Moyers puts his ‘Faith’ in writers

“Faith & Reason,” the new Bill Moyers effort for PBS, is not for everyone.

It’s difficult to imagine channel surfers choosing it over Animal Planet or a Kathy Griffin rerun. But for that slice of the populace interested in heavy questions of rationality versus religious belief and/or the clash between modern life and ancient belief -- this is the one to pick.

Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister before falling into journalism and politics, wants to delve into religious matters old and new, including the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the Christian right.

Rather than round up the usual talking heads -- Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, maybe a cardinal or a Jesuit -- he’s picked an international cast of writers attending a PEN American Center conference. The conversations are relaxed and clubby. No intersplicing of news clips or demanding responses to quotes pulled from the morning press.

Last week’s opener of the seven-part effort was Moyers with Salman Rushdie. “What kind of God is offended by a cartoon in Danish?” Rushdie asked. In tonight’s episode, Moyers does back-to-back interviews with writers who were born and reared Catholic but took divergent paths.

American novelist and essayist Mary Gordon has stuck with her faith. British writer Colin McGinn did not and now displays the zeal of a reformed smoker.

As an interviewer, Moyers is the thinking man’s Larry King. If King has never read the books, Moyers has read them all. Yet he never tries to show off his knowledge, his questions are smart but not smart-alecky.

The process is a slow one but, for the patient viewer, the payoff is significant.

Gordon, looking as prim as a schoolmarm, admits she understands -- but certainly does not sympathize with -- Osama bin Laden’s rage at the modern world. She fesses up to her own dark thoughts when seeing rampant consumerism and sexual excess in the media: “...to tell the truth, to see people driving Humvees sometimes makes me feel so sick that, you know, I want to just drive them off the road and say, ‘OK, in the name of Christ, in the name of peace and justice, I’m just going to shoot you because you have to get out of your car now.’

“We live in a very stupid, banal, gross, greedy and rather disgusting culture.”

She offers her prescription for mental health: “Sometimes the only thing that keeps me sane is Mel Brooks.”

McGinn, whose interview follows Gordon, plays the other side of the street. He dumped the concept of God as watching over his flock when he found no scientific proof.

“So I found it sort of liberating to not have that oppressive, Big Brother surveillance from God all the time. And I found the universe more interesting and more stimulating without gods.”

Decide for yourself whether thoughts like these are more substantial coming from published writers than from cabdrivers stuck in traffic or college students in dormitory bull sessions.

Every so often public broadcasting, as part of its fundraising, will suggest that nowhere else can you find the programming it provides. Mostly that’s false on its face, given the existence of dozens of other channels.

But with “Faith & Reason,” it’s true, big-time.

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‘Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason’

Where: KCET.

When: 9:30 to 10:30 tonight.

Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages).