This year marks the centenary of Northern Ireland. Since its inception it has been divided between those who want to be Irish, who are mostly Catholic, and those who want to remain British, who are mostly Protestant. But what about the people of faith outside the sectarian divide – or those of no faith? Reporter Julia Paul meets Joseph Nawaz, whose father was a Muslim from Pakistan and whose mother a white Catholic from Northern Ireland. His parents were married in the 1970s, at a time when most...
Nov 19, 2021•27 min
Lipa Schmeltzer is a bright star in the world of Jewish music; only his music sounds nothing like traditional Jewish music! In fact, he has been nicknamed, the ‘Jewish Lady Gaga’! Growing up in New York, in an ultra-conservative Hasidic community, Lipa was always different. At school, he was taught all subjects in Yiddish, and when he found it hard to concentrate his teachers called him the 'dumb kid' and told him he would never amount to anything. He had a dream of being a singer, but when he s...
Nov 12, 2021•28 min
This week leaders from over 200 countries have been making pledges to cut carbon emission at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). But for many climate activists on the ground, action speaks lounder than words. Reporter Rajeev Gupta speaks to activists who say they are compelled by their faith to act now. He hears from Alphonce Munyao, a Catholic activist from Kenya, who says climate change there is causing droughts, leading to wild animals entering urban areas in search ...
Nov 05, 2021•27 min
Communities that celebrate with the Latin Mass have prospered. Now, Pope Francis has ruled that Catholics may only use the Latin Mass if their bishops agree to let them. Instead of a rule of tolerance for the Old Rite, wherever Catholics want it, there will be tolerance on a case-by-case basis. Many traditionally-minded Catholics believe that what is at stake here is the soul of the Catholic church, with a liberal old guard, with Francis at their head, hoping to snuff out a rising generation of ...
Oct 22, 2021•27 min
Many Sikhs all over the world have joined together in support of protests by Indian farmers against new laws proposed by the Indian government. Solidarity has come from musicians, singers, sportspeople and many young second and third generation diaspora Sikhs who have joined social media and local drive-thru protests in British, Canadian and American cities. A culture of protest is embedded in Sikhism through prayer, songs and stories, which inspires this sense of activism. Modern-day Sikhs, thr...
Oct 15, 2021•28 min
Hannah Ajala, a British-Yoruba broadcaster will walk us through the sounds, beats and meanings of a Yoruba engagement ceremony. Speaking to those at the heart of the traditional marriage and exploring its importance on what could be considered the most important day of their lives. Producer: Tobi Olujinmi (Photo: Yoruba marriage ceremony. Credit: David Olujinmi)
Oct 08, 2021•28 min
David Eubank, who is originally from Texas, lives in the jungles of the Karen state near the Thai-Myanmar border, along with his wife and children. The Karen people have been fighting the Myanmar military for decades, in the world’s longest civil war. Since the military coup on 1 February, the Karen Nation Union has sided with a people’s uprising demanding democracy is restored, and has launched attacks on the military. The army has responded with bombings that have displaced tens of thousands o...
Oct 01, 2021•27 min
Ise Jingu is a Shinto shrine in Japan that is full of paradoxes. Every 20 years, for the past 1300 years, Ise Jingu has been rebuilt from scratch. It involves constructing identical copies of 125 structures that cover an area the size of the centre of Paris, using ancient techniques passed down through generations of craftsmen. It is one of the most sacred Shinto shrines in Japan. Every year, over 10 million visitors and pilgrims journey through the depths of the ancient forest that surrounds th...
Sep 24, 2021•28 min
Br. Guy Consolmagno calls himself a 'Sputnik Kid'. He started school the year the Russians launched the world's first satellite. Growing up in Detroit during the space race he remembers the excitement he felt watching Nasa launch rockets into space, "I grew up at a time when anything was possible." He was always fascinated with astronomy. In fact, his father always wanted to be an astronomer but could never turn it into a career. He would show Guy the stars at night and point out the different c...
Sep 17, 2021•28 min
Jim Giaccone will never forget the day his brother Joe simply vanished – killed in a blast so forceful that not even a trace of his remains was ever recovered. Joe was one of the 2,977 victims of the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 when members of al-Qaeda – an Islamist extremist group – flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York. They also crashed into the Pentagon on the outskirts of Washington DC and another plane was downed in a field near the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. ...
