>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin tonight with mandy patinkin, the acker talks about playing saul berenson on homeland and his experience earlier this year assisting sir yn refugees as they arrived in greece. >> if any one in this world is afraid of any syrian refugee family, coming into any country, our country, any country, if they stood on the beach and watched these people in these little ribber boats that only hold 24 but there are of 0 people in each boat, when they sit in the boats of a grown pan like you or myself the water comes up to here, let alone the children, what they are dealing with these rough waters, coming across from turkey to greece, your heart would break and melt and your arm was open up. and you would take them into your heart. >> rose: we conclude with serene jones, the president of the union theological seminary.

>> what drives a person to participate in these actions of horrific violence. if we want to just call them crazy, that's fine. i think there is a certain level of insanity there. but if you don't have a complex understanding of human nature, you can't take into account how poverty, how fear, how displacement, how the rage that comes with entitlement, these are all things that live inside all of us as human beings. but we see that we're living in a time that's fanning the fires that create the outbursts. >> mandy patinkin and serene jones next. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: mandy patinkin is here, is he an emmy and tony award-winning actor. you knew that he stars as saul beren "request homeland." here's an excerpt. >> that's it? that was easy. >> i'm not done. >> no? >> no, i guarantee you this, one thing about your life from this moment forward will be easy. i will personally see to that. you tried to have careie killed. >> nonsense. >> she was your friend, allison. >> you were my friend, more than that. >> butchered agents in cairo, that was yours too, wasn't it? what about your deputy, what did

he do to deserve a bullet in the face, extremely close range? tell me, goddamn it. >> or what, saul. >> he had a wife an three kids. >> guess what, i'm still in touch with them, i'm god mother to their youngest kyle. >> you betrayed them all and then you found out-- all those networks, all those good people blown. what do you think happened to them? what do you think happened. >> rose: "homeland" with its focus on european terrorism, and european es meanage, it has become a lesh yent comment tear on our times. after the fifth season, patinkin traveled to greece where he assisted refugee as riffing in syria. i'm pleased to welcome back to the table, welcome. >> wonderful to be here. >> rose: we will talk much about "homeland" but let's talk about what happened in greece because we have a video of that. give me a sense of why you were there?

>> i wanted to go the minute i heard what was happening over the summer. i wanted to go there. but my schedule wouldn't allow it, our filming schedule. so literally we rapped the season on friday and i was on the first plane to greece in the morning. why, i live in a show that we do homeland, a fictional world, a fixal hell, a mirror at best, a poetic mirror of the world we're living in. i needed to connect with the real world. this was as real as i knew that was happening anywhere on our planet and i wanted to help. i wanted to be with some families. i wanted to walk with em this, do with ever they needed that i could do for them, hold some children. just help them along on their journey. because i knew immediately when i saw what was happening that these numbers would take place. you know, in such vast numbers and that this was my family, these were our families. 70 years ago, a hundred years ago, fleeing russians, fleeing nazi germany. and it's us. it's you and me and every

american. >> rose: you wanted to hear it, touch it, feel it. >> yes, it's very different, it's very different watching the world on television. and then being there. you know, any one, if any one in this world is afraid of any syrian refugee family coming into any country, our country, any country, if they stood on the beach and watched these people in these little rubber boats that only hold 24 but there are 60 people in each boat, when they sit in the boats of a grown man like you and myself, the water comes up to here, let alone the children dealing with these rough waters coming across from turkey to greece, your heart would break and melt. your arm was open up and you would take them into your heart. you would hold them and you would-- what else can i do for you is always you would want to know. you wouldn't be afraid at all. and all of this hate rhetoric

that goes on. when i heard also, when i started to hear what was going on in my homeland, in my country, people, governors saying not in my state, congress being, all this fearmongerring and hatred, i just, i was heartbroken. and i know that if i took every governor, every congressman, every senator to that beach and if they help these families get out of the boats, if they walk through the registration centers, if they took them on to the journey of their new life, they would feel very different. and they wouldn't be afraid. they would feel like wonderful human beings. they would feel like americans. they feel the way we're supposed to be. >> rose: and they would feel belter because of it. >> yes, sir. >> rose: then there is marco rubio for one who says 999,000 of them are people who have engaged their own fear and come because of intolerable

