Holes in the story

In its second season premiering on Jan. 16, National Geographic’s The Story of God continues to offer a diverting, if superficial, look at how various aspects of world religions intersect. However, the fundamental details it gets wrong about Christianity will make you wonder—if executive producer and host Morgan Freeman is missing vital truths about the faith he grew up in (though doesn’t profess), can I trust what he’s telling me about Islam, Buddhism, and other belief systems?

In 2016, the six episodes of The Story of God became NatGeo’s most successful series ever, proving there’s an appetite for the show’s open-armed, comparative-religion-101 style of investigation.

The first episode of its second outing doesn’t deviate from the formula, with Freeman making frequent reassuring, spiritual-sounding pronouncements of unity around the theme “The Chosen One.” Some nuggets are enlightening—like his explanation of how the grandson of Muhammad became the lightning rod that created the split between the Shiite and Sunni sects. But again, that’s if you trust what you’re seeing. And after hearing Freeman expound on Christianity, you might not.

Freeman’s misrepresentations, usually made in the service of drawing similarities between Christianity and other faiths, don’t feel malicious or necessarily intentional. It could simply be that, having grown up in a Christian church, he doesn’t feel as much need to study up on ideas he thinks he already understands. But the misrepresentations are significant and troubling.

Even categorizing Jesus as a “chosen one” is problematic. Jesus wasn’t chosen in the way Abraham or Moses (whom Freeman also uses as examples) were. He certainly wasn’t chosen in the way Muhammad claimed to be—as a businessman and political leader who first hears the voice of God at age 40. Christ is God and was with God before His incarnation. And He didn’t, as Freeman wrongly asserts, come to earth to “show us a new way.” He came to fulfill the way that God had promised from the moment of Adam’s fall. We may have a new covenant, but every Old Testament saint was redeemed by the exact same way, truth, and life as we are today—that is, by faith alone in Christ alone.

Likewise off-base is when Freeman equates Easter with a Muslim commemoration of one of their martyrs by saying we’re turning “the sadness and suffering of Jesus’ death into a celebration that brings community together.” That, of course, is not at all what we’re doing. If Easter were about Jesus’ death, then our faith would be worthless, we would still be in our sins, and we would, of all people in the world, be the most to be pitied. We’re celebrating that Jesus conquered death.

The upside of these substantial doctrinal errors is that they give Christians a clear view of the mistaken ideas and misapprehensions we may need to clarify for unbelieving friends and neighbors. In a country that still considers itself culturally Christian, it’s easy to assume that everyone understands basic Biblical principles like the nature of Jesus. Freeman, in his affable, unassuming way, proves they most definitely don’t. And that teaching all nations still means teaching this nation.

During a tour associated with the show last year, I urged the network to spend some time talking to more reliable experts on Christian doctrine than Joel Osteen. R.C. Sproul, Tim Keller, or John MacArthur spring immediately to mind. Or, if they want an extremely entertaining and telegenic scholar to interview on a specific topic, they might, for example, seek out Eric Metaxas on miracles.

NatGeo, if you’re listening, I still strongly advise this. I believe it will boost the quality of your show and its ratings even further. I’m not suggesting you must make a case for Christianity, but you should, at least, discuss Christianity’s case accurately.

Read Megan Basham's earlier review of the first season of The Story of God.