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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
I’ve heard of him. But one wonders if St. Paul knew of Matthias replacing Judas.
Paul was likely repeating a creed he had heard from others.
Also, one wonders if Jesus, prior to his death, knew that Matthias would eventually need to replace Judas as one of the 12 disciples.
This gets back to the question of whether Jesus had 100 percent knowledge of all future events.
It’s possible. And it’s also possible that Jesus thought that his 12 disciples, including Judas, would rule over the 12 tribes of Israel once God intervened.
But regardless of whether Jesus believed that it was the original 12 disciples or the updated version of the 12 disciples would rule over the 12 tribes of Israel, that opens up another question.
Was Jesus correct? Are the 12 disciples ruling over the 12 tribes of Israel now? Or was that one of those campaign promises that didn’t get realized?
Nail. Angels dancing. How many?
The only way that the New Testament can be “without error” is if the Gospels agree with each other word-for-word? When police investigators run into a set of witnesses whose testimony does not vary in any detail, they proceed under the assumption that the story they are hearing has been orchestrated.
I’d appreciate it if you stop hijacking my thread, @heavywater. Nobody’s convinced by your expertise in Biblical exegesis. It’s a fruitless exercise and it bores me. Start your own thread.
Thanks.
Love the soundtrack (Original Broadway cast double album is much better than the movie soundtrack, IMHO) and also the soundtrack to Godspell.
Friend and I in college in the early 1980s had a tradition. We designated one Friday night each semester for a Jesus Christ SuperStar sing-along.
We’d go to his dorm room, get really liquored up, and play the whole soundtrack singing along through the whole thing. It was the social event of the semester.
We talked about making T-shirts, but never did. I even came up with a logo – a guy on a cross holding a microphone. (I’m going to hell, aren’t I…)
No.
Let’s say someone believes that the “Jesus was born of a virgin” story was mythical, not factual. This would mean that this person does not accept Biblical inerrancy. Yet this person could still think that Jesus rose from the dead.
Sorry. I started off thinking about who different religious sects had different opinions on whether Jesus actually suffered on the cross.
My apologies.
You’re forgiven. Ooooohhh, see what I did there?? ;-)
That’s how the movie ends. Is that how the original stage production ends? Having never seen the play, I always assumed the frame of “let’s put on a show” was a structure imposed on the movie. Sort of an artifact of the 70s.
That’s the thing about Godspell, too. There isn’t any sort of resurrection scene in it. But I think every stage production I’ve seen puts one in.
At the end of the theater production we just saw, Jesus and Judas appeared on the cross arms of the electric lighted cross used as a platform throughout the production. It’s ambiguous and could suggest the Resurrection, but then, what about Judas being there?
Of course. Epistemology is good. I talk about this stuff in Themelios.
Why are you changing the subject? Or did you miss my point entirely? My point was that patristic theological debates presumed the authority of Scripture and appealed to Scripture.
“One wonders.” You mean you wonder. “One wonders” a question that has a simple and easy answer. I just go with the simple and easy answer.
Or the less simple, but pretty easy and darn good answer: Paul was also talking about the leadership group, the Sons of Jacob 2.0 as it were.
Maybe both.
Your mode of discourse is terribly confusing.
# 54: You raise a biblical difficulty: Jesus does not seem to know about the soon-to-be death of Judas!
# 59: I give a simple explanation grounded in solid hermeneutics.
# 62: You say “It’s possible” and move onto another question.
It’s like you like asking questions so much that you don’t want any answers.
As you quote Jesus in # 54, this is a reference to a time “at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory,” i.e. the eschaton. Obviously the eschaton has not yet happened.
But this ruling over the Twelve Tribes is also to be read for what it is–a remark in a religious text drenched in Hebrew symbolism. It may or may not mean they will sit on twelve thrones as kings over twelve tribes, but it does mean they will be the new management of G-d’s soon-to-be-reorganized people, the Sons of Jacob 2.0 as it were.
Oh. Do I need to stop too?
Since many Jewish people converted to a belief in Jesus, both in Israel and other nations around the Meditarranean Sea, it is possible that there is some truth in the statement of the apostles ruling over the Twelve Tribes of Israel, metaphorically speaking.