The following is PART ONE of my FIRST DRAFT of an essay I've been working on. In a perfect world I'd like to spend more time working on it before publishing but I am pushing myself to publish once a week even if it's not always the best I feel I can do. I did not know how long the piece would be when I first started writing it, I would have been happy with a mere 1,000 words. It turns out I have a lot to say about this so it's going to take me a while to write it, so please be patient while I work on finishing it. Without further ado...
I was recently asked if I wanted to play piano for a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. I had not ever seen it-either the stage production or the film adaptation. I had heard snippets and one or two songs a few times but I was very unfamiliar with the source material.
It struck me that I may have a very unique perspective of the musical and how appropriate it would be to participate in it. Well spoiler alert: I didn’t end up doing it. Everyone who I looked to as mentors for advice on what I should do told me I should do it though. It would appear that this work of art has found a space to occupy where Christendom is divided about how to receive it.
I was hoping at first that I would be able to watch a couple clips, read a couple reviews and that would give me enough information to make a decision that I wouldn’t have to burn a couple hours watching the whole thing. I ended up burning a whole day watching clips, reading reviews, writing thoughts and asking at least six different people for their advice and perspective. Then at the end of the day I ended up renting the film and watching the whole thing for myself anyway. I want to take a moment to share what I learned on this journey because some of the insights are fascinating and I think there are some helpful principles I might be able to elucidate for fellow believers about how to evaluate the art and media we support, consume and enjoy.
Firstly the most obvious likely objection that many conservative religious people may have is simply to the rock music. I found it interesting and maybe a bit hopeful that most reviews I read of the play - even the negative ones - would mention this but they would not spend a lot of time on that point. I would like to hope that to be so ignorant as to label anything with melodies and harmonies and rhythmic patterns you don’t like as inherently evil and despised by God is something that the large majority of the world is finally moving on from to the extent that we don’t even have to unpack this point.
Needless to say it doesn’t bother me one bit that the play is a rock opera. I love rock and roll. I’m not sure what kind of baby a jukebox baby is exactly but if it needs another dime put in it then I say go ahead. The really interesting stuff I noticed doesn’t have much to do with this element but everyone else mentions it in their reviews so I’m just keeping the tradition alive and it’s something that really deserves its own essay.
Probably similar in nature to the objection about rock and roll is the perspective of the play. Jesus Christ Superstar is written to be the story of Jesus as likely understood and reported by Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Him. Tim Rice apparently stated that his intention in the way the play was written was to highlight Jesus’ humanity, exclusive of his divinity. It seems that he was working on the assumption that Judas saw Jesus as merely human and not divine. I don’t know if we can know exactly what Judas thought or believed but to be fair it doesn’t seem strictly inaccurate or unfair to suggest that this may indeed have been Judas’ perspective.
Given that a legitimate purpose of art is to give us a fresh look at the world from someone else’s perspective I feel that this is a totally legitimate angle to explore. While it is uncomfortable for someone who sees Jesus differently - as the fully human but also fully divine Son of God - there can be great value in such discomfort because it is through that discomfort that we can gain understanding. If you don’t understand why people see the world differently from you then you won’t be able to see your own blind spots and you certainly won’t be able to convince them to change their minds about anything.
I also don’t have a problem with the portrayal of Jesus as a human being. I don’t agree that He was merely a human being but I do believe that He was fully human. To create a work that really tries to fully explore and express the implications of Jesus’ humanity is not an inherently bad thing. Christ’s humanity is the very thing that made Him so peculiar, so special, so remarkable (that is assuming that He is also God). If we don’t take the time to appreciate the struggles that Christ certainly had on account of His humanity then we won’t fully appreciate what He did for us in living a sinless life. He may be the only one who ever has or ever could but He did demonstrate through His example that it is technically possible for a being who is fully human to live a perfect, sinless life.
The next objection that I think many Christians have to the musical and one I was tempted to pounce on is the myriad inaccuracies and blasphemies in the work. I read (ok I skimmed a little but I read most of it) this article from the Free Presbyterian church: https://web.archive.org/web/20140413143744/http://www.freepres.org/pamphlet_details.asp?superstar
They articulate some ways in which the play gets the story quite wrong and they are correct to point to these things as inaccuracies. I completely agree that the musical is riddled with inaccuracies, misrepresentations and things that might rightly be called blasphemy. This is ultimately the thing that made me decide not to participate but it might not be for exactly the reason you would think.
