Freeman embarks on The Story of God
National Geographic launches six-part documentary series
First, he played God. Starting today, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman, 78, will tell The Story of God.
Produced by Freeman and his Revelations Entertainment partners, Lori McCreary and James Younger, The Story of God follows Freeman on an international, interfaith journey as he immerses himself in religious experiences and investigates cultural beliefs about God, the meaning of life and life after death.
The six-part documentary series airs on National Geographic Sundays.
Freeman said the seeds for the project were first planted during a trip to the Hagia Sophia six years ago.
“It’s a temple in Istanbul that is very old and has changed hands a few times,” he said of the former Byzantine basilica, which was erected about 1,400 years ago as a church cathedral before being converted into a mosque in 1453 and a museum in 1935.
“On the walls inside, there were all these Christian depictions — Jesus in the cradle, Jesus growing up, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus — and Lori looked up and asked: ‘Well, when this was a mosque, did they cover those pictures up?’ And our guide said: ‘No, this is part of Islamic tradition — the belief that Jesus was a prophet.’ That was a big eye-opener and, as Lori explains it, she was a little put out because, being fairly wellread, she felt she should know that and she didn’t.
“That whole thing just sort of simmered until James came along and it was decided that we should look further into this question of religion and God,” Freeman said. “So, we came up with a concept, we did a sizzle reel, and then we took it on the road and NatGeo said: ‘Hey, we got this.’ ”
McCreary considers the series an exercise against what she calls the “tyranny of certainty.”
“Questions can sometimes lead to even a deeper understanding of one’s own belief and faith, and if we can allow for the questions without people feeling like we’re pulling away at the fabric of belief, then that’s healthy,” she said.
“That’s why we love this exploration. We’re looking at faith from all different perspectives around the world, from all different cultures, from all different times in our history, to see what we can learn.”
While The Story of God seeks to shed light on the five major religions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism — Younger said it does not focus heavily on dogma but rather the core existential questions of faith.
“We want to get people to actually push aside much of the tapping of ritual and practice that happen and say: ‘What is my faith really about? If I’m a Buddhist, if I’m a Hindu, if I’m a Christian, what am I asking?’ ”
And what are the consistent threads?
Reflecting on his own revelations following production, Freeman said: “The consistent thread, in any religion, is the search — not the search, the hope — for life after death, for life everlasting.”
Younger added that people want to believe “there’s something more than just that angry Darwinian struggle for survival, that there are eternal truths and values that matter, that we should run our lives by.
“All religions connect us to the eternal.”