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Andrew Klavan, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Gritty Christian Realism
Andrew Klavan of Daily Wire and Ricochet Audio Network fame is a talented author of fiction and a stern critic of contemporary Christian works. He often says he gets flack from Christians for including profanities and, um, non-Christian behaviors in his novels and screenplays. But, he finds most overtly Christian movies unrelatable and clunky attempts at messaging, which end up only delivering pablum. I agree. We Chauvinists haven’t paid to see a Christian movie in the theater since Fireproof (2008), which was uninspiring enough for us to forswear God’s Not Dead, its sequels, and all the rest.
However, when Mr. C found a theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS) playing in Denver, we jumped at the chance to see it. Our tickets were for Black (Good?) Friday. Coincidence?
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera written by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice about the Passion of Christ as told from the perspective of Judas, Jesus’ betrayer. The story itself — some would say the greatest story ever told (I would) — is about as gritty as it gets, but the rock element takes the production into the realm of high art, in my opinion. The screaming guitars and wailing vocals delivering Tim Rice’s brilliant lyrics (which authentically represent the Biblical account) portray the Passion in a way modern audiences can get. It’s art, and yet it’s devastatingly real. True Myth, C.S. Lewis would say.
It’s the insight into fallen human nature that gives JCS its power. The actor Will Smith got into trouble several years ago for saying (paraphrased), “Hitler didn’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘I’m going to make the world a worse place.’ He thought he was doing good for Aryan Germans, at least.” Weber and Rice made the same controversial statement first about Judas, though.
In the scene where Mary Magdalene is anointing Jesus, Judas complains that the money used to purchase the oil could have been spent to help the poor and starving.
Jesus’ response brings us back to harsh reality:
Surely you’re not saying we have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always, pathetically struggling.
Look at the good things you’ve got.
Think while you still have me!
Move while you still see me!
You’ll be lost, and you’ll be sorry when I’m gone.
Judas has tried to warn Jesus of the consequences of exciting crowds and drawing the attention of occupying Roman forces:
Listen Jesus I don’t like what I see.
All I ask is that you listen to me.
And remember, I’ve been your right hand man all along.
You have set them all on fire.
They think they’ve found the new Messiah.
And they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong.I remember when this whole thing began.
No talk of God then, we called you a man.
And believe me, my admiration for you hasn’t died.
But every word you say today
Gets twisted ’round some other way.
And they’ll hurt you if they think you’ve lied.
Nazareth, your famous son should have stayed a great unknown
Like his father carving wood He’d have made good.
Tables, chairs, and oaken chests would have suited Jesus best.
He’d have caused nobody harm; no one alarm.Listen, Jesus, do you care for your race?
Don’t you see we must keep in our place?
We are occupied; have you forgotten how put down we are?I am frightened by the crowd.
For we are getting much too loud.
And they’ll crush us if we go too far.
If they go too far….Listen, Jesus, to the warning I give.
Please remember that I want us to live.
But it’s sad to see our chances weakening with every hour.
All your followers are blind.
Too much heaven on their minds.
It was beautiful, but now it’s sour.Yes it’s all gone sour.
Listen, Jesus, to the warning I give.
Please remember that I want us to live.C’mon, c’mon
He won’t listen to me …
C’mon, c’mon
He won’t listen to me …
Does this sound like anyone you know? Judas wants to serve the poor; he wants to protect Jesus and the Jewish race; he’s afraid for Jesus and his followers and just wants them to live. What’s wrong with any of that? He has good intentions.
The problem from a Christian perspective is Judas has no faith. He puts his trust in men — especially himself. This calls to mind the whole progressive mindset for me. It’s Greta Thunberg writ large.
Of course, unlike the prophet-of-doom Greta, Judas isn’t wrong about the consequences of Jesus’ rise to prominence. Jesus will agonize over his forthcoming suffering; he will be flogged and humiliated; he will fall under the weight of his Cross — the instrument of his torture — and our salvation; and he will die crying out to God the sorrow of his abandonment. But, Judas doesn’t foresee the Resurrection. And, while he turns out to be right about Rome crushing Israel and the Jews through the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, he does not understand that the mighty Roman Empire will become the means by which Christianity will ultimately spread throughout the world to become a universal blessing in the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.
