Corrected version: Story updated Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015 at 3:58 p.m. to correct dates associated with the documentary miniseries’ schedule.
For seven consecutive nights beginning Sunday, Oprah Winfrey will tell stories of spirit on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Belief, a documentary miniseries that shows people from many world religions — about a dozen faiths and philosophies — pursuing or practicing their beliefs, is a special project that took three years to get to TV. Belief will air from 8-10 p.m. every night, Sunday through Oct. 24, on OWN, Buckeye CableSystem channels 66 and 573.
The series shows the personal stories of evangelical Christians like college student Cha Cha, and Ian and Larissa Murphy, a married couple dealing with disability. There are Orthodox Jews, including Mendel Hurwitz at his bar mitzvah. Professional skateboarder Jordan Richter, a Muslim, is shown on his hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
There are Hindus and Buddhists, Yavapai-Apache and Aboriginal Australian people, and even secular and atheist views. These aren’t stories about religion from ministers or scripture; they’re the people’s own stories. And what is in common in all of them is the people’s attention to something they believe is greater than themselves.
Jonathan Sinclair, the executive vice president of programming and an executive producer at Winfrey’s Harpo Studios, who was also an executive producer and a series producer for Belief, told The Blade, “I was brought up Christian evangelical-ish, and I would say many of these religions teach there’s one true way, and the other ways are wrong. That has softened [for me], because you can’t watch this and say they’re all wrong.
“You can’t fault anybody for the fact that they were born in a part of the world where this is the major religion, and they want to have beliefs in their lives. Every one of these people see the importance of having a belief structure. Even if you’re Alex [Honnold] the climber [from episode 7] who doesn’t believe in God, he still has a belief that propels him forward, a belief in ‘this is the moment.’ And you know there’s power in even that.”
The first words spoken in the series are from Winfrey: “My confidence comes from knowing there is a force, a power greater than myself that I am a part of, and is also a part of me.”
Mr. Sinclair said that when the concept was being pitched to Winfrey and she was meeting with the Belief filmmakers, “I witnessed her joy at the time to see a project that was so in line with who she is. Because anybody that’s watched her over the years knows that this content is nearest and dearest to her heart, and telling stories is a passion that just ran through every show that she did on the Oprah show and everything else shes done.
“So to watch her sit in this room and see this reel that really spoke to the potential — nothing had been shot; it was an idea presented, and it resonated with her. Her joy came from seeing that, and her first question to the filmmakers and to the room was not, ‘How much? When can I have it? What do I need to do?’
“It was, ‘Well, what do you believe?’ And she went around the room and talked to everyone. … For her, it really comes down to this idea of, by sharing your stories, that’s how you really get to know each other.”
In her introduction, Winfrey says, “We are born into belief, and where we go from there is our own highly personal life-long creation — all rooted in questions asked throughout the ages: Why are we here? What does this all mean? Is there a divine order to the mystery of our lives?
“The answers can connect us, may sometimes divide us, but most certainly they define us. What do you believe?”
One challenge not quite met is including stories of common faith. Telling good stories on TV calls for interesting visuals and engaging tales. That makes it hard to include some of the mainstream Christian denominations when the people are living “regular lives” of weekday work, family attention, and Sunday services.
People whose issues are directed outward, such as to social justice, rather than inward to soul examination, also get little notice in Belief.
Perhaps if the miniseries is successful, the producers might meditate on adding more stories.
Contact TK Barger @ tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.
First Published October 17, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
