Pitch for a new reality TV show

16 March 2004

It’s like Joan of Arcadia meets Joe Millionaire. You’ve got twelve people at a retreat center, out in the woods somewhere. Six of them are looking for some kind of spiritual direction in their lives, but aren’t sure what religion to follow. Six of them are spiritual guides representing a variety of religions: one Catholic priest, one Baptist, one Chassidic rabbi, and so on.

But here’s the catch: three of the six spiritual guides are atheists pretending to be religious. At the end of the series, each one of our lost souls has to choose which religion, out of the six represented by the guides, he or she wants to investigate further. Every atheist whose pretended religion gets picked wins a million dollars for each soul he or she wins over.

• Later: Whose nation is this, anyway?
• Earlier: Visualizing the Mishkan