Heart and Soul

Warning: The following programme tells the stories of the child soldiers who took part in Indonesia’s religious conflict that erupted in the Moluccas in 1999. It is ultimately about peace and reconciliation, but a warning, there are graphic and potentially upsetting references to violence committed during that period

Hundreds of child militants are believed to have taken part in Indonesia’s bloodiest religious conflict.

On the island of Ambon there were roughly the same number of Christians and Muslims but in the 1970s, under a state sponsored programme, thousands of Muslims were moved there, In the chaotic years after the fall of President Soeharto, religious tension boiled over into deadly violence.

When the worst of the killings ended three years later, the children who had taken part in almost unimaginable atrocities were left living in deeply divided communities along religious lines.

Rebecca Henschke travels to Ambon, to meet two former child soldiers, Iskandar and Ronal, one Christian, one Muslim, who have been transformed from being killing machines to agents of peace, actively working to bring together the communities they once helped divide.

Photo: Ronal Reagan/BBC

How is faith tested at our weakest and most vulnerable moments? When Caroline Wyatt was 12 years old she announced she wanted to be the first female Pope. With that career path closed off to her she became a journalist and eventually the BBC’s Religious Affairs correspondent, going onto meet Pope Francis on a foreign trip

She now has Multiple Sclerosis, sending her spiralling into doubt about her faith. In a deeply personal programme she shares the battle she is fighting with her own body and her faith. Caroline sets out on a journey of exploration, seeking answers by talking to other people of different faiths to her but also facing a lifetime of chronic illness about how they reconcile their pain, suffering, fear and doubt with their beliefs.

Producer: Lissa Cook

Credit: Clip of Gutted with kind permission of Liz Richardson. Written by Liz Richardson and Tara Robinson, co-produced by The Conker Group and HOME Manchester.

(Photo: Candles. Credit: Getty Images)

Jerusalem is the most religiously contentious city in the world

On the weekend that Easter coincides with Passover and after President Trump’s controversial declaration of it as the capital of Israel, Lipika Pelham takes a journey around this contested city, talking to Jerusalemites who tell her how their faiths and lives are interconnected.

She meets the Muslim who for 40 years has kept the Dome of the Rock clean, the devoted Jews praying at the sacred walls to explore how they are waiting at that very spot for the Third Temple to be rebuilt, and at Easter she joins Christians to walk the route taken by Jesus to his eventual crucifixion on Good Friday

Producer and Presenter: Lipika Pelham

Photo: Dome of the Rock Credit: Getty Images

John McCarthy was held hostage for five years in Lebanon; it would test not only of his mental resolve but also his faith. In this three-part season for Heart and Soul John meets three people of three different religions held against their will. John talks to them about how their faith sustained them in their darkest hours of captivity, including physical and psychological torture. John shares his own experiences of being held in Beirut and how for him, the Bible was a crucial source of information, entertainment and comfort.

Shahbaz Taseer was a hostage for more than four and a half years after being kidnapped at gunpoint, only seven months after his father, Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, was assassinated by his own bodyguard for defending a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

In a remarkable interview for Faith in Freedom, Shahbaz tells John McCarthy how, having rejected Islam while growing up, he read the Quran for the first time in his cell, with only his mufti guard as his spiritual guide. And John hears how the stories of prophets, like Jonah, helped preserve his sanity

Now, 2 years after his release, he has come to see his survival of torture as a miracle which has transformed his life.

Produced by Lissa Cook for BBC World Service.

Image: Prison Bars, Credit: BBC

John McCarthy was held hostage for five years in Lebanon; it would test not only of his mental resolve but also his faith. In this three-part season for Heart and Soul, John meets three people of three different religions held against their will. John talks to them about how their faith sustained them in their darkest hours of captivity, including physical and psychological torture. John shares his own experiences of being held in Beirut and how for him, the Bible was a crucial source of information, entertainment and comfort.

In the second part of Faith in Freedom John meets Dr Sina Hakiman, imprisoned three times by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, accused of heresy. In total he spent more than seven years in jail in the years after the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Tehran. He now lives in exile in the UK. Sina explains to John his belief that all religions are valid and that Baha’u’llah is the latest prophet of God following Moses, Muhammed and Jesus. Sustained by a philosophy of ‘constructive resilience’ he worked inside the prison as a doctor, while his wife Sholeh continued her husband’s fight for his human rights by setting up a medical clinic.

