>> abernethy: coming up: muslim fears about the new airline security rules. we talk with a muslim leader. and, pastors from nigeria here to minister to nigerian immigrants and eventually, they say, to reform all of america. plus, a funeral director, a woman of faith, who buries the victims of violence in the inner city. >> i don't think they know it's real. they think they get back up. i remember some guy in a funeral home, like man, "get up, get out." well, they don't get up. captioning sponsored by the lilly dowment

>> abernethy: welcome. i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us. in the wake of the failed christmas day airplane bombing, the obama administration took new steps this week to improve airline safety. president obama ordered u.s. agencies to move faster and more accurately to prevent future terrorist attacks. he said while the vast majority of muslims reject al-qaeda, the u.s. must develop a strategy that addresses the challenges posed by lone recruits. under new t.s.a. procedures, passengers traveling from 14 nations, most of them predominantly muslim, are facing enhanced screening.

many american muslim groups say while they are concerned about security, they are still worried that their community is being unfairly targeted by what they call "religious profiling." joining me is salam al-marayati, executive director of the muslim public affairs council in los angeles. mr. marayati, welcome. what's the matter with tougher airline security? >> nothing wrong with tougher airline security, but when we stigmatize and profile a population, that divides our country, making it more difficult to counter the threat. we have to be united against extremism and united against hate. >> abernethy: well, for instance, are head scarves a problem? shouldn't... and certainly somebody who... a lone guy gets on an airplane and pays cash for a one way ticket, shouldn't those things raise alarms? >> there's a difference between behavior profiling and religious profiling.

ifsomeone buys a one-way ticket with cash only withoubaggage, flying from africa or asia to the united states, of course that should raise suspicions. but going after women with head scarves is ineffective. >> abernethy: so are you saying that you and other muslim leaders come down more on the side of individual freedom that you do on secuty? >> no, i think we have to have both. if you are going to stigmatize or isolate a population, that feeds into radicalization. part of the radicalization problem is when a community feels isolated, and when one person... and we're talking about now the concern over lone wolves or lone recruits, if that person feels desperate, depressed, then he becomes prey for extremist recruiters, and we should do anything and everything to help accelerate integration of muslims into american society. >> abernethy: after the

christmas day near-disaster in the air near detroit, and some other recent events, too, do you sense a growing backlash against muslims in this country? >> there's a rise of the mob mentality. you read the comments on a number of stories, you get the emails, you get the phone calls. and i fee unfortunately, that the level of hostility against islam and muslims is at an all- time high, and i'm very concerned. >> abernethy: many americans think that muslim's leaders in this country and in the middle east should be doing a lot more to combat and condemn the interpretation of islam that is so popular among many young radical extremists. do you agree with that? > well, i think that we as muslims have done a lot in terms of the message against extremism. our problem is that we have not been able to develop an effective way to get the message out.

we don't have the capacity in terms of public relations, if you will, in terms of making our message of moderation more newsworthy than the sensationalist message of extremism. >> abernethy: do you think there is a role for the unites states government in combating the ideology of radical islam? >> the unites states government will not be able to defeat ideology of radicalism. it needs the muslim american community in partnership. for those people unfortunately who are being recruited by extremists, they don't regard the united states government as an authority, but they regard muslim leaders as authorities. so it is our task, muslims, who will help win the victory against radicalism and extremism >> abernethy: many thanks to salam al-marayati of the muslim public affairs council. in another case, after strong

in other news, in southern egypt, rioting broke out between muslims anchristians after a deadly drive-by shooting at a coptic church. coptic christians celebrated christmas on thursday. just after a midnight service, gunmen in a car fired into the crowd of people leaving. seven were killed. interfaith tensions in the area have been high since november, when a christian man was accused of raping of muslim girl. copts make up fewer than 10% of egypt's population. all through american history, immigrants have brought with them their own forms of worship and their own pastors, and that's happening again,xr dramatically, with immigrants from nigeria and their redeemed christian church of god. it's a pentecostal form of christianity, emphasizing speaking in tongues, faith healing and strict family values. and, as betty rollin reports, the church's leaders want to minister not only to america's

