How closely does “Prayer in America” follow Moores book?
Actually, it’s quite different. While Jim did a terrific book, it’s chronological in nature, and he’s able to cover a lot of things in history that we simply can’t cover because the images don’t exist. We do talk, for example, about the Puritans and some of the movements in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it’s pretty hard to visualize that, so we chose to focus our project thematically, (dividing) each hour into four or five themes. Q: Any overall theme? A: I think when you watch it, the thing that emerges is a pretty significant sense of what America calls civil religion. Our premise in a sense is that America is the one place in the world where people from different faiths can pray collectively. So, we start with the prayer vigils that followed the tragedy of 9-11, where you see in Yankee Stadium or the National Cathedral faith leaders from a myriad of faiths come together. While they may be praying to individual gods or conceptions of God, what they’re praying for is a very America
