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Heart and Soul: Faith in Freedom: Faith in Freedom: Daniel Genis

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Faith in Freedom: Daniel Genis

23/11/2018 GMT

Faith in Freedom

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Faith in Freedom, Faith in Freedom: Daniel Genis

A Jewish-atheist's remarkable insight into Americas prison system

John McCarthy meets Daniel Genis, an atheist whose time in prison helped him explore his beliefs, as well as those of his fellow inmates

John McCarthy meets the people who have had to confront their own beliefs while held captive.

Born into a Jewish family, but a committed atheist, Daniel Genis had an eventful life which led him to drug addiction, crime and then 10 years in one of Americas most notorious prisons. His time there meant he had time to explore his faith, plus the array of faiths of his fellow prisoners.

As he saw out his  sentences he keenly observed the role religion plays in prison, how many prisoners adopted a faith, many were open to faith because of their situation. Priests, Rabbis and Imams were more than eager to try and help them.

In episode two of the series, he tells John McCarthy how his own ‘beliefs’ helped him, and how it shaped his idea of a God's role in prison.

Presenter: John McCarthy
Producer: Geoff Bird

(Photo credit: Daniel Genis)

Heart and Soul: Faith in Freedom

John McCarthy meets people who have had to confront their own beliefs while held captive.

Episode 1: Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh
In a new series of Faith in Freedom for Heart and Soul, John McCarthy meets people who have had to confront their own beliefs while held captive or prisoner.
In the first episode John, who was held hostage by Islamic radical groups in Lebanon, speaks to two Iranian women who risked torture in one of the world’s most notorious prisons to spread the word of the Christian Bible.

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh were known as the ‘dirty Christians’ in Evin prison where they suffered horrendous conditions and witnessed daily abuse, but despite that they carried on sharing the Gospel within the prison.  They now live in the USA, and despite the daily horrors they witnessed, Maryam and Marziyeh see Evin as a church, somewhere they were placed by God to spread the word. But John will ask about their work now in a country where there is freedom to pray and preach. Are they still carrying out God’s work?

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