Around the World in 80 Faiths

Lore & Background

The series was presented in eight episodes, with the last airing on 8 March 2009. Episode One covered Australasia and the Pacific Ring of Fire, including a sword-stabbing ritual by the Bugis people of Sulawesi, a Catholic Carabao festival in the Philippines, and a Mandaean baptism in Sydney. Episode Two explored the Far East, featuring Japanese Shinto, a Buddhist naked man festival, and Korean Pentecostalism at the Yoido Full Gospel Church. Episode Three focused on Africa, including Voodoo rituals in Benin, a San trance dance in Botswana, and Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. Episode Four covered the Middle East, with visits to the Via Dolorosa, a Yazidi New Year celebration, and a Baháʼí festival in Haifa. Episode Five examined the USA, including snake handling in Tennessee, a séance in Florida, and the Burning Man festival.

Reader's Guide

Around the World in 80 Faiths is significant as a broad survey of religious diversity, capturing both major world religions and lesser-known local traditions. The series documents syncretism, such as the Obando Fertility Rites in the Philippines, where Catholic and animist elements merge, and the John Frum cult in Vanuatu, inspired by World War II American presence. It also highlights persecution, as with the Iraqi Mandaeans in Sydney and the Yazidis in Iraq. The series notes the absence of a planned Tibetan Buddhist segment due to Chinese visa restrictions, hinting at state animosity to religion. Its legacy lies in preserving a snapshot of global faith practices in early 2009, though the accompanying book was never published.

Did You Know?

• The series includes a faith labeled 'Faith 14 1/2' for an unfilmed Tibetan Buddhist festival due to Chinese visa restrictions.
• The Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's largest congregation.
• The series features a snake-handling prayer meeting at the Edwina Church of God in Jesus Christ's Name in Newport, Tennessee.
• A planned book to accompany the series, written by Pete Owen-Jones and published by BBC Books, was not published.

The Presenter and the Unfinished Book

Pete Owen-Jones, an Anglican vicar, took on the role of guiding viewers through a global survey of religious practice for the BBC. The series launched on 2 January 2009 and ran through eight episodes, concluding on 20 February 2009. His clerical background gave him a particular vantage point: rather than approaching each tradition as a detached anthropologist, he reflected on how each faith intersected with his own Christian heritage. The show was originally conceived as a multimedia project, with a companion book planned for publication by BBC Books. However, that book never materialized, leaving the television series as the sole record of Owen-Jones's research. The eight-episode structure allowed him to move through roughly ten faiths per episode, creating a dense, fast-paced journey that covered everything from sword-stabbing rituals in Sulawesi to the world's largest Pentecostal congregation in Seoul.

A Mosaic of Living Traditions

The series spanned an extraordinary range of belief systems across three continents. In Australasia and the Pacific, Owen-Jones witnessed Bugis sword-stabbing ceremonies in Sulawesi, Tana Toraja funeral rites, the kneeling of carabaos at a Philippine Catholic festival, and the Obando Fertility Rites where pagan dance merged with Catholic prayer. The Far East episodes carried him to Shinto fire festivals in Wakayama, the naked-man fertility celebrations in Okayama, a Hindu shrine in Bangkok frequented by Buddhist worshippers, a solitary Taoist monk on Mount Hua, and the headquarters of Cao Dai in Vietnam. In Africa, he encountered Beninese voodoo practices including serpent-goddess rituals and animal sacrifice, San Bushmen trance dancing near Ghanzi, Zulu Sangoma spirit-contact in Johannesburg, and a Rastafari community in Ethiopia who regarded Haile Selassie I as their messiah. Each faith was presented not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing practice.

Syncretism and the Blurring of Boundaries

One of the series' most striking threads is the way faiths bleed into one another. Owen-Jones noted at the Obando Fertility Rites that the Catholic incorporation of a pagan dance might represent not mere absorption but a mutual coupling of fertility and creation beliefs. In Bangkok, a Hindu street shrine drew crowds of Buddhist worshippers, illustrating how religious categories become porous in practice. The women who danced around a fire in Alice Springs identified themselves as Christian and expressed no knowledge of the old Aboriginal religion, suggesting a quiet erosion of Indigenous spiritual frameworks. In South Korea, the rise of Pentecostalism coexisted with a possible revival of shamanism, while in Vietnam, the recently created religion of Cao Dai sat alongside the ancient Mother Goddess spirit tradition. Even the John Frum cult on Tanna, Vanuatu, was born from the American military presence during World War II, showing how geopolitical events can seed entirely new faiths.

Production Realities and Access

Behind the polished broadcast lay significant logistical and political challenges. The series employed different directors and producers for each episode—Sian Salt for the Australasia segment, Graham Johnston for the Far East, and Tom Sheahan for Africa—suggesting a distributed production model that followed the presenter to each region. One episode's planned coverage of a Tibetan Buddhist festival in China was never filmed because Chinese officials issued the host and crew visas only after the festival had already concluded, a delay that Owen-Jones interpreted as evidence of a long-standing state animosity toward religion. The physical demands were considerable: Owen-Jones traveled to remote locations including a park in Sydney for Mandaean baptisms, a tearoom beside a mosque in Negash, Ethiopia, and a community four hours' drive from Addis Ababa. The final episode aired on 20 February 2009, capping a six-week run that compressed an enormous amount of geography and theology into a single television season.