Heart and Soul: Faith Perspectives: Recent Episodes
BBC
Explore the role of faith, spirituality and religious practice in the lives of people around the world. Heart and Soul offers insights into personal life stories, current events and trends, and explores where these intersect with religious practice and values. Covering all major religions, it offers valuable insights into how different faith communities think and live, as well as discussion of ethical matters. Regular presenters include Christopher Landau; Richard Coles; and Michael Ford. Broadcast weekly on Saturdays.
In the heyday of the Sikh Empire, Kirtan - Sikh hymns - were performed using stringed instruments such as the sarangi, rabab and taus. The rich, complex tones these instruments create are said to evoke a deeper connection to Waheguru (God). But in the late 19th Century, these traditional instruments were replaced by European imports like the harmonium.
Now a new generation of diaspora Sikhs is painstakingly rebuilding that musical heritage - restoring scores and gathering to teach and learn traditional instruments. In 2022, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal authority for Sikhs, signalled a revival of stringed instruments in the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine. But can they attract and train enough musicians to put strings back at the heart of Sikh worship?
Monika Plaha meets one these musical pioneers, Harjinder Singh Lallie, and finds out how his beliefs fuel his work and how his music shapes his faith.
Producer: Rachel Briggs and Ajai Singh
Presenter: Monika Plaha
Editor: Helen Grady
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Come with us! Heart and Soul is moving and we would love it if you can join us. You can now find all our episodes on The Documentary, the home of original, global storytelling, from the BBC World Service. Search for The Documentary, wherever you found this podcast, and don’t forget to subscribe or follow.
Mexico has become the most dangerous country in the world to be a Catholic priest. In the past 15 years, 50 were killed in narco-related violence. And the young men who enter the priesthood in the region of western Mexico known as Tierra Caliente, meaning "hot land", are at particular risk. They will have to work in drug cartel-controlled communities, may have gang leaders or members in their congregations and will struggle with the ethical and theological dilemmas of publicly condemning these men’s actions at the risk of being murdered for speaking out. Even baptisms or delivering communion or receiving donations can prove extremely threatening: to refuse them any of the most sacred rituals of the Church is to defy the cartels. And few live to tell the tale having refused to bend to the cartels’ demands.
The BBC’s Mexico Correspondent, Will Grant travels to Tierra Caliente to meet a group of seminarians. In recent years, their director was attacked and almost killed. Members of a drug cartel entered their seminary, dragged off one of their colleagues and murdered him in the surrounding countryside. And the grave to one of their instructors is nestled by the chapel. All reminders, if any were needed, that these young men are about to join the world’s most dangerous priesthood. How are they prepared? Do they appreciate just what they are letting themselves in for? And how will they tackle the thorny ethical and spiritual questions which lie ahead as priests?
Come with us! Heart and Soul is moving and we would love it if you can join us. You can now find all our episodes on The Documentary, the home of original, global storytelling, from the BBC World Service. Search for The Documentary, wherever you found this podcast, and don’t forget to subscribe or follow.
Gwen was brought up as a strict evangelical Christian. She was taught that women needed to control the way they dressed and acted to control the behaviour of men. When she was sexually abused, she believed it was her fault. But when she first stepped into a nudist community, she felt free. She was naked, with other naked people, and her nakedness was not making other people molest her. She learnt that her body was not something she had to hide.
The BBC’s Josie Le Vay visits Gwen at her home in a nudist community in Florida, USA, as she reconciles with the harm purity culture has caused herself, and those she taught it to.
We meet Gwen’s neighbour, Michael, a retired chaplain and pastor, who runs nude bible reading sessions from his home and attends the nearby Garden of Eden church, which celebrates the ‘joy and innocence of Christian naturism’. And we hear how those who practise many of the evangelical teachings Gwen grew up with respond to her new nudist lifestyle; and her Christian friends who believe the Bible justifies their way of life.