God’s repeated question to us throughout Old and New Testaments is, “Do you trust Me?” All too often throughout history and today, we tell God to “talk to the hand,” we’ve got this, rather than seeking to do His will. It is a particular characteristic of the progressive mindset to implore God to “listen to me!,” I have the answers — and to value good intentions above all. But, JCS’s portrayal of Judas shows us good intentions are not exculpatory. It is by our fruits we can know whether we’re accomplishing God’s will, which is always for glorious purposes. Whether we’re progressives or not, though, we’re all the same species — Homo Betrayus — and we need a Savior.
I doubt Weber and Rice meant JCS to be a method of evangelization, but it is for me. I think it’s a modern Christian work of genius. I wonder what @andrewklavan makes of it?
Published in General
Good advice.
I don’t remember which radio station/DJ it was, when I lived in Chicago “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” had been requested and played so many times, it was banned.
My personal favorite is King Herod. It’s style is so out of place.
I don’t know. I heard it a couple (of thousand) times. Saw the movie only 20 or 30 times. Sung it in my car to myself maybe five million times, I don’t know.
They took a chance, told us the story from an unusual point of view – Judas’s. No need to be threatened – we know the rest of the story, the one from our point of view. This is art.
Jesus’s doubts on Gethsemane – I have always thought this brilliant and moving. Maybe Christian orthodoxy requires Him to be totally self-assured and together through the whole passion, but I find this take – His ultimate willingness to go through with it despite his doubt and confusion – to be extremely moving, and inspirational. As one technically not within the fold, I find this more moving than a lot of other apologetics that I consider.
This isn’t Jesus’ story, but Judas’s. He was not there for Jesus’s death or resurrection, though they do bring his glorious, fringe-bedangleclustered self back from the dead to ask Jesus (and us) some questions at the end.
It’s not the Jesus story. It’s the Judas story, maybe our story. Or maybe my story.
Gethsemane is of course the show-stopper, and a legendary performance by Ted Neely. Jesus, confronting his fate. Doubt and confusion, anguish, a primal cry of NO!, please no. Then an awareness of inevitability. Then capitulation. Acceptance. This is a human man, giving himself over to faith, trusting in the path that he has been shown. He is God? Doesn’t seem like it up there all alone. But he decides to believe that he is in the right place, doing the right thing. And he was, or so you believe if you are a Christian.
I find this willingness to go forth, hold to his principles in the face of his doubt, and be crucified and killed, to be much more moving and persuasive than if he had been sure he was God and was just going through the motions, acting out the drama.
But being that JCS is Judas’s story, I find the most moving and thought-provoking part to be his confrontation with Jesus just before the arrest.
And the the reprise of I Don’t Know How to Love Him, but Judas’s version. I find this as poignant as anything I have ever heard.
Mary sings it first as a confused, bewildered lover.
I don’t know how to love him,
what to do, how to move him.
He’s a man, he’s just a man.
And I’ve had so many men before,
in very many ways.
He’s just one more.
. . . .
Then Judas sings it a a human soul crying out to be loved from the depths of despair. That’s the whole play, right there.
I don’t know how to love him,
I don’t see why he moves me.
He’s a man, he’s just a man.
He is not a King, he’s just the same
as anyone I know.
He scares me so.
When he’s cold and dead, will he let me be?
Does he love, does he love me too? Does he care for me?
Starts at 1:42
The last chart in “Jesus Christ Superstar” is “John Nineteen Forty-One.”
They’re ending the story here. Judas is dead, albeit with an encore as noted. The story isn’t over, however.
Next chapter.
It just occurred to me this morning, upon waking (with “Christ you know I love you, can’t you see I waved?” playing in my head), the portrayal of Jesus in JCS is how Judas saw him (or imagined his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane)! It explains all of J. Climacus’s observed inaccuracies of JCS’s portrayal of Jesus — even that JCS doesn’t portray the Resurrection. Judas never saw it, so we don’t either in the play.
