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: 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: 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: 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: 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
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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
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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
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
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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: 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: 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
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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: The French Revolution explodes, and the Church, at the center of the controversy, must redefine its relationship with political power. This program focuses on religious controversy throughout the ages to the 19th century, when Christianity finds a new vitality and diversity of worship in democratic societies. Vatican II (1962-1965) is discussed as having paved the way for modern Catholicism,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Part one of this program documents both the papal reforms that severed the ties between the Church and wealthy Roman families and the rift between Rome and Constantinople. Efforts to reconcile differences in doctrine, clerical practice, and political influence ended in the excommunication of Constantinople's Patriarch. Part two outlines the first four Crusades, in which Jerusalem was won and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This program traces the history of the Protestant Reformation, the path of its founder, Martin Luther, and the subsequent rise of sects including Calvinism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, and Methodism. Topics discussed include the Council of Trent, the renewal of Catholicism in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the rise of religious orders founded by St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Part one of this program features the sacking of Rome and introduces Augustine of Hippo and his The City of God, which examines the Church's uneasy relationship with human frailty and worldliness, as piety became identified with self-denial and celibacy was viewed as central to the pursuit of perfection. Part two tracks the spread of Christianity to Ireland and its establishment in Britain and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Outlining the provincial causes and ravaging effects of Europe's Thirty Years' War, this program illustrates the ability of religious fervor to inflame nationalism and drive the quest for power. With background on Martin Luther's split with the Catholic Church and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Dr. Helmut Neuhaus of Friedrich Alexander University offers detailed analysis of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Part one of this program, presented against a backdrop of Gothic architecture and pre-Raphaelite art, asks whether religion and science can coexist in a post-Darwinian world. Are Creation and Evolution mutually exclusive? Part two focuses on the questions raised by the global movement toward social equality. Must Christianity adapt to survive, and if so, do issues like female priests and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Christmas, Easter, Passover, Yom Kippur, Bar or Bas Mitzvah, and other significant feasts and rituals of the Christian and Jewish faiths are discussed in this program. Jesus is shown as the role model for Christian behavior as exhibited by the early martyrs and saints. Protestantism's rejection of saints as religious icons is examined. The spiritual characters of specific modern "saints,"...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Part one of this program probes the nature of Christian prayer, questioning Eastern reliance on icons rather than the Word, as in the West. Were the incessant attacks on Constantinople by Islamic and Bulgar forces a divine judgment for idolatrous behavior? Part two chronicles the chaos in Europe that broke out with the death of Charlemagne and the approach of the millennium. The ensuing...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Part one of this program follows the dual enterprises of constructing cathedrals and stamping out heresy. Buildings of unprecedented grandeur exemplified the power and influence of the Church in Europe, as did the systematic destruction of the heretic Cathars. Part two covers King Philip IV of France's defiance of Church authority and the Black Death. Although the Pope declared the Plague a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Part one of this program highlights the Great Schism. The Papacy's move to achieve political independence and the flowering of the Renaissance are presented as well-along with the violent opposition to the new papal politics and the humanism that was remaking God in man's image. Part two plots out the religious revolt sparked by the sale of indulgences, from Martin Luther's 95 Theses, to the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
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
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Summary: Part one of this program traces the spread of Christianity via the Puritans to North America. Victims of intolerance in the Old World, the emigres swiftly proved intolerant of others in the New World, leaving it to the Quakers to promote the religious freedom later associated with the United States. Part two outlines the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, the Methodism of John Wesley, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007