Producer: Michael Gallagher
Presenter: Josie Le Vay
Editor: Helen Grady
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Come with us! Heart and Soul is moving and we would love it if you can join us. You can now find all our episodes on The Documentary, the home of original, global storytelling, from the BBC World Service. Search for The Documentary, wherever you found this podcast, and don’t forget to subscribe or follow.
The organ has always been a vehicle for truly cosmic ideas - for atheists and believers alike. Acclaimed Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna explores the idea that the instrument is simply a vehicle for Christian worship digging deeper into how the organ conveys ideas of the infinite and the microscopic, the existential and the personal, of celebration, grief and joy.
Presenter: Iveta Apkalna
Producer: Steven Rajam
An Overcoat Media production for BBC World Service
(Photo: A concert on a beach with the sun setting in the horizon. Credit: Steven Rajam)
When we think of division in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict normally comes straight to mind. But there’s a new and dangerous tension in Israel – between its own Jewish people. The country now has its most right-wing government for decades, with controversial figures who’ve advocated violence and divisive policies. There’s also a plan to change the judicial system to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a small number of government figures vast control. Its critics say Israel is in danger of becoming a ‘democratic dictatorship’.
This political shift is now pitting ordinary Israeli Jews against each other. The ultra-orthodox Haredim and their conservative supporters are at odds with more liberal elements of society. Former Defence Minister Benny Gantz – a powerful figure in the former government – has even raised the spectre of a civil war in Israel, telling the new politicians that they’ll be responsible if a new conflict breaks out.
As efforts are made to maintain peace and hold the country together, the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent Yolande Knell meets two rabbis who are odds with one another in the heart of Jerusalem. Surrounded by the religious iconography that should symbolise the links between them, she explores why the two ends of the spectrum now find themselves so far apart. And she tries to persuade them to come together over a meal to find out if there’s any way to bridge the gaping political and theological differences in their thinking. But will they be willing to meet?
Presenter: Yolande Knell
Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Helen Grady
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
It took Salimata Sylla three hours to get to the away fixture she was due to play with her basketball team mates from the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers. But it was only a few minutes before the match started that she learned she was going to sit the game out on the bench.
Despite playing for more than ten years in the French Championship, the federation that controls her sport decided to apply the rule that forbids female basketball players from wearing the hijab.
Her coach describes her as the backbone of the team and an ambassador for the sport. She’s been a face of basketball for many big brands on social media. And the hijab she wears is sold by mainstream sportswear manufacturers.
Salimata’s ban is the latest in country where the right to wear a hijab has long divided opinion. But in her case, it raises an interesting dilemma for France.
While domestic sporting federations enforce their ban on the hijab, their international counterparts have no such ban in place. So what will happen, Salimata wonders, when the Olympics come to Paris next year?
Reporter Claire Jones goes to Paris to meet Salimata to find out how she can resolve her wish to express her Muslim faith by wearing a hijab with her desire to play the sport she loves.
Presenter: Claire Jones
Producer: Helen Lee and Rob Cave
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Almost 10 years ago, Peter MacJob’s life changed forever. Born and raised a devout Christian like so many of his fellow Nigerians, he fell out of love with the Church and discovered the traditional Yoruba religion of his ancestors. Other Africans appear to be doing the same thing, both on the continent and throughout the diaspora. But as Peter has found, it is not always easy to convert: Ifá, or Isese, involves effigies, divination, and making offerings to a range of deities, up to and including animal sacrifice.
Those not initiated into the faith often see it as superstitious and even sinister. Devotees say that outsiders misunderstand, and complain that Ifá is pejoratively depicted as devil worship. It is perhaps little wonder that after Peter adopted Ifá, he chose not to tell his family about it. But now he has decided it is time to come clean, taking a trip back to Nigeria to confront childhood friends and loved ones, in the hope that they will give their blessing.
