Once in a while, a major cultural production will appear that presents a non-biblical view of Jesus. This shouldn’t be something that surprises us. In an interconnected world we are exposed daily to all sorts of views about all sorts of things. This is the reality we live in. It really is pointless to try to prevent people from watching certain things. Recently, the rock opera musical Jesus Christ Superstar was once again in the news. This had a strange déjà vu feeling for me. I first encountered this musical as an LP* record (remember those?) in 1972. There were some warnings from the church even then, but those were the days before social media and music streaming so the “danger” was not so threatening and people soon forgot about it.
I remember it as an attempt to portray the “human” side of Jesus and the circumstances that surrounded key events in His life. Of course, I don’t turn to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for theology. It is entertainment. I thought the musical raised interesting questions. And it had some great songs. I particularly liked “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”.
Recent warnings about this musical seem to be based on the fact that this is an erroneous portrayal of Jesus and that the powers that be should sound a warning that there are spiritual dangers associated with watching it. There is a reference to the fact that Singapore is a multi-religious country and that the government should be fair in protecting all religions. Just imagine a musical that portrayed an alternative view of Prophet Muhammed. Would that even be allowed?
But everyone knows that Christians are loving and forgiving people, hence there seems to be less concern for cultural productions that portray alternative views of Jesus. If our agenda is to protect the sensitivities of all religions then the church should also speak up if any group is portrayed in an unfavourable light: Shiite Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists, etc. It should not just be a narrow “protect Christians” agenda but an agenda to speak up for all who can’t speak up for themselves.
What we must do is to teach our people how to discern truth from error. In an internet world we cannot warn followers of Jesus about every possible cultural threat to our faith. What we can and must do is to teach our people how to discern truth from error. A musical like Jesus Christ Superstar could serve as a case study. I have been concerned for the longest time that the church pays much more attention to high-profile subjects like musicals but is silent about the suffocating consumeristic materialism that is pitched to us every day through endless sophisticated advertisements. The church is silent on the numerous Tik Tok clips that show that injustice can be righted in one minute. There are more immediate dangers that the church seems to be silent about.
And discernment should not be taught just by instruction. 2 Timothy 3:14–15 reminds us that the veracity of our faith is taught not just by instruction but by living examples of those whose lives have been transformed by the truth, in this case Timothy’s mother and grandmother, and the apostle Paul. Such an approach to teaching discernment is going to take hard work and time. It is easier to sound the alarm bells when obvious cultural dangers loom. It’s much harder and less exciting to model and teach the truth to our people in ongoing spiritual formation.
I also think that God is a big God who is perfectly capable of protecting His own name, as the Philistines discovered (1 Samuel 4, 5, 6). And while we should speak up if erroneous visions of Jesus are presented it should not come from a place of panic, or fear, or anger, but of confidence in the Lord. Remember that the early church had little political clout yet grew rapidly. There were a few good apologists among them, but the main distinguishing mark of the early church was their love for each other and their love for the poor and needy. I believe it was Francis Schaeffer who said that love was the final apologetic.
Ideally Christians should prove themselves to be caring, faithful friends so that our non-Christian friends would turn to us and ask our opinions about phenomena like Jesus Christ Superstar, which could lead to good conversations about the gospel. But with such busy lives at work, in our families, and in church, how much time do we have to build authentic friendships with those who don’t follow Christ?
The church should be concerned that false portrayals of Jesus are out there. Where appropriate we should speak up in the public square. But we are told not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). That is much harder work.
* An LP (long-playing) record is a 12-inch vinyl phonograph disc that plays at 33 1/3 rpm and holds a full music album.
