Sunday Night at the Movies
Reading world magazine, I noticed a movie review for a new movie about Jesus: Last Days in the Desert. The movie is a limited release film about the 40 days of temptation that Jesus endured in the wilderness. It not only deals with the actual temptations as recorded in Scripture, it also conjectures as to what other temptations Jesus might have faced. Like a blasphemous earlier film (The Temptation of Jesus, 1988) the story line explores the theme of Jesus dealing with lustful thoughts while staying with a family in the desert for several days. According to World, there is much in the film to give Bible believers theological heartburn. Another new movie on Jesus has also garnered a lot of attention recently: The Young Messiah. It is a hypothetical movie about Jesus’ childhood. Basically the movie explores topics the Scripture says nothing about.
Maybe it’s just me, but I am becoming increasingly nervous about the plethora of movies on Biblical themes that Hollywood is churning out. It seems Christianity sells at the box office- I just hope it’s the true version of Christianity that is selling. I thoroughly enjoyed the recent movie, Risen, and believe it did a decent job being Biblically accurate and guarding against too much artistic license. However, the question that keeps jumping around in my mind is: when does artistic license make one guilty of “adding to Scripture”. Not only are we strongly warned to not ad to God’s Word- we are also commanded to guard our hearts from Idolatry. One form that idolatry takes is when we make God in our image.
All this leads me to believe a healthy dose of caution is in order. When the world sees Christians as a new niche market, we better think twice before buying into their product. As wise believers we need to at least think before leaping- it may be exceedingly thin ice.
Because of grace,
Tim
