>> coming up -- deborah potter looks at a new movement to help the country's two million prison inmates. >> we don't recognize the god in our brothers and sisters who are in prison. >> and, popular evangelical leader joni eareckson tada on her battle with breast cancer. >> start where you are. this is the new base line, now get on with living. >> plus, the devotion of sufi whirling dervishes.

welcome. i'm kim lawton sitting in for bob abernethy. thank you for joining us. growing humanitarian concerns this week about the situation in syria. united nations investigators reported "new levels of brutality" from both sides in syria's more than two-year-long conflict. the report documented systematic imposition of sieges, the use of chemical agents and forcible displacement of civilians. the lead un investigator said

quote "crimes that shock the conscience have become a daily reality." pope francis added his voice of concern several times this week. on sunday, he called for the release of hostages, including two orthodox archbishops kidnapped in april. and during his wednesday general audience, he urged more help for the syrian people, saying their destiny was close to his heart. also on wednesday, francis challenged what he called a "throwaway culture" that harms the environment and disregards human life. he specifically criticized the frequent waste of food in wealthy countries, saying food that is thrown out might as well have been stolen from the poor. meanwhile, cardinal timothy dolan, president of the u.s. catholic bishops, joined other bishops from around the world in urging officials of the group of eight industrialized nations to do more to protect poor people. g-8 leaders will meet in

northern ireland the week after next. secretary of state john kerry has called on us jews to become more involved in peace negotiations between israel and the palestinians. at the american jewish committee's global forum, kerry said the jewish community must push political leaders toward a two-state solution. kerry has made middle east peace a top priority and has visited the area four times since becoming secretary of state in february. religious leaders were among those attending a special white house meeting this week on mental illness. president obama hosted the group saying he wanted a more robust national discussion about mental health. he said mental illness left untreated could lead to tragedies like the newtown school shooting. the president called on houses of worship and other religious institutions to help people recognize mental health problems and get the treatment they need. faith-based relief groups already working to help tornado victims this week also responded in the wake of massive flooding across the midwest.

volunteers headed to several areas along the mississippi river to help flood victims. aid officials say a particularly bad spring storm season has stretched disaster resources. the evangelical lutheran church in america has elected its first openles iy southern california. in a controversial vote four years ago, the elca changed its policy to allow gay and lesbian clergy. since then, some 600 congregations have left the four-million-member denomination. at its annual meeting next week, the southern baptist convention will consider whether to break ties with the boy scouts. the action comes in response to the scouts' decision to allow gay scouts under the age of 18, while still banning gay scout leaders. about 70% of troops are sponsored by religious organizations. the two largest -- the mormons

and the united methodists -- said they will remain involved in scouting. the national catholic committee on scouting issued a statement saying the new policy does not conflict with catholic teaching. an ohio court has ruled in favor of a teacher at a cincinnati catholic school who was fired after she became pregnant through artificial insemination. the teacher argued that was discrimination. the archdiocese said she had violated her contract. which said employees must follow church teaching. the catholic church opposes artificial insemination. some legal scholars say the case could set a precedent on how involved religious employers can be in their employees' personal lives. there are more than two million people in prison in this country, nearly 40% of them african-american. a new movement is urging faith-based groups to address the issue of mass incarceration through more prison ministries and much more help for former inmates trying to avoid going back. deborah potter begins her report in akron, ohio.

>> at first glance, the front porch cafe could be any neighborhood coffee shop. but the make-shift kitchen isn't quite up to par, and those guys at the grill aren't your typical cooks. >> i actually have a small felony on my record. well, it's still a felony. and i know how hard it was for myself to get jobs. >> since i had my felonies i been having real poor jobs. and i chose to do street life, and street life is nothing but trouble-death, jail, or, you know, both. >> most of the workers here are ex-offenders. the cafe is run by south street ministries, a christian fellowship that also offers bible study for inmates. >> what are they doing for like housing for like ex-felons? >> a place to live, a job, even just a "welcome home" are hard d to come by when you've been where some of these men have been. >> i've been arrested 117 times. i've been shot four times.