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I’m threatened by the story… far from it. I thought I wrote how much it meant to me. What I eventually came to understand is that the orthodox story is simply much more powerful as story. Especially when I finally figured out that the Gospels are not written from our point of view, or Judas’s point of view, but from God’s point of view. That makes them much more dramatic than a story written from my point of view.
This is a case in point. The orthodox take does not insist that he is “self-assured and together” through the whole passion. Again, far from it. The point of him retiring to Gethsemane is to recollect himself in prayer so that he might face the road before him. And in doing so, He provided an example for us. Even God Himself experienced our fear and dropped to His knees in prayer in order to face it.
The difference between Him and the JCS Christ is that He doesn’t doubt the goodness of the sacrifice He is going to make. The JCS Christ lashes out at the Father because his sacrifice seems pointless. And the funny thing is, the JCS Christ is right! In Superstar, because there is no Resurrection, Jesus just dies on the cross and everyone gets on a bus and goes home, apparently forgetting about him as they leave him hanging on the cross. They could just as easily have gotten on that bus without crucifying him. There is nothing inspirational about dying a pointless death. Far more dramatic is God becoming man, and dying for us on a cross in full knowledge of what he is doing, taking on our sins and living through our fear, pain and struggles despite our unworthiness and our rejection of him. That’s a story for the ages.
More — Judas projects his own frailties and desire to be loved onto Jesus (“for all you care…”). Projection is also standard left-wing M.O.
That’s the thing. We naturally assume that if Jesus was truly God, then he could only have been going through the motions in His Passion. The shocking, orthodox view is that even though He was God, and by His Nature did not and need not suffer, nonetheless he lowered himself to take on our form and suffer with us just as we do in our fear, pains, struggles and doubts. Because He was God, at any point during His Passion he could have called on legions of angels to defend Himself (this is what Satan tempted him with) and end His Suffering. But He didn’t. Even when He was on the Cross and was being mocked (“He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.” Matt 27:42) he refused to do so. Why not? Because in doing so He was revealing to us what God is truly like in his deepest core – Someone Who will die an excruciating death for us at our hands even though He need not and even as we mock Him for doing so. I get chills thinking about it. That’s drama.
The JCS Christ acquiesces to his fate not because he thinks it will do any good (and in fact it doesn’t) but only because the father has left him no choice (“you hold all the cards”). And he does die that death, and is quickly forgotten as everyone else piles on the bus and leaves him hanging on the cross. I don’t find it dramatic but nihilistic. There is no drama in meaninglessness. Much more dramatic is the actual Christ, Who dies on the Cross because He submits of His own free will in obedience to the Father (“not my will, but yours be done) and despite the anticipation of the horrors that await Him.
Yes, because it’s Judas’s perception of Christ and events — the non-believer’s view. It’s as you say, whether intentional or not, Weber and Rice’s JCS gives power to the real Christian story by contrast.
The controversy over the nature of Jesus was discussed in various councils in early Christianity: Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon.
There were some Christians who said that Jesus was 100 percent divine but not human. So, Jesus only appeared to be on the cross suffering and dying.
These Christians pointed to the passion stories of the Gospel of Luke where Jesus says while on the cross,
and the Gospel of John where Jesus says,
In Luke, Jesus says, just prior to this,
So, these Christians believed that Jesus didn’t really suffer on the cross because, since he was divine and was/is God, he couldn’t suffer.
There were other Christians who believed that Jesus was 100 percent human and not divine during his life. But, at death, God adopted Jesus and made Jesus divine, thus the resurrection.
Eventually these ideas became tagged as heresies and the Church adopted “Hypostatic Union,” the belief that Jesus was 100 percent human and 100 percent divine.
Of course, much of this is based on the idea that the writing of the Gospel writers and St. Paul were 100 percent factual and not a combination of fact and falsehood.