Presenter: Peter MacJob
Producer: Michael Gallagher
Strand producer: Rajeev Gupta
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Editor: Helen Grady
Aged four, Mary was playing in her parents’ front yard, when she was grabbed by “the government people” and taken to a Catholic boarding school to be turned into a Christian. She’s just one of thousands of Native Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes and put into boarding schools from the 1800s right up to the 1970s. According to a US government report, the purpose of these schools was to strip indigenous people of their spiritual beliefs, culture and land. A government investigation also found that physical, emotional and sexual abuse was “rampant”. Indigenous Americans’ spiritual beliefs are now experiencing a renaissance, but is this revival enough to enable Mary and her friends heal from a childhood of trauma in America’s residential schools?
Presenter: Leana Hosea
Producer: Leana Hosea with Rajeev Gupta
Production co-ordinator: Nancy Bennie
Editor: Helen Grady
When Mubarak Bala posts criticism of Islam on social media, it sparks a landmark legal case and leaves him facing 24 years in jail. Raised in a Muslim family, Mubarak is the son of an Islamic scholar in the religiously conservative Kano state. But in 2014, Mubarak renounces Islam and later becomes President of Nigeria’s Humanist Association, gaining a reputation as an outspoken critic of religion.
In 2020, a group of Muslim lawyers call for him to be tried for offences related to blasphemy over social media posts which they say insult the Prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam. With access to Mubarak’s wife and lawyers, the BBC’s Yemisi Adegoke follows his case through the Nigerian court system, finding out what it tells us about freedom of belief in a country where religious tensions run deep. She talks to other Nigerian atheists as they follow Mubarak’s case and wrestle with the challenges of being open about their beliefs in a deeply religious society.
Presenter: Yemisi Adegoke
Producers: Valeria Cardi and John Offord
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Editor: Helen Grady
(Photo: Mubarak Bala speaking at Kaduna Book and Arts Festival in 2018, still from the film The Cost of Being an Atheist)
In July 2000 Floyd Bledsoe was convicted of the murder of his 14-year-old sister-in-law in the small Kansas town of Oskaloosa. His older brother Tom had originally confessed to the killing, but later changed his story, accusing Floyd of the crime.
A committed Christian, Floyd spent the next 15 years fighting his conviction, and wrestling with the Bible’s teaching to forgive those who have done us wrong. Could he forgive Tom for what he had done? Or his parents, who had sided with one son over the other?
Mike Wooldridge speaks to Floyd about his ordeal and about his struggle to do the right thing by his faith. Mike also hears from a volunteer prison chaplain who helped Floyd resolve his dilemma, and from a family friend who stuck by Floyd when others in his own church turned their backs on him.
Producer: Mike Lanchin
A CTVC production for the BBC World Service
Archive material courtesy of the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World
(Photo: Floyd Bledsoe, 2015. Credit: Midwest Innocence Project)
Contains graphic details of sexual violence against women and children
As a young boy, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege witnessed his father, a Pentecostal pastor, praying for a sick child. It made him want to help people who suffer – not as a pastor, despite his own Christian faith, but as a doctor.
Fast forward to 1999, and Denis Mukwege founded Panzi hospital in Bukavu, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the Rwandan border. There, over the last 20 years, he has treated tens of thousands of women with gynaecological trauma, caused by the extreme sexual violence which has become a weapon of war in this volatile part of the world. Rich in coveted mineral resources, the area is the scene of a large-scale conflict involving countless armed rebel groups.
But Dr Mukwege was not just helping women; he was also speaking out against the cruelty of this conflict. This led to several attempts on his life. Fearing for his family, Denis Mukwege went into exile, but the women who saw him as their only hope launched a big campaign to persuade him to return.
Mike Wooldridge talks to Denis Mukwege about his life’s work and how his Christian faith has motivated him to disregard his own safety and bring new hope to women who, without his help, would be looking ahead to a life of ostracism and pain.
If you have been affected by sexual abuse or violence, details of help and support in the UK is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.
Producer: Lore Wolfson Windemuth
A CTVC production for the BBC World Service
(Photo: Dr Mukwege. Credit: Alexis Huguet/Panzi Foundation)
The Ásatrú faith is Iceland's fastest growing religion. Drawing on Norse mythology, it is a pagan faith open to all. But in recent years it has been hijacked by white supremacists in other countries. We follow High Priest, Hilmar Hilmarsson, as he attempts to tackle this critical challenge and protect his faith’s true origins.