i've been convicted 12 times. >> we want fast money, okay? so consequently i went to prison for ten years for aggravated robbery, okay? behind the aggravated robbery was drugs. >> perry clark now runs a construction business. michael starks is a community organizer. both former drug users say they went straight after finding faith behind bars but that when they were locked up the churches they knew were not on their side. >> the church was of the mindset that, hey, he did wrong, he's being punished. they thought that if you did wrong, you went to prison and that was it, and they were going to throw away the key. >> i wrote three churches to let them know, not asking for anything, that i was reentering back into the community after ten years of incarceration. and i didn't get a response back. >> both men are now involved in active prison ministries,

helping ex-offenders rejoin the community. >> i want them to know that they can live normal life once they out. it's not easy, though, when the problem is enormous. >> more than two million americans are now imprisoned, four times as many as 30 years ago. the major reason: mandatory sentencing for non-violent crimes and drug charges. but the war on drugs, declared in the 1980s, has not had the effect its backers predicted. arkansas circuit judge wendell griffen has seen the results. >> drug use has not declined. all it has done has produced an explosion on our prison population. the whole mandatory sentencing guideline mantra was sort of like the kool-aid that we should never have drunk. >> behind bars, the racial disparity is striking. black men are six times more likely to be imprisoned than whites, especially for drug offenses, even though the rate of drug use is only slightly

higher for blacks. law professor michelle alexander, author of the book, "the new jim crow," says the nation faces a human rights nightmare more than 40 years after the end of legal segregation. >> in cities like chicago, more than half of working-age african-american men now have criminal records, and they can be legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. so many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind in the jim-crow era are suddenly legal again once you've been branded a felon. >> in the 1960s, ministers like dr. martin luther king, jr. were in the forefront of the civil rights movement. there's been no similar movement to end mass incarceration. >> i think dr. king would be

just so deeply saddened and appalled by what we've allowed to happen in this country in the years since his death. >> we're told to visit the prisoner, and so that goes with what we do and who we are. >> tom navin oversees prison ministries for the catholic diocese of little rock, but he says jesus' command to care for prisoners is not widely followed. >> we've gotten people to be interested in prison ministry and contribute money to us and pat us on the back, but it's really tough to get people to volunteer to go into the prison. that's really a tough sell. >> as an ordained baptist pastor, judge griffen believes churches should lead a national campaign against mass incarceration. >> we don't recognize the god in our brothers and sisters who are in prison, and the biblical imperative is for us to see that our sisters and brothers in prison are our sisters and brothers. we owe it to god to get them

out. >> just as in the days of slavery it wasn't enough to shuttle a few to freedom, today we've got to work for the abolition of the system of mass incarceration as a whole and that means, in my view, that the church has got to find its prophetic voice in the era of mass incarceration and really call on politicians and policymakers to undo the massive tragedy that has been done. >> some legal reform is underway. states from ohio to california have approved early release programs and lower penalties for lesser crimes, changes driven largely by the high cost of keeping so many people behind bars. >> i think martin luther king jr. was right when he said we have to be careful of doing the right thing for the wrong

reasons. if we can afford once again to lock people up en masse, nothing will prevent us from doing so if we don't learn the most important lessons from this time, which is that none of us should be viewed as disposable. none of us should be treated as throwaway people, rounded up, locked up and then branded criminals and felons and ushered into a permanent second class status. that's the lesson we have to learn from this time, and it's not about saving money. it's about saving lives, saving our own sense of humanity. >> if you got people in prison, they need to be loved, too, because if they cannot see the love of christ, in spite of their circumstances, then they'll never come to accept the fact that christ cares about them at all. how can he care about me when no one from the church is in my life, no one from the church steps forward to give me an embrace?

