Around the world in 80 faiths
In my last newsletter I wrote about how I built a personal curriculum for Q1 2026 to study Nigerian political history, Non-Abrahamic religions, and Yoruba language. Today, I want to share my takeaways from a documentary I watched as part of my Non-Abrahamic religions course.
“Around the world in 80 faiths” is a documentary produced by the BBC in 2009. It follows Peter Owen-Jones, a British Anglican priest, as he explores 80 faiths and traditions from around the world. It’s an 8-part series, each episode dedicated to a region of the world.
The documentary was far more engrossing than I anticipated, not least because Owen-Jones brings an authenticity, respectfulness, and openness to the different faiths, with a twinge of dry British humour that keeps you entertained. It was a great introduction to my course on non-Abrahamic religions as it gave me a wide breadth of knowledge about faiths from around the world. Here are my top three takeaways from the documentary:
1. The universality of “faith”
One thing I was struck by in watching the various faiths was how universal the concept of faith and religion seemed. Nowadays, we tend to think of religion as being in decline, particularly in the West, but this gave me a different perspective on this.
In one episode, Owen-Jones visits Russia, a country where religion was practically banned for 70 years. Yet, since the fall of the Soviet Union and state-enforced atheism, there has been a massive “return” to religion and today over two thirds of the country identify as Orthodox Christians.
Even in the West, where traditional religion is in decline, we see other kinds of spirituality on the rise. In one episode, we visit the Burning Man festival in Nevada, USA. Although this is not an explicitly religious ceremony, it is deeply spiritual and is in fact, one of the most spiritual places Owen-Jones visits throughout his entire journey.
As someone who is not religious myself, it was thought-provoking to see how universal it seems for humans to yearn for something outside themselves. There is so much we do not know about how or why we are here, and there is a need for so many of us to fill that gap.
2. Coping with uncertainty through religion
This is probably an obvious point, but I was struck by how clearly it was that a lot of the non-monotheistic religions were essentially frameworks to manage the uncertainty of life.
The most blatant example of this was in Latin America, where we saw miners worship “El Tio”, a “Mine God”. Because of how dangerous their working conditions were and how often people died during the course of work, they created a shrine to this El Tio, to which they prayed for safe passage.
Another example of this was the Aghoris in India. As a way to cope with the fear and uncertainty of death, they surround themselves with death and almost worship it, even living in graveyards. In West Africa, we saw local fishermen worship “Mamywata”, a goddess of the sea. Before going on any expeditions, sailors would offer sacrifice to the goddess to help them navigate the rough oceans.
Ultimately, religions around the world were a way to cope with the unpredictability of life. When there are things outside our control - from unstable working conditions to death - religion offers comfort.
3. The adaptation and evolution of religion
With the Abrahamic religions, we tend to think of them as being one, static, global religion, with one source of truth. Sects aside of course, but there is essentially one book and one faith. But watching this it was fascinating to see how religions are adapted across different cultures, and how they evolve as cultures evolve.
The first faith we see in the series is in Australasia, where the Bugis people in Indonesia perform a spirit worship ceremony, despite their Muslim faith. Anywhere else in the world, such a ceremony would be considered antithetical to Islam, but because this was a long-standing tradition, it was incorporated into the religion. Another example of this was in Latin America, where we see a Catholic priest performing an automobile blessing ceremony, which is exactly what it sounds like 😆.
Similarly, we see how new religions evolve out of old ones. For example, in the South Pacific island Tanna, there were a lot of clashes between the indigenous Kastom religion, a newer religion John Frum, and Christianity. Out of this, a new religion, Unity, was formed by a Prophet Fred, which was essentially a reconciliation of all three religions.
This was a general theme I saw in the documentary, with new religions being created that were combinations of others, or at least tolerant of others. A striking example of this was in the Middle East, where there is so much religious tension, we see the Baháʼí faith which teaches the worth of all religions and the unity of all people. One practicioner said “The world is one country and we are all its citizens”.
If you’re at all interested in world religions, I would highly recommend this documentary. Going forward with my Non-Abrahamic religions course, I’m diving deeper into a few of the religions that have piqued my interest. I’ve just finished reading “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”, which is about Tibetan Buddhism, and am currently going through “Wisdom of the Orishas”, which is about the traditional Yoruba religion. Will provide more updates on those later!