When white supremacists marched through Charlottesville in 2017, Hilmar looked on from Reykjavik. It was not just their racist message that worried him. It was the fact their banners bore the symbols of his faith such as Thor's hammer. Ásatrú, according to Hilmar, emphasises respect and tolerance, reviving polytheistic traditions and the worship of gods and goddesses from Iceland’s pre-Christian past.
Thanks to his position and the fact he has become so well respected both inside and beyond Iceland, Hilmar has an authority recognised by the Icelandic state to conduct weddings and funerals and lead the rituals or "blots" that the group practise to mark the passing year - a 21st Century reimagining of how pre-Christian Norse people celebrated their seasons. We join him as the community gather around him and prepare for the welcoming of the winter blot.
But Hilmar has also received disturbing messages and even death threats from far- right pagans in the US, Germany and Canada who do not agree with his inclusive belief system and his support for gay marriage and LGBTQ rights. We follow him as he looks forward to the opening of the group’s first temple while under pressure to distance the religion from white supremacy.
Producer: Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC World Service
(Photo: High Priest Hilmar Hilmarsson. Credit: Gavin Haines)
Nepal has one of fastest growing Christian communities in the world. Helping to drive the growth are South Korean missionaries like Pang Chang-in and his wife Lee Jeong-hee. The couple’s work spreading the word of Jesus is risky. Those found guilty of converting people face up to five years in jail in Nepal.
The BBC’s Asia editor Rebecca Henschke and Korean journalist Kevin Kim follow the couple as they open new churches and teach the next generation of Nepali Christian leaders. This is a rare insight into an organised and increasingly controversial Korean mission, spreading the Christian faith high in the Himalayans.
Presented by: Rebecca Henschke
Produced with: Kevin Kim, Rajan Parajuli, Rama Parajuli and Rajeev Gupta
Iran has seen months of protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was detained by the country's ‘morality police’ (Gasht-e Ershad) on 16 September, three days after her arrest in Tehran. As women-led protests intensify, with calls for freedom against strict dress codes and mandatory hijab, and demands for regime change, Heart and Soul brings together three Iranian women from different walks of life. The BBC’s Faranak Amidi leads the conversation which explores religion, personal faith and the struggle for independence from state-controls on religious practices.
Image: An Iranian flag (Credit: Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images)
For centuries, Poland was home to millions of Jews in the heart of Europe. Decades after the horrors of the Holocaust, questions of lost identity have arisen. What is it like to be a third-generation Jew in present-day Poland? We meet Małgorzata, who was born into a Jewish family in the late 1980s. She says being a Jew in Poland today means people think you are neither truly Jewish, nor Polish. She is just one of millions of third-generation Jewish people across Central Europe attempting to make sense of an identity that cannot be changed, reversed or erased.
Producer: Bartosz Panek
Presenter: John Beauchamp
A Free Range and Overcoat Media Co-production for BBC World Service
(Photo: Małgorzata, with kind permission)
Alvaro Enciso is an artist. He arrived in the US from Colombia in the 1960s and now lives in Tucson, Arizona on the edge of the unforgiving Sonoran Desert. If you are a migrant, this is one of the deadliest places to journey across the border from Mexico into the United States. Many of those who begin that lengthy walk will not make it – thousands have died in the attempt. Alvaro Enciso feels a very human connection to those lives lost. So every Tuesday, he does something extraordinary. Together with a group of volunteers, Alvaro motors off-road through the dust and the cacti, and plants painted, wooden crosses in the precise locations where Undocumented Border Crossers have taken their last breaths. For Heart and Soul, Linda Pressly travels into the Sonoran Desert with Alvaro Enciso and his team.