>> talking about congregational involvement requires getting congregations to be about social change, and we in the american religious community have been very, very content to sing our way to heaven, but we have forgotten that in the lord's prayer the word is "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." >> without more support from faith-based or community groups, many of these prisoners face a tough road. within three years, national statistics say, more than a third of them will be back behind bars. for religion and ethics newsweekly, i'm deborah potter in akron, ohio. >> actress angelina jolie made her first public appearance this week after undergoing a preventive double mastectomy. the actress says she feels "wonderful" after the procedure that reduced her chances of

developing breast cancer. jolie has a rare genetic mutation that put her at high risk for the disease. beyond genetic mutation, there are many factors that contribute to breast cancer. according to the american cancer society, about one in eight women will be diagnosed with the disease at some point. among those who have battled breast cancer is popular evangelical author and speaker joni eareckson tada, a quadriplegic who heads an international ministry for people with disabilities. she shared her very personal journey with us. >> before cancer, joni eareckson tada lived an extremely busy life. one of the longest surviving quadriplegics on record, she led an international christian ministry for people with disabilities. she was also a popular speaker, bestselling author, and acclaimed artist. >> in my situation, being a quadriplegic, i never had time to think about cancer, it always

happened to other women. it was not in my wheelhouse. i mean, i had other issues to deal with. >> those "other issues" included more than 40 years in a wheelchair. an athletic teenager, tada broke her neck in a diving accident when she was 17. her spinal cord was severed, and she became paralyzed from the shoulders down. she has limited arm motion, but can't use her hands or her legs. in addition to her quadriplegia, she suffers from chronic pain. it had been nine years since her last mammogram when in 2010, one of the women who helps get tada up in the mornings noticed a mass in her right breast. tada and ken, her husband of thirty years, went to have it checked out and got the devastating diagnosis -- a malignant tumor. stage three breast cancer. >> any woman who is scratching her head wondering if she's got enough time to make a mammogram appointment. well, i'll tell her -- do it.

>> i last interviewed tada after the diagnosis, before she had begun treatment. she spoke of the uncertainty ahead. >> privately i've wondered, gee, lord, is this cancer my ticket to heaven? because i sure am tired of sitting in a wheelchair and my body is aching. and i'm so weary. could this be my ticket to heaven? ♪ >> more than two years later, tada says it is her evangelical faith that has given her the strength to fight. >> i decided to not let cancer overwhelm me, i decided to overwhelm cancer with a shoring up of an attitude that would trust god in the midst of this and not doubt him. >> tada invited television cameras to follow along. first came surgery, a mastectomy. she wondered how she would deal with losing a breast. >> as a spinal cord injured

quadriplegic, my body image is already, not the best. but, then to slice off a significant part of my femininity, was just hard to wrap my head around at first. >> when the bandages finally came off, she says it wasn't as bad as she had feared. >> that first day when i wheeled into my bathroom to look in the mirror, i kind of was looking down, but not looking at the mirror, and wondering how am i going to handle this? is it going to overwhelm me? what's it going to be like, and i look up and oh, well this isn't too bad. i can handle this, i can do this. >> more daunting was chemotherapy. the doctors were especially concerned about the possible impact because of tada's quadriplegia. she already has brittle bones and diminished lung capacity. losing her hair turned out to be one of the easier side effects. >> i would wake up at night with

hair in my mouth. there'd be hair on my pillow, and i said that's it, this is all coming off. and so, my girlfriend took her shaver, and there i was, bald as a bat. we made light of it. we tried to find the humor in it. besides, i knew it would grow back. so it was a minimal loss, it was a loss that i could absorb. >> but the chemo took a severe toll on her body. she says it was in those dark moments that she saw the power of her faith. >> i remember one time my husband was driving me home from chemotherapy and i was particularly nauseous, and we started talking about how our sufferings, this cancer, is like a little splash-over of hell, that kind of like wakes you up out of your spiritual slumber like, "whoa!" and so, then we started thinking, well then what are splash-overs of heaven? are they those days when everything is easy and breezy

and bright, and there are no problems? he looked at me in the rearview mirror and said, "no, i think splash-overs of heaven are finding god, or finding jesus in your splash-over of hell." >> tada says she doesn't waste time asking questions like why cancer had to happen of top of everything else that she deals with. >> as i have learned to do over four and a half decades in this wheelchair, put it behind you. it's in the past. start where you are. this is the new base line, and get on with living. >> she says prayers, scriptures and songs help her to do that. during chemo, one song was particularly meaningful. >> it was a cd by amy grant. "somewhere down the road they'll be answers to our questions. somewhere down the road, you will find mighty arms reaching for you and they will hold the answers at the end of the road."

