Morgan Freeman’s Next Project Explores This Important Church Era

Published: July 1, 2024

Morgan Freeman’s Next Project Explores This Important Church Era

By Movieguide® Contributor

Morgan Freeman, Sony Pictures Television and Revelations Entertainment are in early development on a project that explores the complicated dynamics of the early church and the Biblical Nazarene movement.

“The untitled series is set six months after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ,” reads a description of the show, per Deadline. “The secret Nazarene movement to spread His radical teaching of love is growing. Two families, one Hebrew and one Roman, are each fraught with their own crises of faith, and are drawn together in a complex web of espionage. The series…is being pitched as one about those who put their lives on the line, against extraordinary adversity, in the face of occupation and oppression by the most powerful empire in history, to bring Christ’s teachings to life.”

The sect of the Nazarenes, which was an early name for Christians, was mentioned in Acts 24 when Paul was brought before the governor of Caesarea for spreading teachings that they viewed as blasphemous.

“We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn the truth about all these charges we are bringing against him,” the leaders told the governor (Acts 24: 5-7).

Paul, meanwhile, defended himself in his typical manner, confessing the Gospel and extending the good news to the Gentiles, while also clarifying he was not inciting riots nor pushing for any harm. Though the governor believed him, he jailed Paul for two years to keep the Jewish leaders happy.

This section of Acts sets the stage for the series and the danger that believers faced — particularly for mixing Jews and Gentiles — something prohibited by traditional Jewish law.

Freeman will serve as an executive producer on the project. He has worked on faith-based projects in the past, though he remains an agnostic. In 2016, he released a series with National Geographic called THE STORY OF GOD. Through this series, he explored the way religion is interacted with around the world.

His conclusion from working on this project is that all religions have many similarities, making it impossible to know which one is “correct.” Instead, he is content to believe God exists and leaves it at that.

“I didn’t change anything at all about how I think of God or my belief in God. It just enlightened me to how other cultures do it,” he told Entertainment Weekly around the series release.

With his viewpoint in mind, it is unclear if the upcoming series will have a faith aspect to it, or if it will use the Nazarene movement as a backdrop to explore the complex social dynamics that emerged when the Jew and Gentile societies combined.