Producer & presenter: Linda Pressly
Producer in Arizona: Tim Mansel
(Photo: Alvaro Enciso with one of his crosses. Credit: Tim Mansel)
In traditional Maasai culture one of the central figures of the community is the laibon. A laibon is a person who has been gifted with the power to see the future. They are not really a fortune teller and they are certainly not a witch doctor. They are more like a seer, but some also have the power to cure illnesses. A laibon is the one who advises the community as a whole on the best course of action to take in a given situation. For example, they can use their powers to say where the community’s cattle should be taken in order to find better grazing when there’s a drought. They are the ones who can pronounce when the time is right for important ceremonies. Today hardly any laibon remain.
There is still one though. Called Mokompo, he is today an elderly man who lives in one of the remotest corners of Kenya, far from towns, villages, and surfaced roads. Although very few Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania have ever met him, he continues to command huge respect. In this programme journalist Stuart Butler travels to Kenya to meet Mokompo and find out the spiritual secrets of one the country's last laibons.
(Photo: Mokompo. Credit: Stuart Butler)
According to some studies, journalists tend to be less religious than the general population. Some find solace in faith, but others begin to question it. So is it a profession which challenges your religious convictions, strengthens faith or attracts the faithless?
Atif Rashid, a Muslim, has started questioning his role as a journalist who believes in god. What place does religion have in the work that he does? To help him consider his future career steps he speaks to other journalists who have turned to god and others who have questioned their beliefs after seeing so much suffering as foreign correspondents. He meets other young Muslim reporters from the USA and the UAE and asks how their jobs impact their faith. And also catches up with two of his former editors - who quit their jobs to lead a more spiritual lifestyle one as a vicar and another as a monk. Along the way, he considers whether he should follow the same path.
BBC Hong Kong reporter Danny Vincent hears from Christian migrants who have fled the territory for a new life in the UK. Many of the people Danny hears from are speaking about their experiences for the first time. A large number of Christians have made the difficult decision to leave Hong Kong after the introduction of a controversial national security law, which critics say is eroding freedoms in Hong Kong. Danny also meets their friends and family who have been left behind, the Christians still worshipping in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was a British colony for 156 years until it was returned to Chinese control on 1 July, 1997. China formed the special administrative region of Hong Kong, which had maintained governance and economic systems separate from those of China's communist regime.
Around 600 UK churches of different denominations have signed up to be “Hong Kong Ready”, welcoming Christians from Hong Kong into their church communities. One in 10 of new arrivals is estimated to be Christian.
In the internet age, the traditional way Thailand’s monks reach out to young followers is under threat.
With nearly three quarters of Thailand’s population on Facebook, a move by two monks to broadcast their teachings live has created controversy, and exposed a growing schism within the religion. It ultimately leads one of the men to turn his back on the temple.
As more monks turn to social media in a bid to revolutionise how the Dharrma is taught, is the resignation of Thailand’s most popular internet monk a sign that traditional Buddhism must modernise, or face becoming irrelevant to the country’s young population?
And what message does this national scandal have for those who blur the line between what can and can’t be said by Buddhism’s holy men?
In this programme Thai reporter Chaiyot Yongcharoenchai hears from 30 year old monk, Phra Maha Paivan Worawono from Bangkok who landed himself in trouble after he appeared in his sermons to laugh and joke, as he poked fun at current affairs and politics.
The Buddhist authorities did not find the sessions amusing after more than 200,000 people had logged on to watch. As the broadcasts brought attacks from MP’s and political activists who claimed Phra Maha Paivan Worawono, claims the men had monkhood into disrepute lead to an investigation by the National Office for Buddhism.
Theravada Buddhism’s practiced by more than 95% of Thai people. But living as a monk is no easy task. Hundreds of rules dictate every aspect of the lives of Thailand’s 300,000 monks - including the principle that they shouldn’t laugh.
It’s the role of these religious men to teach the path of the Dharmma; right view, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right diligence, right mindfulness and right concentration.
The fundamental rule has been that monks should not comment on non-religious affairs. We hear why these Monks have broken that tradition and the implications of their decisions.
(Photo: Thai monk Sompong. Credit: Thai News Pics)