other key sites, Hughes describes aspects of Aphrodite that go beyond gentle love goddess and discovers that Sappho may have been a priestess as well as a poet. She also discusses ancient Rome, where the fate of the world was believed to lie in the hands of six sacred...

Unlike birth and death, which are inescapable facts of life, marriage is rite of passage made by choice and in the Middle Ages it wasn't just a choice made by bride and groom - they were often the last pieces in a puzzle, put together by their parents, with help from their family and friends, according to rules laid down by the Church. Helen Castor reveals how in the Middle Ages marriage was actually much easier to get into than today - you could...

With the introduction of Christianity to the Aztec peoples, a new kind of religious iconography arose: retablos and exvotos. Traditionally painted on tin, retablos tell of the lives of the saints while exvotos give thanks for miracles granted. This program brings together art historians, preservationists, and religious practitioners to look at the stories embedded in these paintings and their significance for those who pray to them. Among those interviewed...