Heart and Soul

By BBC World Service

Religion & Spirituality

What's Heart and Soul about?

Personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

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Heart and Soul episodes:

04.21.2023
The Church's slave plantation: Part one
What are the consequences of the Church of England's historic slave plantations in Barbados today? Theologian Robert Beckford considers why and how the Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, got involved in the slavery business....
04.14.2023
Sikhism’s lost song
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...
04.07.2023
Clergy in cartel land
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...
03.31.2023
Purity to nudity
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....
03.24.2023
My hijab or my sport
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...
03.17.2023
An instrument speaking to the infinite
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...
03.15.2023
Two Rabbis, worlds apart in Israel
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...
03.02.2023
Coming out of the Ifá closet
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...
02.17.2023
Stripped of my spirituality
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...
02.10.2023
The cost of being an atheist in Nigeria
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...
02.03.2023
The Right Thing: Framed by my brother
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...
01.27.2023
The Right Thing: Opposing sexual violence as a weapon of war
**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 –...
01.20.2023
The Viking priest
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,...
01.13.2023
The battle for souls in Nepal
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...
12.26.2022
Christmas with the cooking priest
Fr Leo Patalinghug is not your typical priest. In one hand he holds a cross, in the other a cooking spatula. With his own international TV show, YouTube channel and cookbooks, this apron-wearing minister is on a mission – to...
12.19.2022
The Iran protests
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...
12.09.2022
Poland's Jews: Caught between, never home
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...
12.02.2022
Arizona's desert crosses
Alvaro Enciso is a Vietnam veteran, and an artist. He arrived in the US from Colombia in his 20s, and now lives in Tucson, on the south-eastern edge of the unforgiving Sonoran Desert. If you’re a migrant, this...
11.25.2022
Turtle Island and the Black Snake
Native American Anishinaabe people have been living around the Great Lakes since time immemorial, following spiritual beliefs centred around the water. But they say their way of life is being threatened by an oil pipeline sitting on the bed of...
11.18.2022
One scoop or two
Artist Annie Nicholson's life and work have been shaped by loss after her family were killed in a helicopter crash in New York City in 2011. The grief was overwhelming, but slowly she found a way to live her creative...
11.11.2022
Dying in Varanasi
Varanasi is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world and considered the spiritual capital of India. While also holy to Buddhists, Jains and many other sects, it is the most sacred city in Hinduism. Said to have...
11.04.2022
Me, my autism and cults
By the time Richard Turner was in his mid-30s, he’d given away nearly all of his money to a church. Everything he held dear had been stripped bare by a religious community in the UK which claimed to have his...
10.21.2022
Diwali in Leicester
The English city of Leicester hosts the largest Diwali celebrations outside India. More than 40,000 people gather every year to see the Diwali lights switch on in Belgrave Road. People of all faiths and none attend, but for Leicester’s Hindus,...
10.14.2022
From riches to religion
Patrick van der Vorst was a tech multi-millionaire, and had been the head auctioneer at the world famous Sotheby's auction house in London selling tens of millions of pounds worth of art including the contents of Elton John's house. Then...
09.30.2022
God and hip-hop
Christianity and Hip Hop have a long and complex relationship. From Kanye’s Jesus Walks to the development of Christian Hip Hop, artists rapping about their faith has caused controversy in a genre that’s known for its violent oversexualised lyrics. ...
09.23.2022
Spiritualism and the soul
Twenty-one-year-old journalism graduate, Saskia Masaun has been attending meditation, mediumship and healing classes at the Spiritualists National Union (SNU) Church in Wolverhampton, UK, since she was 16, alongside her spiritualist mother. Saskia explains how her faith, which includes...
08.26.2022
Green Islam
There are hundreds of verses in the Quran calling on Muslims to protect the environment. Islam teaches that everyone is a custodian of nature and should treat the natural environment with respect and care. Sustainability has been part of the...
08.19.2022
Hindus, hate and hashtags
Vishva Samani meets young Hindus in the diaspora who believe their faith is being misunderstood and who speak out against what they say is ‘Hinduphobia’. While some academics claim the term is used to silence dissent, online hate directed towards...
08.12.2022
The last Afghan Sikhs
Once Afghanistan’s Sikh population numbered more than 100,000 in the 1970's. Today, it’s estimated around only 100 Sikhs remain, following the return to Taliban rule. The BBC’s Kawoon Khamoosh speaks to those who have been forced to leave in recent...
08.12.2022
Qawwali: Music of the soul
Raees Khan explores the history, influence and enduring legacy of Qawwali music, both within, as well as outside of the Islamic World. From its earliest origins in the writings of Sufi Saints, to its spread throughout South Asia we look...
08.05.2022
The bible, black women and Brazil
Evangelical Christian women of colour were the kingmakers in Brazil’s last presidential election. In May, a corruption conviction that barred the former left wing President from running was quashed on a technicality. And the stage is now set for an...
07.29.2022
The Deadly Sacrifice at Hawkes Bay
In February 1983, a group of 42 Shia devotees left a quiet village in the Chakwal district of Pakistan and embarked on an epic journey to Karbala in Iraq. This was no ordinary pilgrimage but had been ordained by Mahdi,...
07.22.2022
How do I explain this?
Writer and poet Nikita Gill and sitar virtuoso and composer Anoushka Shankar are friends and collaborators whose life stories share many parallels. In this programme, recorded sitting with tea and doughnuts on the floor of a child’s bedroom, they share...
07.15.2022
Conversion Norway-style
In 2007 Christian and Muslim leaders in Norway controversially recognised for the first time in modern history, the right to convert between the two faiths without harassment or impediment. They also called for all missionary work to be conducted “without...
07.08.2022
No country for Azov Greeks
Fleeing from the war-torn Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, Afina Khadzynova is trying to reconnect to her Greek roots in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The ethnic Greek community has been in Mariupol since the 18th Century. Up until February of...
07.01.2022
Faith in science
CERN, in Geneva, is the most complex scientific experiment in the world. It has just restarted operating after a break, and is celebrating the 10th anniversary of detecting the Higgs Boson, a particle that is the final piece in the...
06.24.2022
The Church's slave plantation: Part two
In the second part of this two part series looking at the role of the Church of England in Barbados, Professor Robert Beckford explores the Christian understanding of reparations. Where does the idea come from in Scripture? Has the Anglican...
06.10.2022
LGBTQ+: Religion and me
We explore the interplay of faith, spirituality and LGBTQ+ identity in this special episode for Pride Month 2022. We hear three fascinating cross-cultural and religious conversations between people who are also LGBTQ+. Furgie was raised a Muslim as a child...
05.27.2022
After ISIS: Reviving the Jewish history of Mosul
When ISIS swept into Mosul in June 2014, the organisation immediately began a campaign to wipe out the most important part of the northern Iraqi city’s unique heritage - its a multi-sectarian culture. Mosul was home to ancient and modern...
05.20.2022
Finding faith on a warship
BBC Faith and Ethics reporter Claire Jones has been granted exclusive access on board British warship HMS Northumberland while on deployment to the North Sea. As Russian troops continue to invade Ukraine, Claire explores faith on a warship, and...
05.13.2022
Kenya's last great Laibon
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...
05.06.2022
Faith in journalism
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...
04.29.2022
Not even water?
It is the number one question asked to anyone who is fasting for Ramadan, which began at the beginning of April. But what is Ramadan? Why Fast? And how do young Muslims manage Ramadan in their respective lives and work? ...
04.22.2022
Emancipation, assimilation and Jewish identity
For 500 years the Jews of Europe were kept apart, legally segregated in ghettos. Then at the dawn of the 19th Century Jews were emancipated and overnight what it meant to be a Jew in the world changed. Michael Goldfarb...
04.15.2022
Ukraine: Faith in a time of war
Easter and Passover are among the most important religious festivals of the year for Christians and Jews. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how will the people of faith still left in the country celebrate? Is it possible to...
03.25.2022
Saving Albania's trafficked victims
For 16 years Sister Imelda Poole has been fighting in a war. This war has brought her to countries all over the world and just when she thinks she is making progress, the war game changes. Based in Albania, during...
03.18.2022
Young Hindus
What does it mean to be a young Hindu in India today? The BBC’s South Asia correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan is in Delhi with a panel of young people aged between 18-27 who have travelled from across India to share what...
03.13.2022
Germany's turbulent priest
The German Catholic church is one of the most influential and richest in the world. It is at the epicentre of Catholic theology, debates over the future of the church, and the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic...
02.25.2022
The Sikh whistleblower
Pav Gill, a Sikh lawyer living in Singapore, joined the Wirecard financial services empire in 2017. Wirecard had global ambitions to become a big player like Google or Amazon. But it did not take long until Pav realised that there...
02.18.2022
Muslim and lesbian
From an early age, Fatima Daas knew that she was different. Raised in a strict Algerian Muslim family in the poor suburbs of Paris, she struggled to reconcile the feelings she was developing with her devotion to her faith. Her...