nigerians but to every family in the world. >> reporter: the music, the joy, the hats! all are in evidence every sunday morning at the victory temple in bowie, maryland, one of 400 redeemed christian churches of god in north america. today's sermon by pastor bayo adeyokunnu is about money. >> you must have a savings account, no matter how much you are making, and this can come through so many areas: money market, mutual funds, savings accounts, 401(k), amen. >> reporter: congregant theresa norton, a school teacher, used to attend a catholic church. she prefers this church's emphasis on the bible and on practical matters as well. >> i'm really making money because of what the pastor is always telling us. you know, even if you have your

job that you're doing, you need to have something by the side. >> reporter: like all of the pastors of the redeemed church, pastor adeyokunnu has great ambitions for his church. >> our goal is to do everything possible to win souls for the kingdom of god. after they are won, then we teach them, we disciple them how to make a living, how to benefit the society, how to make a difference within their community. >> reporter: and the victory temple's goal is to grow. churches in this part of maryland, mostly attended by their fellow africans.s a good start, they say. >> we want to start churches, if possible, like starbucks. >> reporter: like starbucks? >> this bowie church is located in the african-american community, so we are trying to attract people within this

community, and very soon we are going to reach out to the whites within the neighborhood. >> reporter: you will be reaching out to whites as well. >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: why do you want to do that? >> because christ died for everybody. >> oh, lord, god almighty, heal this nation. heal america. bless america. defend america. >> reporter: so speaks the revered and powerful leader of the global church, pastor enoch adeboye, a former math professor in nigeria. called the general overseer, adeboye is the man in charge. he sees his role as restoring christianity and morality to america and the rest of the world. one of his emissaries, who attended this yearly meeting of pastors, is daniel ajayi-

adeniran. his assignment is church expansion. >> in every household, there will be at least one member of redeemed christian church of god in the whole world. >> reporter: every family in america? >> in the whole world. not only in america, in the entire universe. >> reporter: and who is telling you this? who is setting these goals? >> it is our leader, the general overseer. >> reporter: and who is setting his goals? >> god. >> reporter: and they believe it was god who directed pastor enoch adeboye to gather in this remote place northeast of dallas. here at headquarters in floyd, texas, population 220, the church has bought 550 acres of land. plans include building a school, perhaps a college, and an auditorium that will seat 20,000 people. >> i believe god takes special interest in this country. god will not allow america to

drown, to be destroyed, because this country has been a great helper, a blessing to the entire universeincluding people like me. >> reporter: but you think we are drowning now? >> yes. there is no family value anymore. before it used to be family values, but it is no more. our teenagers, they just doing whatever they like. no fear of god. >> reporter: so you are helping us? >> we are working together for god's will to come to pass, and we will do our best. >> reporter: dana robert is a professor of world christianity and mission theology at boston university. she attributes the remarkable growth of the redeemed christian church of god to a demographic shift in christianity worldwide. >> now there are over 450

million christians in africa. a century ago, there were only eight million, so the huge growth of christianity in africa and latin america and parts of asia means that when they come here, they think of themselves as missionaries. >> reporter: professor robert says immigrants have always brought their religions with them, but few have expanded as much as nigerians have. >> they come from a huge, overcrowded english-speaking country, so they can land with their feet on the ground and get up and running with outreach, churches, building schools, building homes very quickly. they don't have the language barrier that a lot of the other immigrants have when they get to the united states. >> reporter: in addition, professor robert says, people are attracted to the pentecostal style of worship. >> pentecostalism has swept all over the world in the last several decades, so the immediacy of the supernatural,

the emotional worship style, the focus on lifestyle and holines-- these are things that american churches has gotten soft on >> reporter: speaking in tongues which is a way of praying and, some say, a sign of god's grace also has an appeal. >> you enter not quite an altered state of consciousness but you're suspending your rational mind and just letting your tongue loose. by releasing your conscious mind, it lets mystery flow into you. >> reporter: nigerians also emphasize healing as a part of their service. >> i believe in the healing power of god. i don't use medication. if for any reason i'm sick, i don't go to hospital. i pray to my god, because he created me. god manufactured me. if anything is wrong with me, he knows how to repair and fix me up. >> reporter: like many