There is a point worth making in defense of the play: no portrayal of the passion story is going to get everything completely right no matter how hard they try. People write plays, people are flawed, people make mistakes. I don’t think we can stand on completely solid ground if we argue that the play is bad because it gets a couple things wrong (ok it gets a lot of things wrong but follow my point here). Every attempt to portray Jesus Christ and the story of His life on Earth gets some things wrong so should we just stop telling the story? By no means! (I like the apostle Paul).
You have to remember: this play is written with the explicit goal in mind of portraying the story from the perspective of one of the worst, most villainous characters. Sure, the playwrights probably didn’t make that choice because they want to deepen our understanding and appreciation of Jesus’ sacrifice and strengthen our faith but we can’t just dismiss the work on that choice alone. That choice is merely something that makes the play extraordinary and for that very reason all the more worth making.
Many people might rightly point out that the play was written by non-Christians who believe that Jesus was only human and their intent was to portray Him that way in part because it is a reflection of their own view. I am struck by the fact that Jesus Christ Superstar is an incredibly popular work among heathens and atheists BECAUSE it would seem to be mocking Jesus and portraying Him in a blasphemous way. This fact gave me pause when evaluating my own feelings about the play but I feel that whether or not someone sees the truth as I do does not determine whether they can make good art or not. I enjoy many plays and songs that are written by heathens with a heathen worldview.
At this point you might think it sounds like I am writing a piece in defense of the musical! As I foreshadowed at the beginning I did ultimately decide not to participate in the production. I want to explain why I decided not to do it and give my criticisms but I want to make sure that they are fair criticisms. I want you, dear reader, to understand that I did not decide the play was condemnable for silly reasons or for a lack of careful and nuanced consideration. I think those of a more conservative persuasion are likely to want to just find any reason to condemn the play because one thing is for sure: it is a bold piece of work. I suppose any work about the life of Christ must be rather bold simply for the fact that it is about the most important person who ever lived on the Earth. For the same reason I suppose that any person of a more liberal persuasion is likely to want to find just about any reason to dismiss all criticism and embrace the work.
My purpose in writing so defensively at first is to make sure my message is clear that I did my best to take an open minded and balanced approach to my evaluation of the musical. I think it is important that we don’t judge the motivation of those who see enough merit in the work that they think it should be produced in spite of its flaws. I also think it is important that we don’t become complacent or overly tolerant of explicit blasphemous taunting of our Lord, savior and friend Jesus.
I would like to describe the conversations I had with several believers as I was considering what to do because it was the most surprising and interesting thing to me about this process. I selected six people that I know who share my fairly conservative convictions but also have personalities that are higher in openness and interested in artistic expression. These are the folks in my life that “get it,” to some degree or another. However to avoid making anyone feel uncomfortable I will not be disclosing their identities.
I asked someone who I am very close to and whose judgement I place a high degree of trust in and they asked if the play quotes scripture and said because of Isaiah 55:11 which says loosely that the word of the Lord does not return void that “if scripture is quoted in it, the Lord’s work will be done.” Isaiah 55:11 says: “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
My first question was: so? What does the word “so” mean? In this context it seems to mean “as.” “As what?” you might wonder. Well the verses right before that give us context: ““For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;” At this point I got frustrated because understanding Isaiah usually is frustrating. So I read the whole chapter and while that made a little more sense I still didn’t see what this person thought it had to do with my situation.
They said “if scripture is quoted in it, the Lord’s work will be done.”
I said “What if the scripture is quoted out of context and used to promote false teaching?”
They said “I leave that to God.”
I said “So you’re ok with me playing piano for a show that explicitly blasphemes Jesus as long as they use scripture to do it?”
They said “it can be viewed as evangelistic. It could get people talking about Christ…I might do it because it would get people talking which opens the way for the gospel to work in their hearts.”
Tell me if I’m way off base here but I think that if you’re going to bear witness of the gospel it matters not just that you mention Jesus but also what you say about Him. Are there not thousands of mainline churches across the country that pay lip service to the gospel of Jesus Christ but refuse to honor Him with their whole lives? (Or in many cases even a little bit of their lives?) Do we support these places lulling their congregants into a false sense of security thinking that they are saved from the wrath to come when they are in fact serving the satanic religious system with a Christian facade, attempting to rescue themselves by their own righteousness? No one does more damage to the kingdom of God than Christians who wield the word of God incompetently. That is why we who teach will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1).
The thought that crossed my mind as a pertinent question was: “how many people who are likely to go and see this production would likely be completely unfamiliar with Jesus and the story of the gospels?” I have to think it would not be very many, if any at all in this part of the world. I also think it’s worth considering even if someone came to see the show that had actually never heard of Jesus, if the show is riddled with inaccuracies and blasphemous ideas about Jesus, is that really what we want their first impression to be?
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