circumstances where they were. but just one of them might not be of that, they may be someone who has been trained and radicalized to kill americans. >> not a single refugee has committed a murder in america since 9/11. many home groan americans have become terrorists through the internet. so it has not yet happened. can it happen? sure. >> rose: paris, is one of the people that came through greece as a refugee. >> i have heard that that is not def that that passport was authentic. so you know-- . >> rose: but my point to get at is i assume you say yes, that may be a possibility but that's not who we are. we have to find another way to stop that. and we have to open our arms because that's how we began and

that's what the statute of liberty has always stood for. we welcome you to our country. >> yes, if i'm a doctor, charlie, and i prescribe medicine, i will one day if i have a good career, i will prescribe aspirin to someone. someone might die from aspirin. am i not to prescribe any medication to any patient that comes through mie door for fear that what i may do for them might kill them? this is just insane thinking. we live in a country, marco rube why, and i saw him on your show its same morning i was there the other day. and he walks in and he says that the guns aren't the problem. these people would get the guns anyway. the guns are a problem. i think 2.4 million incidents of people having guns that shouldn't have them, mentally ill people, sexual abusers, would-be terrorists have been stopped in the past 20 years. but now because of world has changed, you can buy a gun at a

gun show without a background check. and there's a video of jihadi joe that the brady campaign sent me that he says go to the gun shows. please. go out there, go to the gun shows. you don't need a background check and buy these guns now. what are you waiting for. but marco rubio isn't trying to do anything about stopping the gun situation in america. and by the way, the brady campaign and everyone else is being very clear, they're not against healthy law-abiding citizens owning guns rdz what has this propelled you to do other than to alerted america to the condition that you found in that exposure? >> i went to elizabeth, new jersey last thursday, with my wife, and two people from the international rescue committee. i met a syrian family, the man was a lawyer. they have a daughter on the

asperger syndrome, spectrum. and so a bomb by assad fell into their home. and they made it through the night, no one died. and then a few months later another bomb came into the home and blew the small child with the aspergers into the other room. so the father took his six children and his wife and his mother and father, put them in a van and drove six hours to turkey, five and a half, six hours to turkey. was in a detention center for two and a half years. because of the daughter's problems, they couldn't handle her there and said we're going to try to take her to norway. but the place that had the right facilities for the daughter and the medications and the schools and care was the united states of america. so that family was brought to new jersey. which has some of the best care for refugees in the country. and we spent the day with this family. they were wonderful. my wife and i just went through the whole house. we have four huge boxes of clothing, shoes, coats, everything, that we're giving to

this family. we're sending another group of clothing and shoes and everything to another family that i met in greece, that i talk to every day on what's app. i encourage every one of my fellow citizens to seek out one of the 24 or 26, forgive me i'm not sure what the exact is, of international refugee stations around america. and find out where some particularly syrian refugees have been brought to in your community. welcome them to your home. have them over for a holiday dinner. go through your clothes and shoes and things that you need and show them your neighborhood, pung them to your mossq, your sin going, your church. so the new par a dime for me is stop helping isis recruit young men and women from all over the world. how? change their marginalized lives into wonderful lives. all over. our country, every country, give them education. give them opportunity, jobs,

medical, agricultural, homes, give them everything that we have and want for our children. and give it to our children in this country too. take care of everybody. the amount of money, the 1.6 trillion dollars i think that is spent on the war effort, take a traction of that and put it towards humanitarian effort. if you do all of this for people all over the world, for all of these people, all of these beautiful muslim communitieses, beautiful children, families, and you take care of their children, you help them, palestinian families who need help and care, people will stop being so victimized. they will say-- they want desperately to have freedom, justice an dignity as i have said before. we all do. and we can help them have it. >> rose: okay, this is not a new idea. >> no sir. >> rose: as you know. >> but who's doing it. >> rose: but they're not doing it.

so my question is why. we understand that people are driven to terrorism. drif tone radicalization. >> yes. >> rose: for a variety of reasons. >> uh-huh. >> rose: including feeling like that life has left them out. and looking for a place where they can find people, causes, purpose, all of that. >> yes. >> rose: and education would play a role in having them to see there is a better place to be. my question is, why haven't we done that? cuz it's been understood that we needed to do more. >> i think part of the reason is we want-- people are addicted to a class system. i think they want lower classes so they feel more powerful, that they can exercise their greed and i think that happens all over the world. i think there are economic reasons. i think war makes more money than peace. big business. you get, you make a lot more money selling billions of

