Summary: Founded in 1230, Scotland's Pluscarden Abbey still pulses with the prayers and spiritual pursuits of Benedictine monks. Abbot Hugh Gilbert describes their work in reassuringly human terms, framing the Christian battle against Satanic evil as an inner struggle within one's own psyche. But, as this program shows, the culture which brought Pluscarden into existence was rigidly institutional-and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Although rooted in religious misogyny and crude anatomical knowledge, the sexual mores of the medieval era were surprisingly complex. This program explores the attitudes and behaviors of a sexual culture that was by turns romantic, transactional, and perverse. Documents and historical accounts include the story of Christina of Markyate, who defied marital conventions and maintained a lifelong...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The second installment in the PBS series Jerusalem: Center of the World focuses on the city's evolution under Roman rule; its historical significance in both Christianity and Islam, past and present; the tensions that exist between Jews and Muslims in modern Jerusalem; and the uncertainties that lie ahead for the planet's most contested piece of land.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Congregational music during worship owes its origin to Martin Luther, who used it to proclaim his bedrock message of the Protestant Reformation: God's grace as the sole ingredient for salvation. This elegant program explains how Luther changed the mode of public worship by integrating music into the divine service so that all Christians-not just the clergy-could express and celebrate their...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This episode of New York: A Documentary Film begins by identifying the key themes that shaped New York's history: commerce and capitalism, diversity and democracy, transformation and creativity. Filmmaker Ric Burns charts the development of the city founded by the Dutch as a purely commercial enterprise, first as New Amsterdam, a freewheeling enclave of trade and opportunity; then as the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003
View online at AVOD
Summary: If God exists, why is there so much suffering? What happens after you die? Does God hear our prayers? In this program a panel of teens pose the hard questions to a Catholic pilgrimage leader, a Sufi Muslim practitioner, and an Anglican minister as together they examine the relationship between the physical world and the spiritual. The group find areas of agreement between Christianity and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The brutal roots of the American slave trade are exposed in this program, focusing on the years 1450-1750 when Native Americans first encountered Europeans and when their world was transformed - and largely destroyed - by white settlers. Not only did the settlers exploit the natural wealth of the Americas, they also traveled to Africa, where they began a transatlantic slave trade that would...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1998
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: Insiders' observations of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation, featuring commentary from high-ranking officials, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and prominent analysts. Examines the U.S. policy decisions surrounding the invasion and their consequences in Iraq, including such issues as low U.S. troop levels, the uncontrolled looting of Baghdad, the purging of...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Magnolia Home Entertainment 2007
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC NO1 available in TC Film Fest DVDs, Call number: DVD TCFF NO
Summary: The first installment in the PBS series Jerusalem: Center of the World covers the historical beginnings of the city; its role as the hub of ancient Israel's religion and culture; information on major Old Testament leaders in the context of Jerusalem; the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the Babylonian Exile; post-Exile Jerusalem; and the ministry of Jesus.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The victory of the Abbasids over the Umayyads signified much more than the replacement of one dynasty with another. With it, Islam saw the birth of a multiethnic concept of power, in which both Arab and non-Arab Muslims could share authority. This program presents the Abbasid Caliphate at its peak, enthroned in its prestigious capital city: Baghdad. The defining project of Caliph al-Ma'amun,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: While it is true that the Greeks invented philosophy, mathematics, and science, it is equally true that after the fall of the Roman Empire, throughout the Dark Ages, much knowledge was preserved by Islamic cultures who later passed it back to the West. This program uses footage shot in the Aegean, Middle East, Iran, Spain, Italy, France, and Germany to explore the process by which medical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Military conflict accompanied the spread of Islam during the Middle Ages. This program reveals the ironies of that union between war and faith: how Islam was adopted rather than marginalized by invading Mongols; how the rise of strict Islamic orthodoxy countered the scholarly advances of Arabic culture, weakening the empire; and how European appreciation of Islamic culture grew after the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: For more than a millennium Western civilization looked to the Church for answers to questions about life’s meaning. But for many, acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine wasn’t enough. This program traces the roots of modern religious skepticism back over 400 years to examine both the unraveling and the endurance of Christian belief. It explores challenges to established theologies in the ideas...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: For women living in Afghanistan under repressive Taliban rule, beatings, rape, and enslavement were commonplace occurrences. This gripping program, filmed during the Taliban's regime, describes the massive human rights abuses that escalated after the withdrawal of Soviet forces, as seen through the eyes of women who survived years of rampant gender and religious intolerance. Resistance...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program portrays the Crusades as a response to the rapid rise of Islam. It looks at various orders of Christian monks and their role in the preservation of religious, artistic, and cultural aspects of civilization. The Inquisition-the Church's response to the rise of heresy and the practice of witchcraft and magic in the Middle Ages-illustrates the ultimate in religious intolerance which...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: It is perhaps the most coveted piece of real estate on the planet: the Temple Mount, as it is known to Jews and Christians, or the Noble Sanctuary, as Muslims call it. Few cameras have ever been allowed inside this guarded and controversial place-until now. Produced with exclusive permission to film within the 35-acre walled enclosure and the Dome of the Rock, this program serves to build...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010