My sister used to play the sound track over and over when we were kids. She pretty much controlled the record player in our home. That’s okay, she had the best taste in music. Later she played Rocky Horror Picture Show sound track endlessly, but that’s another story.
Thus, I know the music a lot better than the movie itself (or the play). The music is really beautiful and it tells a compelling story. I think the view from Judas is very interesting.
What I think is funny is how JCS gets so much hate from different brands of Christians.
That’s kind of the problem with religion. There are so many different flavors, so many different interpretations, and so much zeal that some people get angry when a very fine effort to tell this story gets called satanic (not by anyone here that I’ve noticed, but it has been called that frequently and earnestly).
I also find it interesting that many people complain about discrepancies in the presentation of their faith in this movie, yet so many also say that Lord of the Rings and Narnia are “Christian” stories even though they involve magic and even pagan gods. Very odd.
My point is that I find it curious how it is human nature for people to tolerate ideologies that are more different than ideologies that are less different.
Catholics fought wars with Protestants. Communists hated and feared Nazis, and vice versa. Presentation of a world with witches, elves, and pagan gods is “Christian” but if you make Jesus a hippy, or worse if you imply transubstantiation is not real, all hell breaks loose.
Not really. Those works are Christian by allegory (formal and informal). Tolkein himself said LoTR is a religious and Catholic work (but, we’ve already argued this before). Even J.K. Rowling admitted to Christian influence in the Harry Potter series (Harry’s self-sacrifice on behalf of his friends). There are people who are offended by the borrowing done on behalf of art/literature, but C.S. Lewis wasn’t one of them. He believed in stimulating the Christian imagination.
And, I gotta tell you. Since seeing JCS and writing this post, I have spent more time throughout the day thinking about Jesus and the Passion than I have for a year. And I think about him/it a lot, given our family’s little passion play.
The critical fact is whether the Resurrection happened or not. If it did, then everything else follows as a matter of course. If it didn’t, none of it matters anyway.
And if it’s a non-event, it’s pretty remarkable the effect the non-Resurrection has had on the world.
The Lord of the Rings was self-consciously written by Tolkien with a Christian moral structure. For instance, there is magic, but magic is either a tool of evil (e.g. in the hands of Sauron or Saruman) or reserved for beings for whom it is natural for them and who have the wisdom to use it (e.g. Elves and Wizards). When beings for whom it is not a natural endowment (e.g. human beings) attempt to use it, the result is never good and possibly catastrophic. All things are ordered to God. This is all very Christian.
I’m not aware of any pagan gods in the Lord of the Rings. There are beings more powerful than men, like Sauron, but they aren’t gods.
Why wouldn’t Judas see the Resurrection? He committed suicide before the crucifixion, but JCS has him on hand to sing to Jesus concerning how pointless and stupid Jesus’s death is. Surely he could stick around for the Resurrection were there to be one.
The story leaves Jesus dead and hanging on the cross, and all the other players (including Judas but not Jesus), back in street clothes and boarding the bus back home. At this point the “fourth wall” has been broken and the perspective is no longer Judas’s (even if it was earlier in the play). The message is obviously the idea that Jesus dead and forgotten is something that transcends the play itself.
Lord of the Rings is developed from the Silmarillion, which is quite explicit with a creation myth and deities, somewhat similar to Dante.
But is there anyone who doesn’t know what happened next? Sometimes what is left unsaid is more powerful.
Judas died. Christ died but was resurrected. The contrast in their fates is dramatic and more so when the viewer is left to conclude it themselves.
Was it developed from the Silmarillion, or was it the other way around? In other words, did the idea for the Silmarillion come first, or did the idea for LOTR come first? I suppose that could be more of a chicken-and-egg type of question.
Silmarillion came first, having been begun during the Great War.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion
I saw Jesus Christ Superstar many, many years ago. I loved it, owned the vinyl set originally, and then ultimately got a digital recording which I still have and listen to on occasion.