dollars worth of weapons and ships. >> so you are the president of the united states and you have just wiltnessed the paris, you go to the site of those crimes. and then you get up one morning and somebody calls and says we have had a terrible thing happen in san bernardino. >> uh-huh. >> rose: then you found out these were two people that were radicalized several years ago. >> uh-huh. >> rose: and then you witness americans beginning to say it could happen in my school, in my neighbored into. and it's all coming from isis. >> uh-huh. >> rose: what does the president do? does he try to do both sides. does he say we will take the fight to isis. we will make air strikes against their headquarters in raqqa but at the same time, we want to fight them on the world of ideas and finding a better alternative. >> i believe it's called the international criminal court system of which i think the united states is not a member,

does not participate. i would not assassinate the head of isis nor would i assassinate adolf hitler. i would put them in jail for the rest of their lives to protect the rest of the world. killing breeds more killing. i don't think that's the answer. do unto others as you would have them do unto you. >> rose: you and i and the president i think, there is no question in my mind that if the president had a sighting for a drone attack, without significant collateral damage and they had al baghdad ni their sight, this he would kill him. >> absolutely. >> rose: and you would not do that. >> saul berenson would. mandy patinkin wouldn't. if i could avoid it. so what does that mean. if al bag dadzi had a button in his hand and he was going to hurt a human being with it, i would kill him. >> rose: he does vay button. >> he does, you're right. so i would kill him, so what am i saying, i'm being contradictory.

because i'm a human being. it's contradictions all over the place. but i'm not seeing the balance of these contradictions. i'm not saying to be a fool, do not let your guard down, any country, anywhere in the world. i want every security agency to work harder than they are working now to insurance our security and every other individual's security all over the world. i know that there will be people that will slip through the cracks. but i am not seeing the other side being fean care of. by the other side what i am referring to is opportunity for these young men and women in neighborhoods that are muslim communities where they have no quality life. and i'm not seeing any funds, effort, in anyway to make their lives better. >> rose: but i also say to you the following, because i agree with you. and a lot of people in the military agree with you. >> yeah. >> rose: a lot of them that i know. robert gates said we're not using all of the arrows in our. >> our marnlgation. failure of imagination. they refer to 9/11 as a failure of imagination.

imagination needs to be exercised here too. to how to help hurt people. my wife has an expression which i said before, hurt people, hurt people. i'm so upset with people who aren't exercising their int elect as much as they are exercising their emotions. look at me, i get nuts. because i am an emotional human being. we all are. but i must exercise my intellect. i must say to myself, how many refugees have committed a terrorist act in america since 9/11. and do i the research and the answer is zero, none. now many have committed acts, homegrown terrorism, many. how do they get their guns. they get them at gun shows, on the internet. you can be on the terrorist watch list in america and get a gun, this is on every show right now. let me say one other thing about what to do. it's about how to think, how to be, where to put your heart. ted cruz running for president, he loves a movie that i was

prifer liged to be a part of called the princess bride. it's a family movie. it's caught on over generation, generation after generation. an when he does interviews like this or group interviews with lots of newspaper or newspaper interviews or makes speeches, he quotes lines from this wonderful movie that william goldman wrote. and he quoatses my lines, billy crystals, robin wright's lines, everyone's lines. and then a friend of mine sent me a pick-- picture of me as indigo monday toya right there but superimposed ted cruz's face on my face. and ssh said what do you think of that. well, i have to approve every glass or mug or t-shirt, that has my image but he is allowed to use my body or someone is without approving this. so what do i think? when paris happened, ted cruz says we need to go on a war footing. we need a war president in this

country. sthas' how he campaigns to be elected, the president of the united of america. the most powerful force and source in the free world. and i couldn't disagree more. >> rose: we shouldn't be at war with isis. >> we should be at war with isis, we are at war with isis. i want isis to stop the killing. i want everyone who does killing to stop the killing. i want to protect every one in the world. and i believed way to protect them is to stop the killing universally. to instead of killing, to create opportunity and belter systems of living and existing, to give freedom, justice and diggity, quality of life to humanity all over the world, as a world stop sending 1.6 trillion for bombs. and i say to ted cruz, if you quote all these lines from the princess bride, why do you leave one line out. and it happened to be a line that my character said that when i was a 26 year old man or however hold i was, i was older,

