Everyman

The dervishes are best known for ' whirling ': a spinning dance that is also a mystical exercise. Dervishes are the mystics of Islam - a religion in worldwide revival. Britain has a large immigrant Muslim population, but very few converts to Islam. This film features a group of British people who have become dervishes (also known as ' Sufis '), a process which includes a conversion to Islam, and who now live according to the teachings of the Koran.

In the 19th century, this view united liberal reformers of the factory system with working men struggling to improve their conditions: both wanted women out of the factories and back in the home. Then, as now, even Biblical texts could be used to back this view. But women have always needed to earn money, and for years manufacturers have made use of their dilemma, giving out work to women to do in their own homes. Working unseen in the back room, these women are isolated and vulnerable, torn between the demands of employers and home. This Everyman film tries to portray the life of the home worker in the Britain of 1981.

When new recruits in the Israeli army are sworn in at a ceremony by the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, they are given a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other. The army rabbi delivers a sermon explaining that the gun can be pure if it is used for defence and the cause is just. To explore this theme, Everyman went to elite commando units of the Israeli army. This is the first time they have allowed themselves to be filmed because of the secrecy and controversial nature of their work. Their task is to make regular raids into Lebanon, kill members of the PLO and blow up the houses of anybody sheltering them. These units operate on literal and metaphorical borders. They defend Israel's land and sea borders; and they exist on the borders between life and death and between what might be considered as legitimate killing and murder. The film explores the relationship between their belief as Jews and their work as professional soldiers.

Jews all over the world feel a deep emotional loyalty to Israel and when one of them criticises the state, many see this as a betrayal. Chaim Bermant , a British novelist and journalist, is a committed Zionist, yet he frequently speaks out against some of Israel's policies and attitudes. This film attempts to understand why he feels he cannot remain silent: CHAIM BERMANT and his family talk about their feelings for Judaism and the Promised Land as they prepare in north London for a major Jewish festival.

One in ten of the population is likely to spend some time in a mental institution, and yet fear and ignorance about mental illness are as widespread as ever. A mental hospital resonates with the ' ultimate' questions which most of us are able to keep safely buried, as we strive to lead a ' normal, balanced' life. This film offers an inside look at a ward in Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, which has long had a reputation for its radical approach. Their aim is to involve the patients in making decisions about their own problems, rather than simply drugging them into orderly behaviour and submission. The film is a portrait of how patients and staff confront despair and how they work to find a path through it.

This film is the story of a young woman from Japan who seems to be fulfilling a very strange religious destiny. Kiyokazu Kitamura, who is 30, Western-educated and an accomplished musician, is the grand-daughter of a woman who founded a new worldwide religion in 1945. Kiyokazu is her successor - the spiritual leader of three-quarters of a million people and known to her followers as Himegamisama - 'Princess Goddess'. Yet she admits that she does not feel she herself is divine and the role she has to play is a great strain.

Each week countless church congregations recite the Creed, a statement of belief mainly written 14 centuries ago. But now, theologians seem to put question marks against apparently central and familiar facts; so what does it mean and does it matter? Hans Kiing and Edward Schille beeckx are two of the most controversial Christian thinkers to have contributed to the tremors shaking the Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century. Though their books are read avidly by believers and non-believers alike, they have incurred the wrath of the Vatican . Peter France meets the two so-called ' heretics ' to find out what they think the Christian can believe.

Everyman has been to El Salvador to get first-hand evidence of the Church's involvement in the struggle; an involvement that has led to the murder of priests and nuns, lay workers and an Archbishop, has driven many priests underground or into exile, but which provides the only sense of hope for this bitterly-divided country.

Thousands of people are in jail in dozens of countries because they hold religious and political beliefs, opinions or ideas not approved of by the ' authorities '. The imprisonment of these ' prisoners of conscience' is in violation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. This film tells the story of two men, Gustavo Westerkamp , held in Argentina for five years without trial, and Danylo Shumuk , who has been in jail in the USSR for over 35 years. It also shows the work of people fighting for the release of these two - and of the thousands of other individuals and groups who, under the umbrella of Amnesty International, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary, devote their spare time to working for the freedom of people they have never met. Written and presented by Vanya Kewley

What does our future hold? One thing seems certain, whether we suKer destruction or enjoy progress scientists have a major part to play in our fate. They are the ' future-makers ', changing, more than any other group, our economy, our environment, our whole way of being and thinking. But never before have they been so widety mistrusted. This film looks at a community of scientists working in that most controversial area - nuclear power - and investigates their ideas, their methods, their values.

The direction in which the Roman Catholic Church is moving in Latin America is worrying the Vatican. Military dictatorships are being overthrown with the active participation of priests; industrial disruption is condoned from the pulpit; Bishops and Archbishops support the use of violence. The Pope re-affirms the spiritual nature of the priesthood, but for three Irish priests the reality of a parish in Brazil has taken them a long way from their seminary days in Dublin.

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.

Since returning from the moon two of the Apollo astronauts - Jim Irwin and Charles Duke - have committed themselves to Christ. Other astronauts have testified to the strong spiritual impact the space experience made on them. For Ed Mitchell it led to the founding of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, dedicated to research into esp, parapsychology and the ' alternative ' sciences. In the first of 12 Everyman films we report on the other side of the space programme - not its machinery, but its meaning. Space exploration is still in its very early stages, but it has already made us view ourselves and our ' Spaceship Earth' in new ways. As space travel becomes commonplace what effect will it have on us? With the help of those who have already been there Everyman surveys our new home.

