coming up -- amid so many headlines about the persecution of religious minorities, a lucky severson report on the violent oppression of rohingya muslims in myanmar, formerly burma. and popular crime novelist james lee burke. he tells bob faw his themes are often biblical. things like the mystery of evil, and the search for salvation. plus, hindus celebrating the birth of their popular deity, lord krishna. major funding for "religion & ethics newsweekly" is provided by the lillian endowment and

indianapolis-base family foundations dedicated to its founders in religion, community development and education. additional funding also provided by mutual of america, sdirning customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. welcome. i'm kim lawton, sitting in for bob abernethy. thank you for joining us. religious leaders across the country called for prayers about the tense situation in ferguson, missouri, after a police officer shot and killed michael brown, an unarmed african-american teenager. in missouri, faith leaders have been appealing for peace and trying to defuse anger amid sometimes violent confrontations with police. many national religious groups are urging more dialogue about issues surrounding justice, race and the use of police force. the faith-based pico network called on its member congregations to sponsor "live free sabbaths" this weekend, in order, the group said, to create

space for healing and hope in the wake of this and other similar incidents. this week the international faith community ramped up concern and activism about the plight of religious minorities in iraq as islamic state militants continued their brutal offensive against christians, members of the ancient yazidi sect and others. more than 50 american religious leaders and academics issued a statement calling on president obama to take stronger military action to protect the minorities from what they called this campaign of genocide. they said "nothing short of the destruction of isis as a fighting force will provide long-term protection of victims." pope francis wrote to the united nations urging all its agencies to do everything they can to help, although he did not explicitly mention military force. a papal envoy, cardinal fernando filoni arrived in iraq wednesday and met with christian refugees in makeshift camps.

tens of thousands have been forced from their homes, and many have no shelter from the sweltering heat. churches and yazidi temples are filled with refugees, and religious workers say there isn't enough food, medicine or supplies to care for them. one nun wrote in an email, "it's a heartbreaking disaster." here in the u.s., muslim groups repeated their condemnation of isis's actions, calling them un-islamic and morally repugnant. prayers also continued for a long-term ceasefire between israel and the palestinians. faith-based groups are raising money for humanitarian aid in gaza, where officials say the impact of the conflict has been devastating. muslim leaders said more than 60 mosques were destroyed in the past month by israeli air strikes. israel says hamas was using them to stockpile weapons and rocket launchers, but the muslim leaders accused israel of waging a war against islam. this week, the anti-defamation league released a new report documenting a dramatic upsurge

in violence and vitriol against jews around the world since the gaza conflict began. with the spiraling ebola crisis in africa, a panel of the world health organization this week determined that it would be ethical to administer experimental treatments that have not been tested or approved. some of those drugs have already been sent to africa, but there are only small amounts immediately available. meanwhile, faith leaders in several african nations are urging their members to change practices, including religious rituals, to help stop the spread of the virus. people are being told not to kiss dead bodies at funeral services, and churches are advising caution during communion, healing rites, and even with the distribution of holy water. pope francis arrived in south korea this week, the first papal visit to the divided peninsula in more than two decades. during the trip, francis is honoring korean martyrs from the 18th and 19th centuries and

encouraging young asians to keep promoting the faith. according to the pew research center, 11% of south koreans are catholic. christians overall make up the largest religious group there, with 29% of the population, followed by buddhists at 23%. 46% say they are religiously unaffiliated. our recent headlines have been dominated by reports of religious persecution against christians and yazidis in iraq, but people of faith across the globe face ongoing persecution and discrimination. in iraq, the perpetrators are muslims who follow a particular interpretation of islam. but in myanmar, formerly burma, muslims are the victims of oppression by the buddhist majority. lucky severson was in myanmar recently to report on the dire situation for that country's minority rohingya muslims. >> reporter: violence in myanmar, also known as burma.

rohingya muslims being burned out of their villages and driven out of their country by mobs of buddhists, which sometimes include monks. >> the police stood aside, the army stood aside. >> reporter: phil robertson is with the asia division of human rights watch. >> entire areas were burned down. i mean, we had satellite photographs before and after showing the damage that people were being shot and killed, people being disappeared. you know, we uncovered mass graves from that period of time. you know, it was a slaughter. >> they get out like 4,000, 5,000 people, and then they surrounded the village. they attack the muslim. >> reporter: ko aung, a made-up name, is a rohingya refugee who still has family in myanmar, so he is afraid to be identified. >> they used their spears, their knives and also arrows. >> reporter: matthew smith is the asia director of fortify rights, an international nonprofit that documents human rights violations.

