Western and African cultures collide in Haiti resulting in religious conflict between Christianity and Voodoo. Despite centuries of vigilant opposition from the Christian Church, Voodoo has flourished in Haiti and continues to be one of the strongest elements underlying Haitian culture. This film dispels Hollywood stereotypes and presents Voodoo as a belief system that has been passed down from African ancestor to slave to present day Haitian. Traveling...

This poetic documentary is a salute to 35,000 years of "pre-history," to the values of ancestors only recently remembered, and to the goddess-worshipping religions of the ancient past. Goddess Remembered features Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Luisah Teish, Starhawk, Charlene Spretnak, and Jean Bolen, who link the loss of goddess-centred societies with today's environmental crisis. They propose a return to the belief in an interconnected life system,...

ESCAPING POLYGAMY follows three sisters who left the Kingston clan, a secretive polygamist group in Utah known as the Order, and who now help loved ones and strangers break free of polygamy.

Look now at events surrounding Jesus's death that we cannot know about with certainty. Assess the plausibility of the Gospels' accounts of his arrival in Jerusalem, the date of his crucifixion, and the matter of his burial. Grasp how Christian writers made changes in the accounts of his death to serve theological ends.

The Christian conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine was a momentous turning point for the faith. Learn about the relationship of the Roman Empire to early Christianity, and the specific reasons why Christians were persecuted by Rome. Grasp Constantine's motives for converting to Christianity and for becoming directly involved in theological controversies.

[Exodus 16–40] What happens after an enslaved people are set free? How is freedom lived out? Continue exploring Exodus with chapters 16 40, in which ancient laws and ideas of freedom begin to take root. Along the way, you’ll study different interpretations of "manna"and break down the different groupings of the Ten Commandments.

Death serves as the horizon against which our lives unfold and shapes the choices we make about how to live. In fact, the knowledge of mortality has inspired much of human activity—religion, philosophy, music and visual arts, even scientific endeavors and monumental architecture have all been driven by our understanding of death. Whether viewed as a transition to paradise or punishment, an ultimate separation or ecstatic joining, the end of existence...

[1 and 2 Kings] Continue on to 1 and 2 Kings and follow the story of the prophet Elijah. You’ll examine his challenges to the god Baal, his flair for street theater, his tendency toward self-absorption, his earthly departure in a whirlwind, and, most important, his story’s promise of a new beginning.

It is one thing for God to grant humans the freedom to do evil, but it’s harder to understand the existence of natural evils such as earthquakes and plagues. Evaluate different approaches to this problem, including the suggestion that God exists but didn’t create our universe.

[John 1–12] In the first of two lectures on the gospel of John, probe the first 12 chapters of this book’s poetic prose, which takes readers back to the dawn of time. What does it mean for Jesus to embody the word of God in the flesh? Consider possible answers in this most distinctive account of Jesus’s life.