Alexandria, VA, August 10, 2010 - THE INSTITUTE on Religion and Public Policy is serving as a cooperating organization with the new PBS special God in America. 
 
God in America examines the potent and complex interaction between religion and democracy, the origins of the American concept of religious liberty, and the controversial evolution of that ideal in the nation's courts and political arena.
 
The series considers the role religious ideas and institutions have played in social reform movements from abolition to civil rights, examining the impact of religious faith on conflicts from the American Revolution to the Cold War, and how guarantees of religious freedom created a competitive American religious marketplace.
 
It also explores the intersection of political struggle and spiritual experience in the lives of key American historical figures including Franciscan Friars and the Pueblo leader Po'pay, Puritan leader John Winthrop and dissident Anne Hutchinson, Catholic Bishop John Hughes, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, reform Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, Scopes trial combatants William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, evangelist Billy Graham, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Moral Majority's Jerry Falwell.
 
"THE INSTITUTE is excited and proud to be a part of such an innovative campaign to discuss faith in America and American public life," commented THE INSTITUTE's Founder and Chairman, Joseph K. Grieboski. "How a nation and state confront faith and all its components is central to national identity and culture.  PBS is providing an overwhelming service of national self-examination and I encourage as many people as possible to participate in the God in America experience."
 
God in America is an AMERICAN EXPERIENCE/FRONTLINE co-production, headed by series executive producer Michael Sullivan, series producer Marilyn Mellowes, series director David Belton, and producer/directors Greg Barker and Sarah Colt. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning. The executive producer for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is Mark Samels.