conservative christian churches, when it comes to issues like homosexuality the redeemed church believes the bible forbids it. >> it is spelled out in the scripture. when god created adam, he created eve for adam. he would have created another adam, man. but he created adam, a man, and eve, a woman. >> reporter: the church believes that homosexuality, as well as other kinds of behavior they consider immoral, is the work of the devil. >> it's a paradox that these are such highly educated people, but their substratum of african traditional religion has a very vigorous spiritual life of spirits, evil spirits, ancestors. things that are perceived as evil or negative have to be vigorously fought in the church, and that's consistent with african traditional religion. >> reporter: professor robert says that the most negative

reaction to african churches comes from african americans. >> so you see you get africans coming in with no racial chip on their shoulder living alongside and competing with african americans who've got the weight of their communal history that in some respects is dragging them down, and there's tension right on the ground. >> reporter: numbers matter, and there's no doubt that the number of redeemed christian churches of god has grown, and clearly the leaders have the desire, the energy, and the money to keep growing. but so far they are mainly reaching fellow africans, so their challenge is to reach beyond their base. for "religion & ethics newsweekly," i'm betty rollin in floyd, texas.

>> abernethy: longtime washington newsman brit hume of fox news provoked spirited reaction last weekend when he said on television that tiger woods should turn to christianity for the quote, "redemption and forgiveness he badly needs." hume is a christian. woods has associated himself with buddhism. some buddhists charged that hume had been disrespectful of their beliefs. some journalists complained- and hume denied-- that he had used his public platform to proselytize. charlene wilson-doffoney is a funeral director in south philadelphia. she knows all too well that life for poor, young men in america's inner cities can often be dangerous, violent and short. we have a story from lucky severson today that gets to the tragic heart of the situation. >> reporter: the middle-aged woman cleaning up the big motorcycle is charlene wilson-

doffoney who's on her wayo work at her funeral home in south philly. she says she took up cycling to get away from the dying. philadelphia may be best known as the city of brotherly love, but charlene says her neighborhood has also been called "killadelphia" because there have been so many murders, so many young victims of drive- bys, gang warfare, drug deals gone bad, and simple disagreements-- 333 killings overall in 2008. >> a little boy got shot. >> reporter: a little boy got shot right here? >> well, yeah. this part here, it is named after a young man who got killed as well. >> reporter: did you bury him? >> we did him. we did hanna. i just passed his family home around the corner. >> reporter: why do you do this? it just seems to be so sad to do this. >> well, i am a caregiver to their family. i watch over their children that passed away. my job is to protect them.

>> reporter: she knew a lot of the victims whose names are on the mural. she buried a number of them. she buried her brother-in-law who was murdered recently. she buried the three sons of a close friend. she's buried so many gun-shot victims, she tore up her own gun permit. one funeral she recalls in particular. >> i remember breaking down, because i was tired of seeing young boys get killed, and you tell the young men, they don't get it, that we tired. they just don't know the pressure for a mother. when i see that mother who lost her son, i wish i could bring him back. i wish i could bring him back to her. i wish that they got a better chance. >> reporter: police say fourteen-year-old tykeem law was shot by an eighteen-year-old who was angry, because tykeem didn't move his bicycle out of the way fast enough. you like to have these young men be there while you are preparing the body and serving as pall bearers. >> yes. i don't think they know it's real.

they think they get back up, and i remember somebody dying near the funeral home, like man "get up, get up." well, they're not going to be back up. they don't get back up. >> reporter: charlene says she got the call to be an undertaker when she was 23 and a single mom with a very dim future. although it's been a difficult struggle, she now owns her own funeral parlor. she is a woman of abiding faith, but rather than preach to kids in the hood, she tries to lead by example. >> because i am a believer. my job is to witness. every day i walk, i am a witness as you get a chance to tell somebody that they can make it. the thing for me in south philadelphia is to let young people know if i can do it, you can, too. >> reporter: even in the worst of the neighborhoods, kids treat charlene with respect, partly because they know that she will treat them with respect in death and she will look after their moms. none of these young men grew up with a father in the home. some have been in prison. some have dealt drugs.

