Religion & Spirituality

Film director Bernando Bertolucci. He broke new ground with his 1972 film "Last Tango in Paris." Pauline Kael called it "a landmark in movie history." In the 80's, he became dismayed by the pervasive materialism he saw in the West. His focus turned to the East. He made "The Last Emperor" set in China and "The Sheltering Sky" set in the Sahara Desert. His new movie is "Little Buddha." It's a fable. A Tibetan monk travels from the Kingdom of Bhutan to Seattle to visit a young American boy.

History professor and author R. Laurence Moore. His new book is "Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture." (Oxford) Moore explores the relationship between spiritualism and consumerism in this country over a two-century span. He develops his theses with examples from the lives as such American personalities as P. T. Barnum, Cecil B. DeMille and Sylvester Graham, inventor of the Graham cracker.

Professor John Dominic Crossan. A native of Ireland, ordained as a priest in the U.S. (he left the Priesthood in 1969), Crossan now teaches biblical studies at DePaul University. Crossan is a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars who meet to determine the authenticity of Jesus' sayings in the Gospels. Crossan's new work is "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography" (HarperCollins) which seeks to place Jesus in the context of his Jewish, Mediterranean and peasant roots; to see him as a Socratic philosopher and radical egalitarian.

Mel White is the ghost-writer of biographies for such Religious Right leaders as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robinson and Billy Graham. That was before he came out as a gay man, after a long struggle accepting it. White tried aversion therapy and exorcism to purge himself of his homosexual feelings. Now White is the Dean of the largest gay church in the world, Dallas's Cathedral of Hope and the author of "Stranger at the Gate: To be Gay and Christian in America," (Simon & Schuster).

Australian writer Thomas Keneally. His 1982 novel "Schindler's List" (Simon & Schuster) was turned into a film by Steven Spielberg; this year the film won an Oscar for Best Picture. He often uses historical events for his fiction: The Eritrean independence movement for "To Asmara"; the American Civil War for "Confederates"; the 18th century Australian convict camps for "The Playmaker". His newest novel is "Woman of the Inner Sea" (out in paperback this spring from Dutton).

Parish Priest John McNamee. For twenty five years he's lived and worked the poorer neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His book, "Diary of a City Priest" (Sheed & Ward) documents his struggle to keep faith, when surrounded by poverty and despair.

Clarinetist, jazz musician, and klezmer virtuoso Don Byron. He's an unlikely candidate to play klezmer, a product of Eastern European Yiddish culture: Byron is African American and dreadlocked. Byron has become best known for klezmer, but musically he's all over the map: He plays jazz with his Don Byron Quintet, modern classical music with the Semaphore quintet, and he toured Europe last fall with Music for Six Musicians, an Afro-Cuban ensemble. He's also currently writing a classical piece for the avant-garde Kronos Quartet.

Writer Stephen Carter. He's a professor of constitutional law at Yale University and author of "Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby." Carter's newest book, "The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion" (Harper Collins), argues that although the majority of Americans are religious, our law, politics, media, and universities pressure believers to trivialize their faith and treat "God as a Hobby."

New York Times Reporter Chris Hedges He's based in Cairo, Egypt where he covers the Middle East. Terry will talk with him about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran. In Iran, the militant group, Basij -- which is being funded by the Iranian Government -- has been cracking down on Western style behavior and culture in the Country.

Journalist and professor Randall Balmer. He hosted the PBS series, "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America," which aired in May. Balmer is Associate Professor of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Founder of the anti-abortion group, "Operation Rescue," Randall Terry. Last week his group tried to stop abortions by blocking access to clinics in seven cities across the United States, including Philadelphia. TERRY also has a new book, "Why does a nice guy like me keep getting thrown in jail?" (Huntington House Pub., Lafayette, LA; Resistance Press, Windsor, N.Y.)

Poet, writer, and teacher Nancy Mairs. She's a Catholic feminist, who started out Protestant, and who late in life became a feminist. She calls herself, "the connoisseur of catastrophe." She's known for writing honestly about her struggles with multiple sclerosis, depression, and the life-threatening illness of her husband, also about being a woman, a mother, and a wife. Her newest book of personal essays is "Ordinary Time," (Beacon). One reviewer calls it "a small miracle of honesty mediated by dignity and humor."

Professor Deborah Lipstadt examines a chilling new trend in historical revisionism: disavowing the deaths of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps. Her new book, "Denying the Holocaust" (Free Press) traces the rise of this opposition: its practitioners' change in influence as isolated pamphleteers and cranks forty years ago to their point today, where a new poll found one fifth of the American public think it seems "possible" that the Holocaust never happened.

Helen Prejean's book, "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States" (Random House) details her experience working with death row inmates in Louisiana. Prejean has come to believe that the death penalty is not only ineffective as a deterrent, but that the government can't be trusted to decide who should live and who should die. Prejean is a Roman Catholic nun.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Ordinary Time: Cycles in Faith, Marriage, and Renewal" the new autobiography by Nancy Mairs, who is dying of multiple sclerosis.

One of Israel's leading journalists, Tom Segev has a new book,"The Seventh Million: The Israelis and The Holocaust," in which he argues that some Israelis use the Holocaust to encourage Israeli chauvinism and aggression. Segev writes a weekly column on politics and human rights for the daily newspaper "Haaretz."

Ghosh was born in Calcutta and studied in India, Britian, and Egypt. He has a new novel, "In An Antique Land," which tells the story of two Indians in Egypt: a 12th century slave who Ghosh had read about, and Ghosh himself. He'll talk with Terry about the current violence in India between Muslims and Hindus.

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Terry talks with Rafael Scharf. He's compiled a new book of photographs, "In The Warsaw Ghetto Summer 1940." The photographs were taken one summer day in 1941 by German soldier and have never been published before. Scharf was born in Poland, but left the country shortly before World War II. He is one of the founders of "The Jewish Quarterly," a London literary and political magazine. Many of his relatives were killed during the Holocaust.

Former National Security Adviser to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski has written a new book about the state of global politics, called "Out of Control." He warns we must change our values and realize our global interdependence.

Professor Robert Jay Lifton is distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College, City University of New York. He's been studying cults and fundamentalist groups for many years. Lifton will talk about the armed cult in Waco, Texas run by David Koresh of the Branch Davidians--how typical they are, and what can be done to deal with them.