i was like 32 when i made the movie. i didn't realize what i was saying. i didn't really pay attention until i was 55 or so. then i heard the line. and it is my favorite line that william goldman wrote. i asked senator cruz to look at that line and deeply consider it and learn it and quote it. and the line that indigo says is i have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, i do not know what to do with the rest of my life. and i thank bill goldman for writing that. and i would encourage senator cruz to say those words from the movie he loves so much. >> rose: let's turn to homeland. >> okay, i may go back to this but i will go to homeland with you. tell me about the evolution of saul berenson. over the course of the series. and we just saw a scene from a very recent episode and there

are only two left. >> yes. >> rose: in which he lost control. and it was about humanity too. it was about friends that had been killed. it was about betrayal. it was about a whole range of things. >> yeah. >> rose: but how has evolved since you first created the character? >> know, he and i are related. and he has caught me to be more hopeful and more optimistic in my life. he has taught me to go to greece and hold these families in my arms. >> rose: saul berenson taught you. >> saul berenson taught me that because of the necessary things one needs to do to keep america safe, use some drones sometimes, kill the al baghdadi, but how do you balance it. nd you find a way to feed

your soul and your moral heart by taking care of human beings whenever you can. he is a bit naive like mandy at times in his hope and optimism. he is a tough guy. and he will do whatever it takes to keep the world safe. but he sometimes trusts people that he shouldn't maybe be so trustful of. he is in great pain and suffering most of the time over the condition of the world. and he would love, my friend larry norton who is a dear friend, our kids went to kindergarten together so we've grown up together. and i remember larry years ago said i believe i can cure cancer in my lifetime. that at some point the last person will walk through the

door that has this cancer and no one else will ever come in. and i know larry to this day is living with the belief and the hope that before he checks out he will stop cancer, all cancers. p>>a someone will. >> i believe someone will too. saul berenson believes that this kind of inhumanity toward man will one day stop. and you can say to me well, mandy, that's naive, it's never stopped since the beginning of time. so i'm supposed to stop hoping for it lori nathan, a war mediator, these are all people that have i met because of saul berenson. you say how have they changed me, at the end of season four when saul berenson, this is season five now, at the end of season four saul berenson was captured by a terrorist played by an actor named newman carr who say beautiful human being. but at the end of that, saul berenson was going to be traded as it happened here for four or

five known terrorists that would then go out and do more harm. saul berenson rather wanted to take his own life, kill me before you let someone else go out there and hurt someone else. so he had certainly suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and at the end i woke up just as we finished shooting and wrote this one and a half page feeling that saul had about where he was at. it was very dark. very angry. very revengeful. the polar opposite of what i had been saying. wanted to just annihilate all these people that are doing harm. but also, including, you know, a number of other people like the dick cheneys an donald rumsfelds and a number of other people too, not just known terrorists but people without don't do good. and i read it to lori nathan at dinner. and i said to him, i had just met him. my wife took me to this dinner. i didn't want to go i went and was ready to leave after a

couple of hours and then this conversation started. i will back up a little bit to the conversation at the dinner the day before. and he was talking about the middle east. and he said i don't think there's going to be peace in my lifetime. i said really. or our children's lifetime. i said really. >> yeah. i said it was right when the gaza war was happening 50rbgs day war, a horrible time. every day i was looking at robin island because we were filming in capeton. and looking at where mandela lived for all those years. i said lori, are we all fools? all of us who work for peace? who work for these organizations like jewish voices for peace and peace now and the abraham fund, all these organizations that try to make peace in the middle east, are we fools? he said absolutely not. he said that it's imperative that every organization continues that effort for peace because when the opportunity comes, the window cracks open for a mere second. and if you are not ready like in this country, no one expected

mandela to ever get out of prison let alone become president but declerk and the world's pressure, the world sangszed pressure and tension toward the situation of apartheid and bota had a stroke and declerk moved in, reached out to mandela and brought him out of prison and for 25 years the world changed. >> rose: and got nobody el prizes. >> and so it he said you must continue these efforts and these works, in spite of, i have family who think i'm naive and it's a shame that i talk about this. to make the palestinian people's lives better. to give them opportunity, schools, why? they're killing us says some of my relatives. and i feel for my relatives because they're frightened. they're very frightened. but let me tell you what has happened to saul berenson because of fear. because mandy and saul together have lived with the real world, but i live in the fictional version of it, so i read these