Sep 10, 2021•27 min
Marzia Babakarkhail knows what it's like to have the Taliban break her door down intent on killing her. In 1997 they did just that because of her work promoting education and progress for women. She was forced to flee and now lives in the UK. That work continues and has never been more important. As the last of the US military presence leaves Afghanistan Marzia tells her story to Matt O’Donoghue, how she rose to become a judge at 26 and was forced to flee and live under threat of death. But she ...
Sep 03, 2021•27 min
Sophia Smith Galer, reporter and TikTok creator, speaks to users who have faced discrimination and suppression online based on their religion. We speak to YouTuber Nada Majdy, who regularly faces abuse from Islamophobes whose sexualised comments do not get taken down; the Jewish TikTok creators who try to challenge anti-Semitism, only to have their own videos taken down in the process; and we ask why and how Instagram managed to censor #sikh for nearly three months.
Aug 27, 2021•26 min
The Druze are a religious minority, living mainly between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. The religious movement was founded in the 11th Century by Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad, an Ismaili leader, mixing aspects of Shia Islam and Esoterism, among other western philosophies. Because they are an insular community - conversions are forbidden either out of or into the faith - the Druze face a number of existential challenges, in a region where unrest is the norm. Tamara Rasamny meets young Druze men and wome...
Aug 13, 2021•26 min
For decades, the Catholic Church rarely acknowledged the fact that supposedly ‘celibate’ priests were fathering children. The scale and impact of these secretive births is only now coming to light. The Vatican does not deny that there could be as many as 10,000 children of Catholic priests living around the world. Many who are now adults describe childhoods separated from their fathers, shrouded in secrecy and shame. For this Heart and Soul, three of them – Vincent Doyle, Michael McGuirk and Sar...
Jul 30, 2021•26 min
Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, taking the knee has become a prominent sight at protests and sports events, signifying opposition to racism and discrimination. But with some fans booing players for kneeling and some black players refusing to take the knee – has this anti-racist gesture now lost its potency? For rapper and football fan Guvna B taking the knee has an added significance. He is a committed Christian, and knows the religious significance of kneeling. To mark the start of th...
Jul 23, 2021•27 min
Uighur poetry is and has been for centuries a fundamental part of the culture and members of the community write poetry and often recite part poems that have been passed down the generations and learn off by heart. As the community face widespread persecution by the Chinese authorities and at a time of great despair and fear for them, Uighurs speak to us about the ways in which poetry offers ways of support, succour and resistance. The programme features the voices and works of Uighurs, poets an...
Jul 16, 2021•26 min
In the run up to the Tokyo Olympics professor Robert Beckford explores how cheating in sport conflicts with Christian principles. He asks how can an Olympic champion stand on the podium with a gold medal and then thank God in an interview if they have taken performance enhancing drugs? Can a footballer celebrate the penalty he has ‘won’ and then point to the sky in honour of God?In this edition of Heart and Soul, featuring Olympic medallist Ben Johnson, Robert explores what the Christianity has ...
Jul 09, 2021•26 min
Where does God fit into your sex life? Decades after signing up to remain ‘pure’ until marriage, many Evangelical Christian Millennials are still confused by that question – and some are turning to counselling for help. In the 1990s a sexual abstinence movement became popular in the US and eventually spread to the UK. This ‘purity culture’ recruited young people to wait until marriage before having sex, and wear a silver ring to advertise their pledge. But what effect did it have on the thousand...
Jul 02, 2021•26 min
Colourful temples, bells , incense and a multitude of deities and festivals - journalist Nalini Sivathasan grew up immersed in her parents’ religion, Hinduism. But as she has grown older, she has found it harder to connect with her faith and speaking to her friends, she finds she is not alone. Unlike most other religions, Hinduism has no single founder, no single scripture nor commonly agreed set of teachings – which for some, can make it tricky to navigate. On her journey to discover ‘her Hindu...
Jun 25, 2021•26 min
Can the prison be a “citizen factory” where the rebellious soul goes in and comes out as a demure, indoctrinated model citizen? Is the God of Punishment the same as the God of Salvation? How do priests, imams and rabbis work with inmates who wish to return to faith? Lipika Pelham examines whether the Foucauldian phrase “soul is the prison of the body” offers a guideline to the modern criminal system for its rehabilitation programme. Traditionally, religious beliefs have inclined to the opposite,...
