Summary: From birth to death, in every country on the globe, for tens of thousands of years, the rhythm of human life has been accentuated by the practice of religious ritual. In this program adherents of three different faiths share their understanding of some common rites of passage: a rabbi explains the elements of a Jewish wedding, including some that date back to the book of Genesis; a minister...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The Reformation was a period of rebellion, upheaval, and war - all sparked by one man whose revolt against church authority led to the creation of Protestantism and ultimately, to a reinvigoration of the Catholic faith. This program travels to churches in Europe, Britain, and Mexico to explore the key figures, philosophies, and movements of the Protestant Reformation. It looks at the issues...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Although Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to a church door, his action sparked a political upheaval as well as a religious one. This program examines the rise of the Protestant movement in Europe and its link to revolution, civil war, and modern incarnations of radical and conservative politics. Studying the theology Luther crafted at Wartburg Castle and his confrontations with papal and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Martin Luther's most effective strike against the Church may have been his decision to marry. This program shows how Luther's radical choice and the Protestant movements of the 16th and 17th centuries transformed Western attitudes toward sex, love, marriage, gender roles, and family life. Viewers will learn about the contributions of several historical figures, including Thomas Cranmer's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Now identified mainly with Fundamentalism, the Evangelical movement that began in 18th-century Britain was an exuberant expression of Protestantism that quickly spread across the globe. What made it so compelling that slaves and slave-owners, the poor and the powerful alike, embraced it in America, Africa, and Asia? This program studies the cultural, theological, and political framework of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This program brings viewers to exceptional sacred sites throughout the Near East and Asia to trace the first expansion of Christianity from Jerusalem - which was not to Rome with Paul, but to Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Armenia, and Ethiopia. After the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD followers of Jesus fled to Asia Minor, establishing a thriving ecclesiastical community at least 100 years before...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: On July 16, 1054, a dramatic event occurred during the worship service in the Church of Hagia Sophia: a papal delegation delivered a document excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Patriarch promptly excommunicated the Pope in return. Known as The Great Schism, the act divided Eastern from Western Catholic Christianity. Going on location to the most venerated sites in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In the 21st-century landscape of shopping malls and skyscrapers, capitalism appears irreligious-but beneath its secular veneer lie theological principles born in the 1500s. This program examines the rise of the Protestant work ethic and the religious foundations of Western industry; it also reveals a Protestant consciousness at the heart of social activism and the opposition to extreme...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: At the core of the Protestant Revolution was a new emphasis on exploring and questioning the natural world. This program shows how a religious upheaval that began a half-millennium ago led to the art, literature, and science of today's Western society. The film makes the case that a humanistic approach to art first grew out of the Protestant drive to remove images from European churches in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: It is no irony that Victor Zorkaltsev, a Communist, is also the head of the religious committee of the Russian parliament, the Duma. It is also not an accident that the Russian government paid for an extraordinary replica of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour that is maintained by local businessmen. And if more than 80 percent of Russians describe themselves as Orthodox Christians, why do only...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Until recently, Brazil was the world's most populous Catholic nation-until the Pentecostal Protestants began a televangelical campaign that has resulted in a national identity crisis. This program examines the TV ratings war between the Pentecostals and the Catholics, whose Charismatics are countering with television programming of their own. Additional insights are offered by Liberation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Part two of the series From Jesus to Christ explores the period after the crucifixion of Jesus by tracing the beginnings of the “Jesus Movement”, as Christianity was first called in its early years. Drawing upon historical evidence and archeological finds as well as engaging interviews, we learn that the early Christians branched out spreading their message to non-Jews, while the Apostle Paul,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1998
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Summary: The Amish rarely allow themselves to be photographed or filmed, yet several members of the isolated religious community agreed to appear in this eye-opening documentary. Filmed on location in Pennsylvania and Ohio Amish country, the program goes beyond stereotypes and common misconceptions, presenting a fully human portrait of a misunderstood people. Interviews with Amish men and women-some...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Is there a crisis of childhood caused by the consumer society and the mass media? "There is impatience in our culture for letting children be children," says Archbishop Rowan Williams, who cites lack of in-depth conversations between parents and children as the main cause for their vulnerability to advertising tactics. In this intriguing program, Archbishop Williams argues with children's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: If the goal of Christian evangelism is to draw people to Jesus, then it makes a certain amount of sense to translate eternal Christian beliefs into the vernacular of pop culture. But it's a slippery slope. At what point might the methods to win souls obscure, cheapen, or compromise the message itself? Believers and skeptics speak out as this program takes a balanced look at marketing the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: China is on the rise economically, but the post-Mao era has also seen an increasing hunger for something beyond material prosperity. From the novice Daoist monk honing tai chi skills atop a sacred mountain to the uncountable worshippers of the underground house church movement, this program reports on modern China's emboldened-yet still cautious-religious population. In the city of Wenzhou,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Part three of the series From Jesus to Christ follows the story of the first attempts to record the life of Jesus: the Gospels. The Gospels were products of social and religious reconstruction in the period after the war, ranging from roughly 70 to 100 CE The program looks at how these stories were passed down before they were written, and how the writing of each Gospel reflects the experiences...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1998
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Summary: Part one of the series From Jesus to Christ examines the influence of Judaism and the Roman Empire on the life of Jesus. Through compelling interviews with archeologists, theologians, and historians it is revealed that Jesus was an ordinary Jewish resident of his time, but new findings show that he was probably not of the assumed humble class. Nazareth, where he grew up, was about four miles...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1998
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Summary: Emerging from under the cloud of bankruptcy, Northwest Airlines has cut
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This controversial program highlights the political initiatives taken by Brazil's top two religious entities: Catholics and evangelical Protestants. It argues that the Roman Catholic Church has always been fused with the nation's identity, from statues of Christ in Rio de Janeiro to mark the first centenary of Brazil's independence to the thousands of Brazilian flags waved during morning mass...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Eighty percent of Americans—four out of five—say they are Christians. Right now they are divided over a critical social, political, and theological challenge: how to live with religious diversity in an increasingly pluralistic and polarized world. Over the past twenty years, conservative fundamentalist Christians have been front and center in politics and the media—but faith, like democracy,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Part four of the series From Jesus to Christ chronicles the new challenges of the Christian movement—both internal and external—as it became separate from Judaism. From 100 to 300 CE, as the movement grew throughout the Roman Empire, it faced heated debates regarding beliefs, worship, and even about Jesus himself. Externally, Christians were often persecuted as the movement became suspicious in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1998