FEELING STRESSED BY CURRENT EVENTS, weary of ugly public discourse and the contentious sniping among even those who claim the same political party or faith? Maybe what you need is context—a look at the sweep of history and the enduring mysteries of existence. It’d be nice if there were a guide. Perhaps someone with a rich, velvety voice and calm presence to accompany you to far-off places and times—even better, to take you there on a private jet—and to not only ask deep questions but arrange for experts to posit answers.
You may be in luck: The Story of God is a six-part documentary series scheduled to air weekly on the National Geographic cable channel beginning on April 3. Actor, producer, and Story host Morgan Freeman travels the globe to glimpse how some religions (and a bit of modern neuroscience) attempt to answer our big human questions. Is there life after death? How was the universe created? Will the world end, and how? Who is God? What is the root of evil and how has our idea of it changed over time? Are miracles real?
(Let’s just get this out of the way now: Yes, Freeman has played God in two feature films, Bruce Almighty and its sequel Evan Almighty. No, he is not reprising the role in The Story of God.)
Given the enormity of the task Freeman and the other producers set for themselves—wrestling with theological conundrums, including some perspective from ancient beliefs and each of the five major world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism), shooting in 13 countries, and whittling all that footage down to six hours total for airing—they did admirable work. It’s impossible to go deep or broad into a religion within those kinds of constraints, but the threads of history and theology presented, and the experts presenting them, are interesting and legitimate. There are bits of melodrama in the framing of Freeman’s quest and in some of the dramatizations of historic events, but this is edutainment TV, not a graduate school seminar.
What holds it all together is Freeman. He is not just narrating, he is present on screen, curious, listening deeply, dropping the occasional personal aside. Each of the three previewed episodes starts with Freeman on home turf in Mississippi, musing on how he first encountered death as a child or first wondered during a preacher’s sermon about how creation really happened. He describes himself as “a lifelong student of religion” who hasn’t “landed on any conclusions”: The quintessential seeker, a man with no doctrinal horse in the race, just looking to learn.
The Story of God delivers some interesting information and conversations with more than 50 experts and religious leaders. But its most profound element might be how Freeman engages people with respect and curiosity, and listens. Just listens. In a time of rampant bloviating, this alone seems like a kind of religious experience.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC channel hosted a trip to Rome for journalists (including this writer) to see places and people that Freeman covered in Story. That ancient city is known for its god-haunted corners, and we poked into several, including a visit to a museum documenting the history of a Jewish community present in Rome since the second century B.C.E.; a modern mosque; a small, funky Hindu temple in a suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of the city; and of course Vatican City.
Like Freeman does in Story, we met with Monsignor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Sorondo explained that the Catholic Church sees no conflict between science and faith. Scientists helped shape the environmental encyclical Laudato Si’, he noted, and Pope Francis has encouraged the academies to be involved in the fight against human trafficking and other issues.
On our visit to the Biblioteca Casanatense, a library founded in 1701, the room housing the oldest part of the collection was anchored by two enormous centuries-old globes, one beautifully painted with the entire known world at that time, the other with the known constellations. All that was unknown is apparent to our modern eyes, perhaps a cautionary tale for our data-drunk time (there be dragons we have not yet met). On a table, 11th and 15th century illuminated manuscripts—the gospels, a book of hours, a missal—were spread like the day’s newspapers. Word without end, amen. One of the library’s archivists swept her hands over them, her voice swelling with passion—“Here are the roots of all our [Western] culture.” Words of worship and searching, adorned with gold leaf and jewel-toned lettering, and the occasional marginal correction.
In Rome, such lovely fruits of piety were everywhere: Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica. Intricate, embroidered brocade Torah covers in the Jewish Museum—stunning emblems of resistance by a community forced into a walled ghetto in 1555 and allowed only unskilled trades, such as rag dealing. The repeating geometric patterns and tree-like columns in the mosque. The tangerine and fuchsia riot of the homegrown Hindu compound. In The Story of God, the art of faith is not the focus, but it appears in a wider lens—ancient monuments and shrines, fire against a night sky, a body wrapped in saffron cloth being carried to a sacred river for cremation. Is hunger for beauty part of what unites us? Maybe we will not be saved by beauty, but perhaps beauty gives us the will to want to be saved.
Freeman’s co-executive producers, Lori McCreary and James Younger, note that they are focused on the commonalities among peoples and religions, saying that “we hope The Story of God will help open an interfaith dialogue about ideas and values that we all share, not that we disagree on.” When asked if justice issues were part of this story, they said no. But of course the troubling issues of this world are in there nonetheless. (No matter how other-worldly a faith tries to be, its adherents are stuck in this one.)
Climate change is mentioned as a real and pressing danger. Freeman notes that the historic Jewish understanding of the messiah as an earthly ruler who rebuilds the Temple Mount and brings peace to the world is paradoxical, since rebuilding the Temple Mount would obliterate Muslim holy sites and likely spark even more bloodshed than is already happening in the Holy Land. Freeman interviews survivors of Katrina. He interviews Maajid Nawaz, who was once imprisoned as a recruiter for Islamic extremist groups; now Nawaz is a moderate working with Muslims who are on the path he left behind, encouraging them back to the true tenets of their faith. In other words there are multiple reminders in The Story of God of how, as Freeman says about the human fascination with apocalypse, “something about the drama of annihilation seems to grip us.”
Even those of us who assert that our faith calls us to nonviolence will inevitably run up against the conflicts and contradictions inherent within our faith and between faiths. And find that in the name of God there are arguments worth having, wrongs to try to right.
But sometimes we might try the way of the seeker. (Sadly, in real life we must do this unaccompanied by Morgan Freeman’s mesmerizing voice.) Could peace be found too in listening more, being changed by beauty, and allowing ourselves awe at the intricacy and endless mysteries of this story that we say we believe God is telling?
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