Jun 11, 2021•27 min
For 18 months reporter Fateh al-Rahman al-Hamdani filmed inside 23 Islamic schools, or khalwas, across Sudan for a BBC News Arabic investigation. He uncovered systemic child abuse, with boys as young as five years old routinely chained, shackled and beaten by the “sheikhs”, or religious men in charge of the schools. The investigation also found evidence of sexual abuse. We visit some of the nearly 30,000 Sudanese khalwas, where children are taught to memorise the Koran. The schools receive money...
Jun 04, 2021•27 min
A year after George Floyd's death, what positives and negatives can Black Christians take away from the tragic series of events that unfolded? In the year since, many black Christian groups have been at the forefront of large protests across the US. Leaders, the media and people from all communities have engaged in conversations about the future of race relations in United States. In addition, churches and church leaders began to work together to understand, to learn, and instigate change. But h...
May 28, 2021•27 min
Bob Dylan was brought up in a Jewish household in the American Midwest, but kept his faith away from the spotlight of his professional counter-culture persona. That was until the late 1970s when he converted to evangelical Christianity and released an album that shared his born again beliefs with the world. We join his childhood friend, Louie Kemp, as we delve into why the boy he met at a Jewish summer camp turned to Christianity. We hear from Regina McCray, his backing singer from the time, who...
May 21, 2021•28 min
He was once the third most powerful Catholic in the world, overseeing financial reform at the Vatican. But for Cardinal George Pell, the fall from grace was hard when he was accused, convicted, and imprisoned for sexual abuse in his home country of Australia. It was a huge blow for the Catholic church across Australia. Abuse victim groups celebrated his conviction, however not everyone was convinced, and a debate began to rage as to the credibility of the accusations levied against him, as well ...
May 14, 2021•27 min
The death of George Floyd Jr in May 2020 started a wave of unforeseen protests. As these protests consumed the United States, groups of people from various beliefs, backgrounds and origins came out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, which started in 2014. A year later, under a new US president, the US still faces the same challenges even though police officer Derek Chauvin has been found guilty with murder, many still believe that they are still fighting against institutionalised rac...
May 07, 2021•27 min
France is on its way to passing The Bill Comforting the Respect of Republican Principles, one of the most controversial laws of President Macron’s presidency. It aims to fight back against what Emmanuel Macron and his ministers are calling “Islamist separatism”, what he says is an assault by Islamist extremists on the values of the French Republic. John Laurenson meets people on both sides of this fractious debate. He visits a closed-down Paris school that its head teacher says is an early victi...
Apr 30, 2021•27 min
Villagers believe Prince Philip is returning to his ancestral home on their Pacific island. In a handful of villages on the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu, he has been revered as an ancestral spirit and son of their mountain god, and they have been waiting for him to return to them, either in person during his lifetime or in spirit form after his death. The prince never visited the island of Tanna, but letters, photographs and gifts were exchanged over the years and the prince met a delegation of i...
Apr 23, 2021•27 min
For thousands of years Jews have sought to understand the Bible, with all its inconsistencies and contradictions, through “midrash”. Midrash is a combination of interpretation and teaching based on the written texts of the Old Testament that tell the story of the ancient Hebrews, from the creation of the world, through God making his covenant with Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt, the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple and the exile to Babylon. As what it means to be Jewish has changed over the ...
Apr 09, 2021•27 min
The world watched on as Pope Francis embarked on what he called a pilgrimage to the Middle East, a journey that could possibly be the Holy Father's legacy. Despite worries of the Covid pandemic and the real threat of a terrorist attack, Pope Francis became the first pontiff in history to visit Iraq. Standing among rubble and ruins in the devastated city of Mosul where ISIS took root and threatened to behead him, Pope Francis proclaimed "hope is more powerful than hatred, that peace more powerful...
Apr 02, 2021•27 min
Everyone tells five-year-old Shira Malka she looks just like her dad. She has his green eyes. But she’s never met him, because he died seven years before she was born. Shira was conceived through posthumous reproduction, where a child is created from the frozen sperm or eggs of a person who has died. The practice is banned in some places, tightly restricted in others. But Israel - a country that leads the world in assisted reproduction - is testing the boundaries on allowing this new method of f...
Mar 30, 2021•26 min
