Everyman

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.

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.