Many years ago, an ex-girlfriend gave me a copy of the book "Wicked." If you don't know by now, "Wicked" is a retelling of the "Wizard of Oz" mythos from the viewpoint of the Wicked Witch of the West. And it seems the media never gets tired of reimagining the "Wizard of Oz" mythos. But that is another gripe for another column. Even though I was still a Lefty, I thought it was only a mildly interesting read, so I stuck the book on a shelf somewhere. I think it eventually got lost in a move. I did not see the stage adaptation and didn't bother with the film since my interest in pop culture can be measured in millimeters. Possibly micrometers.
My ignorance of what's hot and what's not aside, Breitbart noted that Cynthia Erivo, who plays the main character in the film version of "Wicked," is prepping for a new role -- in this case, the titular role in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar." For those of you who have never seen the original stage production, the 1973 film, or the multiple iterations that have followed over the years, "Jesus Christ Superstar" is meant to portray Jesus as the rock star of his time and, as such, a man beset with troubles, doubt, and angst. The opera opens with Judas Iscariot singing "Heaven on Their Minds," in which he promises to "strip away the myth from the man." He then goes on to chastise Jesus for letting the movement get too big and succumbing to his celebrity status.
The ghost of Judas even returns with an angelic choir as Christ awaits crucifixion in order to taunt him one last time.
To be fair, the music is great, and Carl Anderson delivers an incredible outing in the film as Judas. The film's one redeeming grace is that Anderson's performance outstrips everyone else's and brings a complexity to Judas that would make most theologians at least think twice. The Gospels depict Judas as a larcenous opportunist, but there is quite a bit to unpack in his story.
Since the production made its debut in the early '70s, all of the liberal Christians (including my parents) were mesmerized by it. These people saw it as a re-imagining of The Passion and a brilliant depiction of the human side of Jesus. Conservative Christians, of course, loathed it. I remember reading one pastor's commentary in which he said the production depicted Jesus as a "fornicator and a fool." And despite the ripping score, Jesus comes across as a whiny, conflicted, small-minded man who cannot extricate himself from the consequences of his self-inflicted celebrity. Scarce mention is made of Christ's divinity, and the show ends with his dead body on the cross. The Resurrection is not shown or even referenced. Whatever the intellectual elites may say about the show, it does indeed try to strip Christ of everything but a flawed human nature. Instead of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, he is a misguided malcontent who got too big for his biblical britches.
It is also worth noting that many productions of the show have been distinctly and overtly anti-Semitic in their imagery and staging, particularly the 2000 film adaptation. Even in the 1973 film, the Pharisees are portrayed as egomaniacal, power-hungry peacocks. The truth is that many of the Pharisees likely found themselves between a rock and a hard place trying to maintain a delicate balance when it came to Christ's popularity and the Zealot movement versus the Roman occupiers. It is one of those instances in which historical context comes in handy.
I have never seen Ms. Erivo, who identifies as "queer," perform, so I cannot comment on her abilities as an actress. But it is a reasonable extrapolation that she has been cast as the title role in "Jesus Christ Superstar" for the same reason the production was created -- namely, to deconstruct Christ. One can almost hear the producers giggling about how they will offend the straight, white (mostly male) evangelicals. Of course, the problem with that is one that most people forget: Christianity started as a Middle Eastern religion. It had established itself along the Mediterranean and on the African continent before it made landfall in Europe. The early Christian services did not sound at all like the average Sunday morning K-LOVE cover worship band. They probably sounded more like this:
Like Rice and Webber before them, none of that likely matters to the new producers. Their intent is to strip Christ of his divinity. After all, trans women are women, right? Reality is whatever suits them at the moment, so Christ can be whatever they want him to be, particularly if that portrayal assists in the deconstruction of Christ and, by extension, Christianity.
But Christ does not give us the option of remaking him in our own image. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
The Left and its acolytes in the entertainment industry lack the ability and the desire to wrestle with the perilous nature of transcendence. It is perilous because transcendence calls our very nature into question and forces us to look beyond the desires and clamorings of the crude matter of which we are made. They fear transcendence because it reminds them that something greater than themselves lurks just on the other side of the veil that is at once terrible and wonderful to behold. And so, out of that fear, they make Christ a liar, lunatic, a great teacher, or even a sullen rock star of indeterminate gender in order to manipulate him. But to call him Lord is to deny themselves, which is simply too great a demand for them.
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