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Bulletin 128 Date : 16th Mar 2008
Weighing the Evidence

Today is Palm Sunday and the first instalment of the new BBC TV drama “The Passion” has been shown on prime-time TV. Millions of people across the nation will have seen this episode. Two thousand years ago, crowds of people watched as Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. Different people in the crowd would have had different views as to what they made of Jesus as He made his dramatic entry into the town of his crucifixion. No doubt the same mixed feelings would have been expressed by today’s TV audiences.

Some in the TV audience might still be unconvinced by the theatrical display of humility from someone who, according to His followers, rules over all creation and yet seems to sit idly by as the world descends into chaos. Others may have seen something in this re-enactment which challenged their former scepticism and urged them to investigate further. Others may have had a church upbringing and the drama rekindled a faith which has remained dormant for some years.

The question for me is, “how should the church respond to this opportunity?” Will those who have been moved by the drama think that the next step is to go to church to explore further or will they feel intimidated by such a prospect, thinking that those in church will look patronisingly upon them as if to say, “Well you have finally come round to our way of thinking – what took you so long?” God forbid that we should adopt such an approach either verbally or silently. Instead we need to recognise that faith is not a linear progression from zero to maximum but for many people, Christians included, is more like a pendulum which oscillates between assurance and doubt depending upon the circumstances in our life, events in the news and the cogent arguments made by those who don’t share our faith.

We live in a country where faith is being bombarded by all sorts of external pressures – materialism, other faiths, climate change and terrorism to name but a few. Some folk will look with interest upon the TV drama and still have significant, and highly intelligent objections to faith of any kind. The church’s role, it seems to me, is to be respectful of their questioning and to get alongside them in their journey of faith, allowing the questions to be asked and explored in an honest and open fashion, recognising that the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of all who genuinely seek after God (Acts 10:34,35).

To help us in this, the Group for Evangelisation and others have produced a number of resources to equip us with this challenge. They are listed below.

Some will be holding follow-up discussion in church or outside in the public domain. Some will be recording the programmes in order to assist in these discussions. Whatever we do, it is important to recognise that the BBC has, of its own volition, decided to present an unbiased drama of the last few days of Jesus’ life, His death and resurrection and tried to keep faithful to the Gospel accounts. Let us not nitpick about the small areas where they deviated from the text but take this opportunity of writing to the BBC to thank them for this excellent production and to say how much it has meant to us – and why!

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