Everyman

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.