all have a friend or relative who has been murdered. what do you want to be in 10 years? where do you think you are going to be? >> i want to be alive. >> reporter: a lawyer? >> alive. >> reporter: so yomean you get up a lot of times and say, "i hope i live through the day?" >> yes. >> you don't know what's going to happen to you, because half the people around here just shoot at whoever-- daytime, nighttime. it don't matter when they do it, and you don't know when you're going to be hit or you're not going to be hit. >> any day could be your day. i see people walk by me-- they get up two blocks away you see them laying out there bleeding. >> i think it goes by what you see. when i see my young boys on a corner, they want to see better but nobody takes them anywhere to see anything else. >> reporter: do you have a responsibility with these kids who are 15 and 14 that charlene is burying? do you try to talk to them, or what do you say to them? >> it is just like talking to a brick wall. you can talk but they ain't

going to listen. >> they plan for their funeral. they know. some people do come to me and say "miss charlene, you got me?" and i am like, "yeah, i got you." >> a lot of them say when i get buried i want to have this on, i want to have that on. they say, "at my funeral, i'm going to have all the girls there." >> and you are like is there anything i can do? can i turn you around a different way or anything, and they know that they are going to go down. >> reporter: the kids themselves agree that too often their problems begin at home. >> most of these parents just run around and worry about themselves now. they didn't want to have kids and then once they have the kid, they just let him go. they had these kids to get on welfare. they ended up with the easy way out. >> i get a chance to come into the prison a lot, and i see all them black men. who is there for the black boy? the fathers that you see are in jail, and the kids are raising their selves, and the mothers, they got their own issues going on-- not having the man around, having to provide, and they don't have jobs. >> reporter: reverend edward

winslow ministers to the young people in the neighborhood. he says parents and their kids have stopped coming to church, so it's difficult to reach them. >> and where we would be able to teach the kids about character building, we don't do it anymore because they are not there anymore. >> reporter: charlene says there is plenty of blame to go around- - broken families, no jobs, no role models, and ministers who are missing in action. >> you have a lot of ministers today who don't care. they don't evangelize anymore. they are not out to save souls. they don't care about the loss as long as it doesn't affect them. >> reporter: reverend winslow cares about these kids, but too often he gets to know them after it's too late. >> i see more now lately in the end than in the beginning or in the middle, and that's a sad thing. that's what keeps this place running, the death. that's her business, it is true, but the point is how do we get to them before that? >> i think the other day there was a shooting. >> reporter: the police, the

grieving moms, the kids-- they all know charlene, but not always the way she wants them to know her. >> i know where i've been, and if it worked for me-- the little girl from north philly that didn't know how she was going to make it-- it will work for them, and i am just hurt to see the kids that don't know that it works. >> reporter: the crime rate in south philly has been going down. the mayor says it's because there are more police on the streets and more citizen involvement. the business of burying is less brisk than it once was. so charlene can spend more time doing wh she would rather be doing. for "religion & ethics newsweekly," i'm lucky severson in philadelphia. >> abernethy: we remember two prominent women who passed awayú this week. radical feminist theologian mary daly, who pioneered women's religious studies, died at the age of 81. she taught for more than 30 years at jesuit-run boston

college and was considered by many the mother of modern feminist theology. and veteran newspaper editor deborah howell was killed in an accident while vacationing in new zealand. she provided leadership for religion news service and was a feisty advocate for religion reporting. howell was 68. finally, because of differing church calendars, coptic, armenian and some eastern orthodox christians around the world celebrated christmas this past week. but many greek orthodox christians follow the western calendar, so they celebrated epiphany. the orthodox associate epiphany with the baptism of jesus as an adult. in istanbul, ecumenical patriarch bartholomew threw a cross into the bosphorus strait, and as is traditional, some of the faithful jumped in to retrieve it. for western christians, epiphany

marks visit of the wise men to the infant jesus. many traditions re-enact that event. at the vatican, pope benedict the sixteenth celebrated epiphany amid heightened security after he was knocked down by a worshipper during christmas eve services. in mexico, celebrations included the traditional three king's cake, and this year, it was a giant, world-record-breaking cake that weighed more than 23,000 pounds. that's our program for now. i'm bob abernethy. we have much more on our web site. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org.

the russian orthodox christian service. captioning sponsored by the lilly endowment captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org