Jan 23, 2020
By Pastor Phil Lawton
No, our second installment of Everyday Theology is not some weird slang for Bible dating. There has been a lot of news around these two topics recently. Though I plan to give a little background on two recent additions to Netflix’s lineup, the point is not to give a review in the typical sense. The point of this series is to apply the truth of the Gospel to our everyday lives. Since much of the media is not Christian, I think it is important for us to consider how our response to movies and television displays Christ.
One note before we get into the topic: By the time you read this I will have already had the first installment of Everyday Theology Q & A. Yet, at the time of writing this we are still a week out. That’s the time travel of print media. I say this because I want to remind you that we will be doing another Q & A livestream on February 20th at 8 pm EST. If you want more information on how to get involved, or you want to get questions in ahead of time, you can visit the Facebook page for my blog: Contemplating Kenosis. That page will always have the most up-to-date information.
I can’t count the number of times that someone (usually a youth) has seen something (usually on YouTube) and asked me, “Pastor Phil, is that true?” There used to be a saying—“You can’t believe everything you see on TV.” At this point you can replace TV with Internet. Lest you think this is simply a problem of youth, I have heard people many years my senior swear that “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible. It’s not. That was Benjamin Franklin… or Aesop… or maybe just ancient Greek theology.
The point of all this is not to tell you to never watch secular media. Some might feel that way, but honestly, I have issues with much of Christian media, too. The point is that we cannot be simple consumers of media. We have to think critically about the things that we watch. Every creator has a belief system. Those beliefs will come out in the media they create. This can be an invaluable tool in understanding how the secular world views Christians.
But Jesus Isn’t Gay…
Around Christmas, Netflix released a movie called The First Temptation of Christ. I have not seen this movie, but I gather that it depicts Jesus as gay and Mary as smoking weed. This is not a Netflix original. It’s by a group called Porta dos Fundos. If you go to their YouTube page, you’ll find that this is nothing new.
The response to this from Christians was to #CancelNetflix. If I had to guess I would say that most people who were angered by the movie didn’t actually cancel their subscription. Even if they did, yelling about it on Twitter wasn’t helping anything. When I looked at it back in December (At the time of writing it seems Twitter is upset about Netflix and Goop. *sigh*) the theme from non-Christians seemed to be that Christians were overreacting. I agree if I’m honest. But that wasn’t even the worst thing that happened. The Porta dos Fundos studio was firebombed on Christmas Eve.
The message that this sends to the world is that Christians hate people who think differently than they do. We don’t care about poverty or refugees. We’d much rather yell about irrelevant movies on Twitter and throw Molotov cocktails at buildings. This is NOT the Christianity that I know. Chances are it’s not the Christianity that you know either. But this is the Christianity that the world knows.
I Don’t Believe in that God Either
In college I had a professor who loved to have conversations with atheists. He would often mention that when people heard he was a professor at a Christian university they would tell him that they don’t believe in God. His response would be to ask them to tell him about this God they don’t believe in. Most times when they got done his response would be “I don’t believe in that god either.”
I think we wrongly assume that things like The First Temptation of Christ are about God. The reality is that they are not a critique of God. They are a critique of Christians’ portrayal of God. They are a critique of the church. I don’t know about you, but I welcome that kind of criticism. God may not be fallible, but I certainly am.
Jesus told us that to follow Him meant dying to self. Paul says that we do not live, but it is Christ who lives in us. To be a Christian means to live as Jesus. If what the world sees is not Jesus, the flaw is not with them. It is with us. Responding to purposefully antagonistic movies with hate just proves the world’s point. The best way to silence falsehood like this is to live like Christ.
Converted or Conned?
I have to say, Netflix knows me really well. Those trailers at the top of the page always get me excited. The one for Messiah was no different. It was about a modern-day Jesus. The second coming. It checked all the boxes. He was from the Middle East and not white. It involved conspiracy and ambiguity. It had a CIA agent who didn’t believe. And then the question “Will he convert you?” changed to “Will he con you?” I was hooked. I had to know.
If you believe the critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, this show is a dud. But if you believe the popular score this is a home run. That usually means that this is something to watch. You may not like it, but at least you will have a strong opinion. Before I go on, I want to say that I am going to spoil things from here on in.
Is Al-Masih the second coming of Jesus? This question will plague you from the first episode right up to the last. We are given all kinds of reasons not to believe it. His grandfather who raised him was a magician. That means that the miracles he does could be faked. The guy knows how to trick people. He is friends with a Russian spy. That means the guy might be handled by the Kremlin. Al-Masih was institutionalized for a messiah complex. Maybe he’s just crazy.
And yet how do you fake walking on the reflecting pool in Washington? How does he know personal information about everyone who interrogates him? The last minutes of the last episode suggest that he can raise people from the dead. That must mean that he is Jesus. Unless it doesn’t.
Outsourcing the Gospel
I think I was most excited about Messiah because I thought it might actually be good Christian television. Modern Christian movies tend to be heavy-handed with their message. Messiah is anything but obvious. But the more I watched it the more the show just seemed off. Al-Masih was promoting peace and unity, which is good, but not strictly Christian. Whenever anyone asked if he was God, his response would be to ask them what they think. Rather than heal a wounded dog he shoots it, because it was suffering.
All of these things lead me to the conclusion that the person who wrote this was not a Christian, but knew a lot about Christianity. This has led others to conclude that Al-Masih is actually being portrayed as the Anti-Christ. I’ll admit it fits. The world seems to love him and yet it seems like he leaves chaos in his wake. But (other than meaning season 2 will be exciting) it does not change the larger point. We can’t outsource our evangelism to media.
Using good stories as a tool to share aspects of the Gospel is great. I do this all the time. Jesus told stories to answer questions and tell people about the Kingdom of God. But they were not the only things that He did. A movie that accurately portrays the Gospel in 90 minutes is a sermon and I don’t know any American who wants to hear an hour and a half sermon. If we really want to share the Gospel with people, we have to show it and not just tell it.
It would be easy for me to say that we shouldn’t promote Messiah because it doesn’t get Jesus right. But the truth is I think it is good. It gets people to talk. I want people to talk. I want people to ask questions, because then we get to give them answers from the Bible. The important part is not the doctrinal correctness of the movie, but the relationship that grows from talking about it. Stop worrying about how a movie portrays Jesus and think about how your life portrays Jesus. It is God, not a movie, that converts people.