and that became an anthem for me. somewhere down the road this is all going to make sense. right now, i feel sick, i feel ugly, i feel tired, weak and weary, but somewhere down the road, the answers are going to come. >> nearly three years down the road, tada says she is feeling a strength and stamina that has surprised her doctors. her ministry now includes raising awareness about breast cancer, and supporting women who are fighting it. she has started to resume some of her previous schedule, including some travel and speaking engagements. >> if people put me on this pedestal, i don't think they're listening to what i'm saying, because i'm just, i'm just one person on the same level playing field, helping other beggars to find the bread of meaning and purpose in their suffering. >> tada says her relationship with ken is stronger than ever.

>> it was his arm of support around me that gave me the courage to step out into that demilitarized zone of nowhere, not knowing what is going to happen and march through that marsh with me. >> they made the difficult decision not to follow the chemo with radiation treatments because they feared the physical damage to tada's frail body would be too much. but this heightens the risk that cancer cells are still lingering. the doctors have left the chemo port in her chest just in case. >> it's a constant reminder that i'm not cancer free. i've got a long way to go before i can be declared cancer free. >> amid the uncertainty, tada says she makes a conscious effort to corral her thoughts so that fear, anger and depression don't take hold. >> i just make my emotions obey me. i'm not going to be led by them, i will not allow them to rule my

life. and, i think that is a secret to contentment, and it's a secret to learning how to live in the present and move forward into the future with a good attitude. >> the tadas have just released a book about their life together, including this battle with breast cancer. >> like other major religions, islam has a mystical branch, sufism, which teaches many ways to experience spiritual union with the divine. one of those paths -- dating from the 13th century -- is dance, specifically the dancing of whirling dervishes, who were followers of the poet rumi. recently, the smithsonian institution in washington had a symposium on sufism that included whirling dervishes from turkey. our guide was manjula kumar, a smithsonian program manager. >> there are stories about the origins of the whirling dervishes and one of the stories is rumi was walking towards,

just walking down and he heard the call for prayer and he was so overwhelmed, he was almost in an ecstasy to hear the call for prayer that he started moving around and he called it a divine ecstasy. and since then his followers started making this whirling. it's creating an atmosphere to pray and it's an offering i think it's just a physical way of expressing this love for the divine and that's how they kind

of twirl and in the whirling it becomes a meditation. it's an ecstatic state, but over the years it's become an art form. they do not call it a performance. i would not call it a performance. it is a spiritual offering. this became a symbol of believing in beyond religion, beyond the rituals, beyond the fundamental beliefs of islam. it continues to evolve, it continues to grow, but i want to just make a very clear distinction that everyone today will say sufism, the term, is not a religion, it is a philosophy, a belief and the commonalities, whether one is a muslim, a hindu, a jew or a sikh or a christian, the commonality is the looking for love, peace, harmony of coming together in unison as a voice.

finally, a global prayer vigil. last sunday, pope francis asked catholics in every time zone to join him in the first ever worldwide simultaneous eucharistic adoration. at 5:00 p.m. rome time, catholics around the world spent an hour in prayer before a consecrated communion host. vatican officials say they don't know exactly how many people participated, but they're guessing they didn't actually get all 40 time zones. at least two of the zones mostly cover stretches of uninhabited ocean. that's our program for now. i'm kim lawton. you can follow us on twitter and facebook, where i have a fan page as well. there's always more on our website, including more of my interviews with joni eareckson tada. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, more scenes from the pope's worldwide eucharistic adoration.

♪

barry kibrick: today on "between the lines," a visionary blueprint for how we can draw from our rebellious american past to encourage meaningful change in our nation today, with my guest, christopher phillips. welcome, i'm barry kibrick. chris has been a past guest on our show with his classic endeavor, "socrates cafe." with it, chris toured the world setting up these cafes so that all types of people can participate in deep, inspiring conversations, which often led to life-changing experiences. now with his book, "constitution cafe," chris tours america, from its prisons to its playgrounds, to discuss our constitution, with the goal of enlighteningiz