What's Heart and Soul about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Heart and Soul episodes:

The Church's slave plantation: Part one

Sikhism’s lost song

Clergy in cartel land

Purity to nudity

My hijab or my sport

An instrument speaking to the infinite

Two Rabbis, worlds apart in Israel

Coming out of the Ifá closet

Stripped of my spirituality

The cost of being an atheist in Nigeria

The Right Thing: Framed by my brother

The Right Thing: Opposing sexual violence as a weapon of war

The Viking priest

The battle for souls in Nepal

Christmas with the cooking priest

The Iran protests

Poland's Jews: Caught between, never home

Arizona's desert crosses

Turtle Island and the Black Snake

One scoop or two

Dying in Varanasi

Me, my autism and cults

Diwali in Leicester

From riches to religion

God and hip-hop

Spiritualism and the soul

Green Islam

Hindus, hate and hashtags

The last Afghan Sikhs

Qawwali: Music of the soul

The bible, black women and Brazil

The Deadly Sacrifice at Hawkes Bay

How do I explain this?

Conversion Norway-style

No country for Azov Greeks

Faith in science

The Church's slave plantation: Part two

LGBTQ+: Religion and me

After ISIS: Reviving the Jewish history of Mosul

Finding faith on a warship

Kenya's last great Laibon

Faith in journalism

Not even water?

Emancipation, assimilation and Jewish identity

Ukraine: Faith in a time of war

Saving Albania's trafficked victims

Young Hindus

Germany's turbulent priest

The Sikh whistleblower

Muslim and lesbian

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