It always struck me as an interesting take on Judas Iscariot, one that I have often thought about. The opera is, in a classic sense, a tragedy. Judas is the tragic character, not Jesus. Aristotle defined dramatic tragedy as the combination of internal and external forces working on a character and pushing him towards acts which at first lead to his downfall, and then a beyonding or catharsis. Classically, the character was supposed to be a king or some other significant individual. His downfall needed to have significance. Stretching the point a bit, Judas does somehow fit the role. He is a disciple, one of the twelve very special men selected by Jesus. In Jesus Christ Superstar we are essentially told that Judas is manipulated into betraying Christ by Christ himself because it is necessary for the betrayal to occur in order to fulfill the prophecy of his death and resurrection, to make him a Superstar.
We know that at the Last Supper, Jesus already knows that Judas will betray him. It is preordained. Judas’s weaknesses and the push from Jesus to commit the betrayal are sufficient to drive the weakened soul to action, an action which will end in his suicide.
It is a fascinating and classic story when removed from the sanctuary of religious belief and examined as pure drama. So many of the great tragedies have a common theme.
I don’t think Mohammed received the word of God from an angel. However, I do acknowledge that Islam has had a huge impact on the world. Christianity has also had a huge impact on the world, regardless of whether Jesus was resurrected or not.
Mormonism has had a huge impact on the world, even if Joseph Smith was a fraud.
Mormons died based on their religious beliefs. Muslims have died for their beliefs.
If a large enough number of people believe something happened, even if the event didn’t actually happen, it still has a huge impact.
Again, I don’t think Mohammed really did receive a revelation from God through an angel.
I think there is a naturalistic explanation that is far more likely. Does that make me an infidel? Maybe so.
This was one of the issues that always interested me in St. Paul’s 1st Corninthians 15:3-5.
Why does St. Paul think that there were still 12 apostles of Jesus at the time of the resurrection? Didn’t St. Paul know that Judas had already killed himself?
But the only Gospel that writes of Judas’s death is the Gospel of Matthew writes. Acts 1:18-19 mentions Judas’s death, but does not explicitly say that Judas committed suicide.
But St. Paul isn’t the only one who doesn’t seem to know that Judas would die before Jesus’s resurrection.
Jesus also seems to be in the dark. In Matthew 19:25-28
It’s possible that as Jesus was speaking to his twelve disciples that he meant that 11 of these 12 would sit on the twelve thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. But Jesus didn’t want to spoil a later scene in the Gospel of Matthew by saying, “Except you, Judas.”
Or maybe Jesus’s humanity limited Jesus’s knowledge of the future and at that time he did not know that Judas would end up betraying Jesus.
Or maybe the story of Judas isn’t factual. That’s a possibility too.
No no no no no.
I have seen several productions of Godspell, listened to several recordings of it, and have seen the movie, and have never encountered that awful Good Morning, Starshine in any of them.
The movie did add a song — something like “We Can Build a Beautiful City” and it’s annoying. “Good Morning, Starshine” is not from Godspell. It’s from Hair.
Anyway, I tried watching the movie version of JCS, and found it . . . creepy. But I absolutely adore Godspell. Even the movie’s okay, if you can get past Spy Daddy playing Jesus.
You’re right. I remembered “Day By Day” as “Good Morning Starshine.”
Epistemology is good.
I talk about this stuff in Themelios.
Much? It’s very nearly all based on the authority of Scripture.
You never heard of Matthias?
Or maybe–the most natural way of reading a religious text drenched in Hebrew symbolism–Jesus is referring to the group of the Twelve who are the new management of G-d’s soon-to-be-reorganized people, the Sons of Jacob 2.0 as it were.
A group may change one of its members and remain essentially the same group. Groups do it all the time.
Some people take a “minimal facts” approach when they attempt to convince people that Jesus did actually rise from the dead.
These people don’t start off by arguing for the idea that the entire Hebrew Bible and the entire New Testament is without error. Instead, they argue that the story of the empty tomb is factually correct.
It seems to me that someone could believe that Jesus rose from the dead even if they don’t think that the New Testament is without error.