Thanks to the Baha’i Blog (http://bahaiblog.net/site/ ) for kind permission to use their recording of Behzad Khoshmashrab chanting “Aye Jan Feshan” (https://soundcloud.com/bahai-blog/aye-jan-feshan-behzad-khoshmashrab ).

Excerpts from the footage of the trial of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai’s in Iran, ‘An Assembly Executed’, were used with kind permission of the Taslimi Foundation (https://www.taslimifoundation.org )

Produced by Lissa Cook

John McCarthy was held hostage for five years in Lebanon; it would test not only of his mental resolve but also his faith. In this three-part season for Heart and Soul John meets three people of three different religions held against their will. John talks to them about how their faith sustained them in their darkest hours of captivity, including physical and psychological torture. John shares his own experiences of being held in Beirut and how for him, the Bible was a crucial source of information, entertainment and comfort.

In the first programme John meets the French-Colombian former politician Ingrid Betancourt who was held hostage in the jungle by the FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia) for six and a half years. Captured in 2002, she was rescued by the army in 2008. Ten years later, she meets John at Harris Manchester College in Oxford where she is studying for a PhD in Theology. Catholic by family background rather than conviction she tells John about her incredible journey from despair, believing God had forsaken her, to coming to see Jesus and Mary as her spiritual guides in captivity.

Ingrid Betancourt is also a speaker for HeadTalks, a non-profit organisation that holds events on mental health. http://www.headtalks.com/

Libby Phelps is the granddaughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps. Nicknamed “America’s Most Hated Family”, the church in Kansas became infamous for telling homosexuals they were going to hell and picketing the funerals of US soldiers. But it was after the church rejoiced in the attacks of 11 September, that Libby questioned her faith, packed her bags and left - she escaped from the church. Today she now advocates for the LGBT community, the people she once condemned to hell.

As a young girl Libby would attend school and play with her friends during the week, but at the weekend she and her siblings would be brought out to picket, hold placards and spread their hate-filled messages.

She was convinced that they were the chosen ones, God's messengers on Earth, and the only ones destined for salvation and that the rest of the world was going to Hell.

Colm Flynn meets Libby to hear her story and visits the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas.

(Image: Libby Phelps. Credit: BBC)

Sasha Chanoff is a humanitarian worker descended from Jewish great-grandparents who fled the early 20th Century pogroms in Russia and settled in the United States. The story of his courageous and resourceful great-grandmother inspired Sasha to work with refugees in war-torn parts of Africa. And it was there, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that he faced a life-or-death choice.

Then, in his mid-20s, Sasha was part of a small rescue team deployed to evacuate 112 Tutsi survivors of a massacre. Strictly no more, as the International Organisation for Migration feared that taking anyone extra would jeopardise the entire mission. But then Sasha and his Muslim colleague Sheikha Ali found 32 widows and orphans who were not part of the quota, all close to death. They knew that these women and children were almost certain to perish if they left them behind – but disobeying instructions and taking them would endanger everyone else on the last evacuation flight.

(Photo: Sasha Chanoff stands next to a hired armed guard in the safe compound outside Kinshasa, courtesy of Sasha Chanoff)

Germany has gained itself the role as Europe’s great provider of sanctuary for some of the millions of refugees that have fled from the most troubled parts of the world.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under fierce criticism over the million plus people who’ve sought asylum over the past two years, leading to her having to fight over the past days to retain her seemingly invincible power.

Churches, both Protestant and Catholic are defying the state and public opinion by opening their doors to offer refuge to migrants even though the state wants to send them home.

Dale Gavlak meets Christians who tell her they don’t ask if someone believes in the Christian God, to them they are all children of one God.

Naco Christian Church serves a small but devout congregation, Jesse Wood, its pastor spends hours in his pick-up, driving around meeting and praying with his parishioners.

His journey routinely takes him across the US – Mexico border, because his church straddles these two countries

Division and misunderstanding are real and potential problems. Pastor Jesse responds by using the gospels to teach that all barriers must be done away with, not by disregarding or destroying boundaries but by learning to interact with people on a level that transcends those boundaries.

Will Grant attends the bi-lingual services, Jesse delivers a service in the US on Sunday morning then drives four blocks to deliver a service in Mexico in an attempt to find unique ways to connect with people.

Will travels with Jesse, deep into the Mexico countryside to meet Maria, struggling to make a living from the scrub countryside and how her faith sustains her.

The call by President Trump for a huge wall to halt the migration from Mexico was hugely controversial and Will finds whether it has divided the worshippers on the US side of Naco Church and their Mexican counterparts.