introduce two of our guests stephen ollendorff is the founder of the ollendorff center and rabbi jack bemporad i want to thank both of you for being with us this is the third program that we've done talking about the role of religion in society and every time i learn something new and hopefully more importantly our audience has why are we doing this stephen? and why is religion so important? during these three sessions i've also evolved in my thinking a lot cause when you go into these programs you tend to think and it struck me that religion is a very important institution if we look back in recent history both in vietnam and in the ukraine it was religious influence that made the difference because those countries that were communistic especially when deprived of religion needed some moral force and when the monks came out and burned themselves and now in the ukraine when the priests went out and supported the revolution it was as a result of countries trying to become anti religious the problem with religion today is even though it has a very useful purpose are they meeting their mission pr