lines all day long and then i'm an old guy so i have to do them a hundred million times to learn them. and then i spend 14 to 16 hours a day shooting this dark tale that we are all living in the real world, not the fixal world. then i leave and watch your show, and read the newspaper and it's more of what i have been doing at work. and you know what has happened to me, i'm not afraid. and you say what do you mean are you not a i had fra. are you not afraid of terrorists coming to your neighborhood, time care, or a movie theater. i'm truly not. i go anywhere and everywhere and i will never stop. why, because i think have i been desense advertised to it in a positive way. so the only thing that i think positively that might happen for all this terror and fear is i have i eventually we'll stop being so afraid and we will get on with living this very short life we have to live. and so saul isn't afraid and neither is mandy. i'm afraid of other things but not terrorists. i'm afraid of people not

being-- . >> rose: of people that don't have. >> yes, i'm afraid of people not being morally ethical human beings. >> rose: you're afraid we will not let the better angels of our soul. >> better angels. i'm working on a new musical, doing a workshop about the immigrant story and the last song that i sing is the better angels. it's beautiful that you said that. you know, this -- please, everyone listening, call up the international rescue committee, go visit a syrian family. you won't be afraid. when you meet this, when you read about it and you hear all these shows and even shows, you know, they make you frightened. go look at the real thing. you can do it in your neighborhood n your country, in your village. and you'll feel differently. i went to el salvadore nik rack what during the war and went with some very heavy deutdee right wing guys who were terrified but we took testimony from women who watched their husbands and children be dismembered in front of them and

killed. these congressmen and senators t broke their heart and changed their vote. >> back to saul. >> sure. >> what is it about claire that he sees. >> claire is saul's figure tiff child. it's his future. he melt her, probably at yale, and believed that this was the human being who had a sensitivity to human nature, greater than his own. who had the ability and the saf ant like qualities to figure out new par dimes to solve failed par dimes. and that knowing that he won't get to be here forever and knowing that the world is getting more and more troubled and is on fire all over, that his best shot for healing humanity worldwide is that

child. >> you can say but she does this, she's called the drone queen and this and that. but he believes that she is the best thing going for humanity. does he believe she had better skills than he does? >> yes. >> just like i believe both my sons have better skills than i do. >> i don't just believe nie sons and our quhirn have belter than i do, i know they do. >> rose: does she see him as her father. >> i think her mentor and some-- mentor, father figure, whether she likes it or not. she had her own dad. >> rose: exactly. >> but listen f she was here, and said i don't see you as my father, you're not my father, i work for you. i with wait until she left the rom and said she needs to say

what she needs to say. but we are father daughter, it's the student who is the student who is the teacher who is the parent, who is the child. >> rose: right. >> and so i have learned also what saul has taught me is how to be quieter. you see how crazy i get. saul doesn't get that way. >> rose: yeah, we just saw him lose it. >> one time in five year, one time in five years. and when a lover had betrayed him and jeopardized the whole western world. >> rose: the fact that she was a lover make it even harder for him. >> yes. >> rose: because it showed he had sump. >> trust. >> rose: but also terrible judgement. >> yes, he-- you know, trust, raw, naked, in my naked raw humanity, you fueled me, you tricked me, you destroyed human beings. you tried to kill my child. and friends of mine you killed. and there are people, how do i do this? because i don't live on a fictional paper. i infuse things that happen in

the real world all around me. real things, real people, real names. and some that i have imagined. but i use everything rule in my mind. and you don't hear it or see it. so it wears me out. >> rose: is it fair to say that mandy as much as humanly possible wants to live his life to the fullest? he wants to make sure that he is open and accessible to everything that he thinks is important? and that in fact is what the refugee trip was about? >> yeah. >> rose: that is who you are. >> i don't want to waste my time on this planet. i want to do good for humanity. i really do. it is the most selfish act i can do because it is the thing that makes me feel best. to do something for others. i was a very selfish person for most of my life as a young person wanting to get ahead, wanting to be successful. >> rose: mainly ambition.

>> am big, i still like to do good work i love working, i love it. but i have learned that the real gifts come in helping others. in being there for others. my children, my wife, my fellow citizens of the world. and i've become less afraid. you can bet your whatever you want to call it that there are all kinds of people out there and they want to say, you know you know, mandzy say bad guy because he says this or says that. i'm not afraid of them any more. >> rose: i tell you what else you have done, and you have talked to me about this before. you have learned to listen. >> saul has taught me that. and homeland has taught me that. thank you, godz, i hope you're right. even just if a little more than i ever have before. and what have i often said, i often wondered when homeland began, why is it such a success. why is everybody talking about it and i believed it was because of how we listened to people or

how we are not listening, about what we are living. so we get to watch this mirror of our own existence and see what works and what's not working. and usually what's not working means loss of life. and what is working means possibility. and-- . >> rose: i give this creddity to where it belongs, to my friend tom broa kaw who said to me, it's a mistake not to go. it's a mistake not to go, meaning it's a mistake not to go to greece. it's a mistake not to give full expression to your own openness to the world around you. and don't seek the quiet, uneventful place where you can live within your own accomplishments and your own material gains. go where there is challenge and learning.