>> many of the crimes that we have documented rise to the level of crimes against humanity. these are some of the most serious crimes that can be committed under international law. >> reporter: united nations officials say the rohingya muslims in myanamar's rakhine state are one of the world's most persecuted religious minorities. they are stateless people, citizens of no country, treated as illegal immigrants even though many families have resided here for centuries. >> they cannot move, they cannot walk, they cannot study, and they cannot even marry if they want. they are trying to make a law for the restriction of marriage and for the restriction of having the children. if they cannot have citizenship, if they cannot have medical treatment, how can they survive? they will disappear. their race will be disappeared. >> reporter: there has long been bad blood between the rohingyas and the local buddhists, but it

boiled over in 2012 after rohingya men were accused of gang-raped a buddhist woman. at least 300 rohingya men, women, and children were murdered by angry mobs, and there have been episodes of violence ever since. at least 140,000 have been driven out of their homes. >> there's a fear among the buddhist population, among large segments of the buddhist population in myanmar that the country is at risk of being taken over by muslims. it's a very unreasonable, irrational fear. >> reporter: especially considering there are fewer than 1.5 million rohingyas out of an estimated population of about 60 million. nine out of ten citizens of myanmar are buddhist. almost all young males spend some time as a monk. it's considered an experience that will set them on the right path. buddhism is known as a way of life or a religion that promotes inner peace and harmony. so why the violence and oppression in one of the world's most buddhist countries? >> the government is actually actively involved in promoting

this idea that the rohingya population poses a threat to national security. this is something we hear very often, and it infuses all of the violence that is taking place right now. >> reporter: sittwe, the provincial capital before this violence, had a demographic balance that was roughly 50/50 between buddhists and muslims. now, with the exception of one quarter, which is almost like a ghetto, sittwe is a muslim-free city. everybody has been driven out. >> reporter: one monk in particular is behind the violence. his name is wirathu, and he's known as the burmese bin laden. he's the leader of a group called 969. >> of the followers of 969 refer to muslims as dogs. they refer to

the rohingya as subhuman, but beyond that they actually believe the rohingya are subhuman, and i think this is an important point. it's not simply that they are stirring up some sort of rhetoric for political purposes. these are people who genuinely believe the hateful rhetoric that they preach, and i think this is one of the things that makes them particularly dangerous. >> reporter: many buddhists are unhappy with the extremist monks and do their best to protect the rohingyas, but it's not a subject that the burmese speak of openly. aung san suu kyi, the nobel peace laureate and opposition leader, has refused to take sides, saying it could further exacerbate the tension. the dalai lama spoke against the violence, but to no avail. >> they basically told him to mind his own business. it was really actually quite a put down. they're not prepared to listen. >> reporter: last year, some 80,000 rohingyas crowded like livestock into small boats to escape myanmar, but often at a very high price. >> the boat that carried

58 people, 25 of them died on the way. >> reporter: these young men, now hiding in a mosque in southern thailand, were among the fortunate ones to make it here alive. they prefer to be nameless. they were tortured by their smugglers and traffickers, detained in a thai illegal immigrant camp, then wound up back with the traffickers where, among other forms of torture, they were forced in a crouch position for so many weeks they cannot walk standing up. >> they have to pass through thailand, and this is where we see these smuggling camps, these people being held, being beaten while they're holding the phone calling their relatives. >> they've given a cell phone, they're told to call their families, and they're told that family, and they're told that they need to raise $2,000 in order to be set free. >> reporter: an average burmese earns about $800 a year, so $2,000 is a lot of money. we obtained a tape of a phone

conversation between a representative of fortify rights and a refugee being held by traffickers. >> translator: are you okay? how could i be okay? my skin is peeled off from beatings. thai guys came and beat us because nobody transfers money for us. would you please collect money from others and transfer money? please. >> they know the risks of dying at sea. they know the risks of experiencing violence from human traffickers and from the authorities, but they're willing to take that risk, because the situation is so bad in rakhine state. >> reporter: robertson is discouraged that it has been 20 years since the un set up a system to prevent another rwanda. >> and the problem is we keep saying "never again," and it keeps happening. >> reporter: buddhists and other religious leaders can condemn what's happening here but can't stop it. human rights activists say only the government can stop the violence, and if it doesn't, it could descend into genocide. >> the international community has been in some way intoxicated by this narrative of political reform in myanmar over the last

