Series
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.
Episode Number
S0433
Episode
Do We Need Religion or Religious Institutions?
Producing Organization
Southern Educational Communications Association
South Carolina Educational Television Network
Contributing Organization
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University (Stanford, California)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/514-0p0wp9tr2r
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Description
Episode Description
This show suffers from comparison with the one previous (s0432), but by any other standard it is a wonderful exploration of modern man and his discontents-starting with the fact that Mr. Muggeridge, although a leading Christian apologist, was unchurched. MM: "I've, believe it or not, longed to be a Catholic.... I've longed for it as though it were the most marvelous thing ... The truth is, I think, that I take a very pessimistic view of the Catholic Church, despite the very brilliant Pope you've now got. It seems to me that it's dropping to pieces; and of course it had a severe blow after the Vatican Council. Therefore, I would be joining something of which I was enormously critical, and this isn't really an honorable thing to do." WFB: "That's never bothered you before." MM: "I've never contemplated anything so serious as joining a church. I mean, even if you were to turn to mundane things-joining a club-if you were to join it quite confident that you were going to challenge all its rules and have rows with all its members, it would be rather a foolish step to take...." WFB: "Well, I'm, to put it lightly, stupefied that you would make a decision whether or not to extend your loyalty to an institution based on the behavior of some of its communicants. I can't imagine any time in history when anybody would have become a Catholic if he had been so easily put off." (Malcolm Muggeridge and his wife, Kitty, eventually submitted to Rome, in 1984.)
Series Description
The television series Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. was a venue for debate and discussion on political, social, and philosophical issues with experts of the day. Firing Line broadcasts from 1966 through March 1971 were produced and syndicated by WOR-TV, a commercial station in New York, but some of them were also broadcast on noncommercial television stations. Starting in April 1971, Firing Line broadcasts were produced by the Southern Educational Communications Association, an arm of South Carolina Educational Television. Hoover Institution Library & Archives' Firing Line collection guide can be found at: https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/collections/firing-line.
Date
1980-09-06
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Public Affairs
Subjects
Catholic Church; Religion; Christianity; Muggeridge, Malcolm, 1903-1990; Belief and doubt
Rights
Copyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.
Media type
Moving Image
Embed Code
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Credits
Guest: Muggeridge, Malcolm
Host: Buckley, William F., Jr.
Producing Organization: Southern Educational Communications Association
Producing Organization: South Carolina Educational Television Network
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Stanford University
Identifier: 80040.675 (Hoover Institution)
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 1:00:00
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Citations
Chicago: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0433; Do We Need Religion or Religious Institutions?,” 1980-09-06, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 14, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-0p0wp9tr2r.
MLA: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0433; Do We Need Religion or Religious Institutions?.” 1980-09-06. Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 14, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-0p0wp9tr2r>.
APA: Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0433; Do We Need Religion or Religious Institutions?. Boston, MA: Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-0p0wp9tr2r