>> absolutely. >> and be grateful for the risk of life. if you don't wake up and take a risk, every day, it's not worth waking up. being afraid, having darkness, is an equal part to joy. you don't know what joy is unless you know what it's not. you don't appreciate the corny things. you don't get the rainbows without the rain. and it is an equal part of life to be frightened and squared. but it mustant override the good possibilities that exist in all of our lives. >> rose: has saul berenson as a character had more impact on you than any other character you've portrayed? or maybe because it came to you at a time that you were at a different place in your life? >> i would say the two characters-- i would say the character i feel that has had the greatest impact on me, i

think-- well, it was sunday in the park about george. >> right. >> and it's the words repeatedly repeated in the piece by my character, connect, george, connect. and what we have been talking about is connecting. connecting to humanity, too children, to this living part of this world. and that is what that artist tried to do. so i want to take-- i want to be with everyone who is terrified. and i want to sit with them as long as it takes until they are not afraid to go to the movie and not afraid to go to the mall and not afraid to get on the airplane. >> you've showed me its film. i will take a look at it now, in which you said, you asked those

people, are you fearful. >> yes. >> and they said? >> no, we're not afraid of anything. they just told me how isis had beat the father, knocked him down. mom and the dark at night had her two boys ten and five. and they were taken by a smuggler around the per imter of isis. the father escaped, reswroined the family. there were 60 other people, the children couldn't talk. they had to go through the woods and they escape add and to get on this journey. after they he told me this whole story, i said are you afraid of anything, both of them. they didn't even let may finish the question and said absolutely nothing. >> i will show you the clip. nar rate the clip. roll tape. what am i seeing. >> these are the people what just got off the boat. this is the boat that i just met. will you see it a little bit backwards. they put this in front. and so then this is the third day i was there. no boats had arrived. >> rose: having gotten on land they are walking.

>> here is the boats those folks got off of. i'm a couple buildings away. i am running down the street. and i'm coming there. and will you see me in a moment. these boats hold 23 to 24 people. >> coming from right across which is turkey but this is a further point. normally the six mile trip should take an hour and a half that boat took two and a half hours as one of the guy tells me. >> they are now setting foot on greek soil and they're now free. and there i am. >> there you are. >> he hands me his chieldz, this little girl an i take his daughter. and then somebody else handed me their son, not that boy but the next boy, will you see they handed me another kid and i got these two kids. and then i waded to come here, and i was helping. and i was so grateful i was helping. and then right after t the little girl in the pink jacket, she had this face mask on and i took it offer and she wasn't moving and i sthowt he had had died and i thought she wasn't alived and i was just terrified but my mouth said she's sleeping. i remember my heart was thinking

she is gone and my mouth said she's sleeping. so i just loved that there was some optimism coming out of me. anyway they eventually got out, the family got out and then we found out the child was fine. she had epilepsy, the international rescue committee took her in a ambulance to the hospital, they gave her medication, and they reunited the family and got them on their way. and so it is another wonderful tale. >> you are dplad you went. >> charlie, i'm really glad i went. you know, i just wanted to help anyway i could. and then i came back here at this moment when fear because of paris and all over the world is just exploded. and things that are coming out of donald trump's mouth and this fearmongerring. all of a sudden i'm a small part of telling people wait a minute, wait a minute. i was just there. i was with these people, these syrian refugees, these afghan people, they are beautiful young people, they are like my children. >> don't be afraid of them. >> please don't be afraid of

them, reach out to them. if you don't believe me, call the international rescue committee, they are in your community, go see them, reach out it will change your life and will you change someone else's d this cycle of fear will stop. and the cycle of kindness and peace and affection, all these religions talk about love. let's do it. >> thank you for coming, my friend. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: it say very good way to end the program with you. >> thank you, sir. >> rose: i also congratulate you. i read today that your show time has renewed. >> yes, we have. >> rose: homeland for another season. >> that's good news. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. serene jones is here, president and first woman to lead the union theological seminary in new york city. it is the largest organization of religious scholars in the united states. she previous taught theology at yale di vinnity school for 17 years. next year they will be president

of the american academy of religion. i'm pleased to have her here at this table for the first time, welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: let's talk about the rose: i mean it is ater first. historic institution. >> yes, it's its oldest and perhaps most globally significant independent seminary in the united states. and the legacy it has from its inception was founded by a group of pastors from new haven and pastors from princeton who had the realization in the 1830s that if you wanted to teach people to prepare and serve humanity, you can't do it in the quiet of the countryside surrounded by elites. and they set up a tent on the docks of new york and started. >> and since it's inception that has been our identity and we've been very good in terms of educating leaders that speak out on public issues. >> some famous people have been associated with it.

>> yes. made the decision to go back and oppose hitler and was killed. just as the war was ending, because of his stance that grew out of his faith. paul tillick who had such a powerful vision of what it means to live with courage. rynehold neeber who i think of him often in these what i consider dark days who had this vision of christian realism where people should not be afraid of moral complexity. and also of really sophisticated understanding. >> rose: and should not seek simple answers. >> there are no simple answers. >> rose: who else. >> more recently, it's the birth place of black theology with james cone, feminist theology, got its voice and start there with beverly harrison and more recently we've taken a turn in our curriculum to interfaith, and have muslim and buddhist faculty. >> rose: there is a lot of

conversation about muslims today. in the political arena. the most loud conversation comes from donald trump. you've been tweeting about that. tell me how you see it from your own experience and your position. >> well, first of all what trump's been saying as of late is a moral. it's frightening. i rarely fray and-- pray and i pray that it is not the fash statistics disposition that it appears to be. but what i find even more frightening are the crowds of people who are cheering him. and this needs to give all of us pause because we need to think hard about what is happening in this nation that these words can be spoken and-- . >> rose: is that what troubles you about the times. >> i see our nation right now in a state of kind of moral collapse. where the conditions created by economic crisis, the loss of the

capacity to hope, the disintegration of a moral framework, and this is across-the-board s creating levels of rage and despair that we see popping up in all directions. it's interconnected. >> how is it interconnected? >> well, dare i say that the kind of rage that is expressed in the shooting at a planned parenthood in denver is not that different than the rage that drives someone to go online and identify with isis and begin to make that journey. and that's the kind of analysis and complexity that we need to not as a nation be afraid. >> rose: how are they different in your. >> what dives-- drives a person to participate in these acts of horrific vy lensz f we want to just call them crazy, that's fine. i think there is a certain level of insanity there. but if you don't have a complex understanding of human nature you can't take into account how

poverty, how fear, how displacement, how the rage that comes with entitlement, these are all things that live inside all of us as human beings. but we see that we're living in a time that is fanning the fires that create the outbursts. we make a mistake when we think because isis claims to be islamic, and there are many muslims who simply say they're not muslim. and if you dig diseep beneath the surface, many of them have never opened the cover of the koran. but to ask muslim leaders in general to show weigh in specifically on this group of thugs that is growing in power as if someone there's a religious identity there. but this is where theological vocabulary and depth of think being the human condition becomes quite helpful because you stop seeing these battles as

in a simplicity-- sim police particular moral framework and begin to understand the fear that is motivated by it. and this is why the kind of fear that would mobilize a man show shoot up planned parenthood and the kind of fear that mobilized that coup knell san bern lynn-- san bernardino, that is something about who we are as human beings, that that can get ignitessed, and cause us to stop seeing another human being as a human being, and toings acts of yowtd rage us violence about them. >> rose: help me understand the connection between deed and the mindset to do the deed. >> i think that that kieng of mindset is developed in a world view and it can be attributed to almost any religion where the world becomes a sim police particular story about good and evil. and there are purely bad people on one side and purely good

people on the other. and the bad people represent sump a threat to your existence that their a nielation is the only thing that you can imagine has some capacity. >> that is the apocalyptic story. >> rose: or radical extreme groups. >> christianity has done it for years, centuries. >> rose: and the best example of that is. >> the crusades. but i think we also hear it in the crowds that are cheering on trump right now. >> rose: who are they? >> so those people cheering-- . >> rose: what are they saying that reflects your own sense of who they are? >> i think to be able to cheer that kind of bigot ree and hatred, first of all you have to be very afraid. you have to see show that your own life is threatened. but you also have to see it as a kind of release of that anxiety. the world's gotten too complex. and if i can just find a bad group of people and blame it on

