Heart and Soul

The BBC World Service is in the city to hear youthful voices with a variety of views on their faith.

Islam is the second largest religion in France. In a nation that separates state and religion what does a French Muslim identity look like? In this unique and timely programme, Heart and Soul Gathering on the BBC World Service, hears from a group of young Muslims with a variety of different faith perspectives and backgrounds. Together with a studio audience, they discuss personal faith and experience.

Presented by Somaya Nasr and Produced by Louise Clarke-Rowbotham for the BBC World Service.

Image: A young woman takes a photograph with a smartphone outside The Grande Mosque in Paris. Credit: Getty/ZAKARIA ABDELKAFI / Contributor

Can you remain committed to your religion even it it does not accept your sexuality? Jane Little meets two well-known writers who have publicly wrestled with their faiths and been forced to make choices on whether to stay or go.

How is it that two people can share the same experiences and events and it have such different effects on their faith?

Jane Little meets two men who both answered the call after 9/11 to join the War on Terror, but who came out of it with very different ideas about their relationship with God.

Rory Fanning and Jesse Bowman both served in the US Army and witnessed the worst that war could throw up. One of them lost his previously unshakeable Catholicism, the other found comfort from the psychological trauma in God.

Image: Young US Army soldiers attend a Sunday morning Catholic service on base at Fort Levinworth in Kansas in February 2003 (Credit: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images)

When Colin Brazier lost his wife Jo to cancer last summer, he felt pressure to put his grief on show, to make her funeral a celebration.

As much of Europe and the US becomes more secular, Colin explores the modern funeral and the growth of the personalised, celebratory service, in contrast to the service he organised for Jo. With pall bearers dressed as super-heroes and wakes at McDonalds, is death being given its true state, and should it be a time to celebrate?

In a highly personal programme, Colin talks to non-believers too, and asks how they navigate death without the framework of religion to guide them.

Presenter: Colin Brazier

Picture: Jo Brazier. Credit: Colin Brazier

It was the response of Jewish organisations that was possibly most telling the day after last year's Tree of Life shooting. President Trump wasn’t welcome in Pittsburgh unless, that is, he denounced the language of white nationalism.

Producer and Presenter: David McGuire

Kenya is home to the majority of the world's Quakers and it is vibrant and noisy, much different from the quiet, contemplative religion most of us know.

Audrey Brown has been to the spiritual home of the Quaker faith, Kaimosi to learn how it landed, spread and flourished.

Audrey meets the Kenyan worshippers as well some visiting German Quakers and listens in as they debate the importance, or not, of God.

Picture: A Quaker in Kenya Credit: BBC

Daryl Davis collects Ku Klux Klan memorabilia – KKK robes, hoods and masks. He says they are given to him by those leaving the white supremacist organisation, after he has spent time befriending them and persuading them to change their views. Heart and Soul hears from Daryl about what drives him, his Christian faith and concerns about racial division within the church, and from Scott Shepherd, one of those he helped to leave the KKK.

Mike Wooldridge asks if Daryl is doing ‘the right thing’. His critics complain that his testifying in court in defence of violent extremists is a step too far, and that he would be better joining with others in calling for political change. But Daryl maintains that the sometimes risky meetings he initiates, for which he calls upon God’s protection, are a good way of changing people’s minds.

(Photo: Daryl Davis, 59, poses with a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe in the foreground, 2017. Credit: Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images)

On 12 February 1993 Mary Johnson’s only son, 20-year-old Laramiun Byrd, was murdered. The perpetrator was 16-year-old Oshea Israel, who received a 25-year sentence for second degree murder. Many years later Mary visited Oshea in prison, and after his release in 2010 they lived as neighbours in the Northside community of Minneapolis – and developed a strong bond. Mary, driven by her Christian faith, now runs From Death to Life, an organisation she founded to promote healing and reconciliation between families of victims and those who have caused harm.

Mike Wooldridge hears from Mary, who says Oshea is her ‘spiritual son’, from Oshea who explains how transformative the initial meeting with Mary was, and from the mothers of murderers and victims of murder as they come together to share their pain.

When people talk about America’s opioid epidemic, they often focus on the record number of drug related overdose deaths – 72,000 last year – or the growing number of court cases against the drug manufacturers. But for a lot of people there is another story – that of their personal struggle against addiction. And for many of them, that means holding fast to their faith. What part can faith play in helping those who are determined to make a change, and how does it contribute to the fight against the opioid epidemic in America?

In Louisville, Kentucky, the churches play their part in the recovery services. Louisville is sometimes called the recovery centre of Kentucky, and we find out more about different approaches, and also contrasting views in treatments. Medication assisted approaches use the drug Suboxone but some centres do not agree with using drugs to treat drugs. Some depend on faith alone.

Image: A train passes through Lawrenceburg, Kentucky (Credit: Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)

The secretive state of North Korea is routinely named as the worst place in the world to be a Christian. Fuelled and bank-rolled by American evangelists, Christianity has experienced massive growth in South Korea. For the most part it is laser-like-focused on the establishment of one Korea, so all Christians on this peninsular can pray without fear.

There are an estimated three hundred thousand Christians in North Korea all praying secretly, knowing that if they are found out they will be taken away to one of the country's notorious labour camps.

Rebecca Henschke hears how Christians in the South smuggle in bibles and broadcast Christian messages for the secret worshippers, who are preparing for the day that they will be able to spread God's word openly into the North and beyond.

But not all Christians here around Seoul want unification – North Korea is still the enemy for them and they have witnessed the south become a prosperous, developed, well-educated country.

Relations between North Korea and the US are continually surprising and conflicting. The role of the millions of Christians in the south could be vital; for many of them reunification is God's will, regardless of what the politicians decide.

Presenter: Rebecca Henschke

Picture credit: A Christian woman prays in Seoul/Getty Images