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Frontline: Specials
April 24, 2001
12 Episodes
Overview
No overview available for this season.
Episodes
12
5
God in America: A New Adam (1)
Oct 11, 2010
The first hour of God in America explores the origins of America’s unique religious landscape--how the New World challenged and changed the faiths the first European settlers brought with them. In New Mexico, the spiritual rituals of the Pueblo Indians collided with the Catholic faith of Franciscan missionaries, ending in a bloody revolt. In New England, Puritan leader John Winthrop faced off against religious dissenters from within his own ranks. And a new message of spiritual rebirth from evangelical preachers like George Whitefield swept through the American colonies, upending traditional religious authority and kindling a rebellious spirit that converged with the political upheaval of the American Revolution.
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6
God in America: A New Eden (2)
Oct 11, 2010
Hour two considers the origins of America’s experiment in religious liberty, examining how the unlikely alliance between evangelical Baptists and enlightenment figures such as Thomas Jefferson forged a new concept of religious freedom. In the competitive religious marketplace unleashed by this freedom, upstart denominations raced ahead of traditional faiths and a new wave of religious revivals swept thousands of converts into the evangelical fold and inspired a new gospel of social reform. In a fierce political struggle, Catholic immigrants challenged Protestant domination of public schools and protested the daily classroom practice of reading from the King James Bible.
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7
God in America: A Nation Reborn (3)
Oct 12, 2010
Hour three explores how religion suffused the Civil War. As slavery split the nation in two, Northern abolitionists and Southern slaveholders turned to the Bible to support their cause. Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass condemned Christianity for sanctioning slavery. In the White House, Abraham Lincoln struggled to make sense of the war’s carnage and the death of his young son. The president, who previously had put his faith in reason over revelation, embarked on a spiritual journey that transformed his ideas about God and the ultimate meaning of the war.
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8
God in America: A New Light (4)
Oct 12, 2010
During the 19th century, the forces of modernity challenged traditional faith and drove a wedge between liberal and conservative believers. Bohemian immigrant Isaac Mayer Wise embraced change and established Reform Judaism in America while his opponents adhered to Old World traditions. In New York, Presbyterian biblical scholar Charles Briggs sought to wed his evangelical faith with modern biblical scholarship, leading to his trial for heresy. In the 1925 Scopes evolution trial, Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan faced off against freethinker Clarence Darrow in a battle between scientific and religious truth.
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9
God in America: Soul of a Nation (5)
Oct 13, 2010
Hour Five explores the post-World War II era, when rising evangelist Billy Graham tried to inspire a religious revival that fused faith with patriotism in a Cold War battle with "Godless Communism." As Americans flocked in record numbers to houses of worship, non-believers and religious minorities appealed to the US Supreme Court to test the constitutionality of religious expression in public schools. And civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as a modern-day prophet, calling upon the nation to honor both biblical teachings and the founders’ democratic ideals of equal justice.
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10
God in America: Of God and Caesar (6)
Oct 13, 2010
The final hour of God in America brings the series into the present day, exploring the religious and political aspirations of conservative evangelicals’ moral crusade over divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage. Their embrace of presidential politics would end in disappointment and questions about the mixing of religion and politics. Across America, the religious marketplace expanded as new waves of immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America made the United States the most religiously diverse nation on earth. In the 2008 presidential election, the re-emergence of a religious voice in the Democratic Party brought the country to a new plateau in its struggle to reconcile faith with politics. God in America closes with reflections on the role of faith in the public life of the country, from the ongoing quest for religious liberty to the enduring idea of America as the "city on a hill" envisioned by the Puritans nearly 400 years ago.
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11
Kind Hearted Woman: Part One
Apr 1, 2013
In a special two-part series, acclaimed filmmaker David Sutherland (The Farmer's Wife, Country Boys) creates an unforgettable portrait of Robin Charboneau, a divorced single mother living on North Dakota's Spirit Lake Reservation. Sutherland follows Robin as she struggles to raise her two children, further her education, and heal herself from the wounds of sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
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12
Kind Hearted Woman: Part Two
Apr 2, 2013
In a special two-part series, acclaimed filmmaker David Sutherland (The Farmer's Wife, Country Boys) creates an unforgettable portrait of Robin Charboneau, a divorced single mother living on North Dakota's Spirit Lake Reservation. Sutherland follows Robin as she struggles to raise her two children, further her education, and heal herself from the wounds of sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
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637
Stickup Kid
Dec 17, 2014
A FRONTLINE digital exclusive. Frontline explores what happens when a juvenile offender is sent to adult prison.
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669
Mosquito Hunter
Aug 2, 2016
A look at Brazil's efforts to combat mosquito-borne illnesses, most notably Zika fever.
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680
Betting on Trump: Water / Coal / Jobs
Feb 15, 2017
A trio of reports from FRONTLINE, Marketplace and PBS NewsHour on what Donald Trump's promises mean to voters in California's Central Valley (farming and water), West Virginia (coal industry), and Erie, Pennsylvania (jobs)
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681
Big Sky, Big Money
Jan 1, 2012
53 min
In 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision changed the landscape of campaign finance in America. The decision held that political spending is a form of protected speech and let corporations and unions spend unlimited amounts of money in campaigns. But to avoid corruption, the court said the money can’t go directly to candidates; it has to go to independent outside groups. What did that mean in reality? The 2012 documentary Big Sky, Big Money, from FRONTLINE and APM’s Marketplace, offered an on-the-ground look. With that year’s election cycle underway, correspondent Kai Ryssdal traveled to Montana, a battleground over campaign finance at the time, and uncovered startling new evidence of outside interest groups’ influence on local campaigns.
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