couple of years, and in the interest of not wanting to disrupt that idea of reform, most government are treading very softly around the government when it comes to its human rights record, and this is the wrong approach entirely. >> unless the international community acts and acts with some consistency and with some immediacy, we could face a much worse situation in the rakhine state in the coming months. >> reporter: they haven't made it to a country that will accept them, wondering if one ever will. >> we don't have any hopes. i don't know what will happen in the future. >> reporter: for "religion & ethics newsweekly," i'm lucky severson in myanmar. the enormously successful crime novelist james lee burke has yet another book climbing the best seller charts.

"wayfaring stranger," his 35th book, was released last month. burke says his characters can reveal the worst of human behavior, but his themes are classic and sometimes biblical, things like the mystery of evil and the struggle for salvation. bob faw spoke with burke last year. >> reporter: james lee burke, not only pounds a speed bag nearly an hour every day -- he also still writes feverishly every day, churning out novels which have sold more than 10 million copies. burke's crime stories are modern morality plays about a world which is, in his words, "intransigent and corrupt, a place where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal." >> i write about the world i've known, put it that way, and i try to write about it in accurate fashion. >> reporter: burke has been called america's best novelist, the heavyweight champ of

nostalgic noir. but success didn't come easy -- one of his early books was passed around to publishers for nine years. >> it was rejected by 111 editors, and it is a record in new york. this is the most rejected book in the history of publishing. everyone says that. >> reporter: once published, it was nominated for a pulitzer prize. until then burke had to take jobs as a surveyor, reporter, teacher, even a social worker on skid row, but he flavor gave up writing. >> it's a vanity. it's a conceit. every artist has this notion that he sees the truth about the world in an exquisite, perfect fashion, and he's compelled to tell others of his vision. he will have no peace until he does so. that's the compulsion. >> reporter: after all that time in the literary wilderness, james lee burke struck pay dirt, creating louisiana detective dave robicheaux, who like burke is a recovering alcoholic who is

portrayed here by alec baldwin. >> i want a drink all the time. all those colored bottles. >> reporter: the subject now of two motion pictures and 20 novels, dave robicheaux, tormented by alcoholism and depression, is a two-fisted st. augustine-quoting lawman who navigates a demi-monde gun with perversion and bloodshed. damaged but following a unerring moral compass, robicheaux is burke's modern-day knight-errant. >> actually, his character is based one, on the everyman character in the medieval morality and religious dramas. but also primarily i see his antecedent as the good knight in chaucer's canterbury tales. it's a great character, the good knight, chivalric figure who is always the peacemaker in the story, the pilgrimage. >> reporter: that pilgrimage toward redemption, says burke,

is what defines good literature. >> as far as redemption is concerned, i'm speaking as an artist. i believe the central theme in all of occidental literature is about the search for salvation. it is the basic theme of western literature, and that's what we all end up painting, acting out in dramas, or writing about. >> missy gets the last one because you were a slowpoke. all right, come here. >> reporter: robicheaux has brought burke fame and fortune -- two horses on 120 acres nestled in a towering, tree-lined valley near missoula, montana, where he lives with pearl, his wife of 52 years, and an impressive firearms collection he so lovingly maintains. >> boy, these are a beautiful pair of guns. pearl gave me these for christmas. >> reporter: and still he writes 1,000 words on a good day.

>> it's an incremental discovery. that's what i believe. the right line is there. you got to wait, and you got to hear it. you're going to have to hear it. it's all in the unconscious. you just have to listen to it, listen for it. it's there. >> reporter: patiently copying onto a computer words he's earlier scribbled into one of his many notebooks, there at his bedside when he needs to write something down in the middle of the night. >> and a piece of dialogue here that i know -- i don't know where it goes, but it goes somewhere in the novel. >> reporter: in his two latest books, burke draws upon both his roman catholic upbringing and education in classical literature. his voice, says "the new york times," has grown "more messianic, more biblical." >> this is from isaiah 43:20. "the wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches." >> reporter: and it's not just using an inscription from

isaiah, or language suffused with religious imagery. >> the stories i've written are the passion play. i mean, they clearly come out of the new testament. the imagery, the icons all have to do with golgotha. that's what they're all about. >> reporter: page-turners and major motion pictures, yes. but what burke is really doing is grappling with some unanswerable mysteries, such as are there people who "love evil for its own sake"? >> or could a black wind blow the weather vane in the wrong direction for any of us and reshape our lives and turn us into people we no longer recognize. >> reporter: you talk about the darkness that can live in the human breast. you talk about men who have no parameters. >> yeah, there's no explanation. it's just an aberration. it's something that allows them to step over a line, or as dave robicheaux says, "they murder all light in their souls."

