National Geographic has announced season 2 of "The Story of God with Morgan Freeman" will examine questions about heaven and hell, predestination, and proof of God's existence.
According to a press release made available to The Gospel Herald, during the second season of the Emmy-nominated show, which premieres January 16th, Freeman will "take viewers around the world on a quest for interfaith understanding and connectivity through the lens of the world's major religions, science, anthropology and archaeology."
Each of the three episodes in the new season will explore a different major theme: "The Chosen One?" "Proof of God" and "Heaven and Hell."
"One of the things we love most about doing this series is finding the interconnected threads all humans share across different cultures, faiths and ideologies when it comes to seeking understanding of life's great mysteries," said Freeman. "I hope this series continues to not just entertain and inform, but also to open dialogue that will allow us to understand our neighbors both here in the U.S. and around the world."
In each episode Freeman will meet with individuals, faith leaders, scientists and archaeologists to help him understand such topics. Such individuals include Kenneth Bae, the Korean-American Evangelical Christian Missionary convicted by North Korea on charges of planning to overthrow the North Korean government, a woman who experienced heaven after her heart stopped for eight minutes, and many more.
As in the previous season, "The Story of God" will visit some of the world's most sacred places, including Angkor Wat in Cambodia, constructed in the 12th century as a model of Hindu heaven; Devil's Tower in Wyoming, which the Lakota tribe believe to be one of the power points of their worship; the underwater caves, or "cenotes," of the Maya in Mexico, which they believed were the entryways to heaven and hell; rare access inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the holiest shrine of the Sikh faith; and the Meskel celebration in Ethiopia that commemorates the discovery of the true cross by Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine.
The show will air in 171 countries, in 45 languages, including a Spanish version on Nat Geo Mundo, and is in collaboration with Revelations Entertainment and the National Geographic Channel.
In an interview with CBS News, Freeman said he hopes for the series to unite people of different religions.
"In this situation, we're hoping that the public at large gets the lesson of the sameness of the human condition," he said. "We're not as different as we might think we are, we're all seeking the same thing and asking the same questions, and basically coming up with the same ideas about who we are, what we are, and where we are going."