them, it's classical scapegoating. and there's a kind of expressive relief that comes when you can demonize. >> rose: what do you think of the pope? >> i'm not the kind of christian that thinks that miracles happen. and i look at the pope, i think he's a miracle. who would have imagined that a man like this would step on to the world stage and speak with such prophetic power. >> rose: an clarity. >> and clarity. >> rose: and what is his message? as a scholar, what is his message. >> his message is is that god tells us to love each other. that's it and our job is to go love each other. that's it. and if you don't, then you're not following godz and the complications in our life is to figure out how we love each other. that's it. >> rose: where is christianity today? >> christianity is both in decline and expanding. fascinating moment, in the united states, of course, in catholic and main line and now

evangelical communities, the numbers of people joining congregations and acting is going down. you look at it globally, south america, africa and asia, growing like wildfire. >> that is exactly where the gains are and you may want to include it, in the catholic church. >> that's right. >> rose: it's not in traditional places, it's in latin america. >> yeah. an many of those communities would be unrecognizable to american white christians. american african-american christians because its he a very different language and ritual and worldview and it's a challenge. >> what brought you to di vinnity studies. >> i grew up in a family with a father who was a thee lodgean so i grew up with this as the common lingo. one of the first words i learned to speak, i think i could say it well by the time i was two was kirkegaard. and my father used to say to us when we were fight or come home

with a bad grade, he would call us children of light and children of darkness. and really, a rich intellectual religious environment. and when it came time for me to choose my path, i wanted toz go where i could both engage in political discourse as a citizen of this country and be active but speak profoundly. >> rose: what do you think of black lives matter. >> union, my own school has been very active, played a big role in mobilizing the eric garner protest. i went to ferguson, about two months last fall, after the august killing of michael brown. i was stunned by what i experienced in ferguson. it was life changing for me. >> rose: how so. >> so i have always prided

myself on being an open and progressive person. but to drive down the main drag of ferguson and see a town in the united states where buildings have been boarded up and burned out, where bar bed wire has been put up and then to come to the police station and see tanks and officers in gas masks holding guns, pointed into crowds of young people, it was shocking to me. to go to a place where michael brown lived, and to see there's no public education in that neighborhood. i mean you just get a sense of the urter despair and the violence and the violence experience by the people in that

community it was like going to a war zone and it was our own country. and you say what is wrong with this picture. what's wrong with this picture? why are we still in a war in this country over race. >> rose: and what is your answer. >> the answer is a deep answer. and i think it is-- . >> rose: slavery. >> slavery, it lasted 200 years. and it was a systemized state-sanctioned church-supported economic--- economicically driven system of execution, torture and extracting labor from human bodies. 200 years you do that to a group of people. you have to develop a psychology on the part of the white people who are doing this that involves enormous acts of denial. just for the system to continue. and it's that did he nile that what was involved in it, and the own kind of unconscious processes in our own minds in this country, that we haven't

begun to undo. we haven't even claimed it as the horrific system that it was. we haven't gone through nik like what germany went through after the second world war and that was a war in a relatively short time frame. we're talking about 200 years of a state-sanctioned war on black bodies in this country. legal torture. >> rose: and what is the answer to that? >> we have to begin to face into that. and we have to talk seriously about reparations. there should be noafter quan american child in this country that doesn't have access to the best education, free college education, there should be no black family who-- 40% of the black community lost more than 60% of their net worth in the crash of 2008. this happens time and again. >> rose: 40% of the black population lost over half of their net worth.

>> yeah. that was dramically different than what happened in the white community. so we need to address hoos-- issues of home ownership, address issues of health care. rather than addressing these issues, we've kind of walked away from them. >> rose: is your mission in life to speak to power and to speak to failure to address love and human needs or is it to promote religion. >> it would never be to promote religion. >> rose: i was looking for a better way to express that. >> it's about love. >> it's not simply to train people into theology. i actually believe in the message and the love that it holds. and i think that some powerful form of love that has to get broader cultural expression, it's like we're sitting as a civil on the cu sp of a new

understanding about love, we're not there but we're all going down if we don't figure this out. >> rose: going down means what? >> collapsing as a globe, as a world. >> rose: i hope will you come back. we'll talk more. >> thank you. >> rose: serene jones is president and first woman to lead the union theological seminary in new york city. thank you for joining us. see you next time. >> for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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