' Compulsive gambling ' is now recognised as an addictive state. The compulsive gambler lies, cheats and steals to get money to gamble, but cannot stop gambling until all the money is lost. In 1964 a Methodist minister introduced Gamblers Anonymous to Britain. It has proved itself to be a lifeline for the compulsive gambler - but first the gambler must reach ' rock bottom', the recognition that his addiction is beyond his control. Only then can his fellow-addicts, and GA's ' spiritual recovery programme', help him rebuild his life. Everyman reports from within the confessional meetings of Gamblers Anonymous.

Shortly after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, a portrait of a dark-skinned lady, known as the Virgin of Guadalupe, appeared on the coarse, cactus-fibre cloak of an Indian peasant. Today, 450 years later, this painting hangs behind bullet-proof glass in Mexico's largest cathedral, where it is revered as a living miracle. Earlier this year a team of American scientists, formerly assembled to investigate the Shroud of Turin, were given permission to conduct tests on the Virgin of Guadalupe. Everyman reports on the remarkable history of Mexico's national icon, on the scientists' tests, and on their controversial findings.

Early this year, in the ballroom of a London hotel, a thousand disciples of India's most notorious guru-Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh-gathered to proclaim what they believe is a revolutionary discovery: to achieve enlightenment, you don't have to suffer first. Religion can and should be fun. Rajneesh claims that Christianity is obsessed with suffering; by contrast he offers a religion of ' total life affirmation '. The tabloid papers hailed the London event as a ' Love-Cult Romp ' and a ' Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses Sex Orgy'. But is there more to the movement than the headlines and exposes suggest? Rajneesh has now left India to set up ' the largest spiritual community in the world'. '. Everyman examines the movement in England and asks: Does its growing popularity have something to tell us about the decline of conventional religion?

In 1949, at the age of 7, John Davis made his first communion. He was brought up in Dublin, and taught by the Christian Brothers. At 14 he went to sea, and so escaped his strict Catholic background. This year he returned to Dublin for the first time, as a film maker, to re-create on film the world of his Catholic childhood. Everyman follows this journey back to the Dublin of 30 years ago. Scenes from JOHN DAVIS 's film, and his own reflections on his past, evoke a vanished experience: an experience common to a whole generation of ordinary Irishmen.

This week the World Council o.f Churches is making an appeal for the displaced people of war-torn Angola. For the first time since South Africa's invasion of Angola, a documentary crew has toured the war zone, and the little-reported Central Provinces, where civil war is causing widespread starvation. South Africa believes it is making a stand against Marxism. The World Council of Churches believes it is making a stand against racism. Christians are beingolled upon to take sides. Everyman reports on the hard realities of a front-line state in southern Africa.

2:10 Genesis Fights Back BBC One logo BBC One Sun 22nd Nov 1981, 22:10 on BBC One London In the first chapter of Genesis the creation of the world takes place in six days. The earth is made first, then plants. The sun and moon are fixed in the sky and animals appear on earth. Last of all, on the sixth day God creates man. Since Darwin wrote the Origin of Species over 100 years ago most scientists have dismissed the Biblical view of creation as a religious myth with no basis in fact. But today an increasing number of people, often highly educated and scientifically trained, are dismissing Darwin and returning to Genesis. They describe themselves as ' Creationists They believe that the Bible is not only better religion, but better science. If they are right it will mean a radical change in our view of ourselves: a return to Bible-based morality and a new science that takes religion as its starting point. Everyman examines the issues.

'The Curse' is one of the commonest names for menstruation, something that happens to women once a month for at least 30 years of their lives. How has a natural process acquired such a name? From the earliest times of the Christian church, women were held to be 'the devil's gateway', the route through which evil comes into the world; still today in many countries, the taboo survives that excludes menstruating women from the practice of their religion. This Everyman film explores the tangle of ideas that conspires to make women feel their monthly period is something shameful, to be kept hidden.

Today more than ever, questions are being asked about the morality of nuclear weapons. A week ago in Amsterdam, the World Council of Churches summoned some of the world's leading theologians, together with experts in the field, to five days of public hearings on the issues raised by the deployment of nuclear weapons. Military experts outlined what we can do with nuclear weapons; theologians debated what we should do. What moral and religious grounds are there for deciding that the deployment of nuclear weapons is right, or wrong? Peter France reports for Everyman from Amsterdam.

Is it true that as a nation we are no longer sure what is right and what is wrong? Are we happy or miserable? Is ours a slack and permissive society, or do traditional British values still mean something? Three years ago the European Values Study Group decided to mount the world's biggest opinion survey. It's an inquiry into the beliefs, morals and attitudes of today. In total it represents the views of 210-million Europeans. Everyman reports on some of the most revealing British and European results.

Sixteen years ago Cliff Richard became a Christian. At the time the pop pundits predicted that his conversion would lose him his following among young people-but today Cliff is more popular than ever. In the final Everyman of this series, CLIFF RICHARD talks about the private side of his life and the claims that Christian morality makes on his personal philosophy, lifestyle and sexual conduct.