dave says they try to erase the thumbprint of god from their souls. but nobody knows why. >> reporter: in his writing he might have wrestled with some of those eternal mysteries, but james lee burke does not pretend to have found the answers. >> when you get down into the top of the ninth, when you're standing on third base, you realize the great mysteries were going to remain the great mysteries. if wisdom comes with age, it has bypassed me like a freight train. >> reporter: in the end, dave robicheaux, though he rarely turns the other cheek, does find a kind of peace and a perspective about what is important in life. >> at the bottom of the ninth, you count up the people you love, both friends and family, and you add their names to the fine places you've been and the good things you've done, and you have it. >> reporter: that's it? >> that's it, brother. >> reporter: that's wisdom? >> i don't know if it's wisdom or not. it's the way it is. >> reporter: a no-nonsense

approach much like advice burkeç was given long ago as a catholic schoolboy. >> a franciscan told me once, don't keep track of the score, wil itself. you never measure yourself in terms of days or weeks or months. in theology it's called the fundamental option. you make your choice, you make your troth, you never go back on that silent contract you make, and you'll be pleasantly surprised at the arithmetic on the scoreboard in the bottom of the ninth, and that's how it works. >> reporter: james lee burke, at kths the papd xz 66 at confronting the past, embracing the present, pounding away hard as ever. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," this is bob faw in lolo, montana. finally, on our calendar this week, a major festival for hindus.

august 17th is janmashtami, which celebrates the birth of their popular deity lord krishna. nidhi singh was our guide at a hindu temple in chantilly, virginia. >> in hinduism we believe in one god, however our one god has several forms. from the creator, vishnu, preserver and the destructor of all evil. >> lord krishna is a reincarnation of lord krishna. the teachings that lord kish nah in the geisha i can take from them and incorporate into my life and find hope, guidance, spirituality, peace, comfort. many different things. the devotees come here to participate and celebrate lord krishna's birth.

when we celebrate lord krishna, and there's a lot of singing and dancing, because that's what he used to do when he was younger. there's loud chanting and people are singing and getting very excited about the midnight hour. and we are getting ready to welcome krishna. as the midnight hour approaches, we dim the lights. the priest comes out and actually brings a live baby in a cradle, carrying him on his head, depicting how it truly happened with lord krishna. lord krishna was carried in a cradle by his father on his head to safety, to keep him safe from the evil king. what we do is called "ardi" in which means we take a flame rotate it clockwise around the god, and worship him with that

flame, and then that flame is offered to the congregation to take the blessings. the priests start handing out "prasad," which is god's offerings food items typically milk-based products, because lord krishna was very fond of milk and butter. i come here with all my worries, my thoughts from the outside world. everything that's on my mind. i'm giving up my ego. i'm leaving behind my worries and being reminded of god's love of not feeling defeated by any hardship that i might be facing and getting strength to continue to do my dharma as krishna taught continuing to do the right things not questioning why or what i'm going to get in return for it. 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. watch us anytime on the pbs app for iphones and ipads. and visit our website, where there's always much more. you can also listen to or watch each program. join us as pbs.org. as we leave you, christian rap singer lecrae, one of six dove award nominees for artist of the year announced this week by the gospel music association. ♪ like a radio >> there, anyone who is in christ is a new creation. the old is passed away. behold, the new has come. yeah.

♪ i'm going to carry it everywhere i go ♪ ye yeah, carrying ♪ you ought to know ♪ i'm brand new ♪ major funding for "religion & ethics newsweekly" is proied by the lily endowment, an indianapolis based private family foundation dedicated to its founder's interest in religion, community development and education. additional funding also provided by mutual of america. designing customized, individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company.

>> charlie: welcome to the program. i'm charlie rose. the program is "charlie rose: the week." just ahead, the latest on the ebola outbreak, iraq and syria divide barack obama and hillary clinton, and jeff bridges takes to the screen in the movie version of "the giver." >> the way things look and the way things are very different. watch. >> that's my father. ere is no way for me to prepare you for the truth. >> charlie: we have those stories and more on what happened and what might happen. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of