Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth, for the Colson Center on John Stone Street.
Well even after Easter, a new faith-based movie out of Hollywood continues to do well at the box office, Angel Studios' cartoon The King of Kings quickly surpassed its approximately $25 million price tag, making $19 million in the first week and $17 million in the second. As of last week, it had topped $64 million. and is on track to outpace the opening days of the epic 1998 DreamWorks movie The Prince of Egypt. King of Kings retells the story of Christ and is based loosely on the 1840s book by Charles Dickens, The Life of Our Lord. Its impressive cast includes Oscar Isaac as Jesus, Pierce Brosnan as Pilate, Kenneth Branagh as Dickens, Forrest Whitaker as Peter, and Mark Hamill as King Herod.
Opening week stats like these should encourage studios and execs and producers to continue to invest in this kind of Christian-friendly filmmaking. Clearly, there's enough audience interest there. And part of the success is portraying biblical characters as real-life human beings, along with their frailties, ambitions, and personalities. The Chosen, the popular crowdfunded series about Jesus and his disciples, is now in its fourth season with a reported three more to go. Its portrayal of the gospel accounts takes considerable license with backstories and character development, but also feels more real than the overly sanitized Bible films of the past.
It's a trade-off with tight margins. The new Amazon series, The House of David, takes a similar approach, offering a very human and realistic portrayal of the Old Testament king and shepherd boy. And like the chosen, the actors actually look like they're from the Middle East. In fact, the actor playing King Saul is from Nazareth. The accents, of course, are a bit tougher to nail down.
In the story telling of the House of David, the Amalekites are not innocent victims. Saul's palace has all the intrigue and drama of a mafia movie. The realism is not only refreshing and compelling, but it reminds the audience that the events portrayed actually happened. And that, of course, is the most important part of the biblical story. The fact that it is actually true.
The Christian story of a created, perfect, and loved world broken by humans, but made right again because of the work of the Creator, that's an epic tale. It's also the best account of reality as it actually is. the story of a righteous hero who sacrifices his life to restore his kingdom and for the honor of his name, well, that actually is the story of the whole world. That's why it's the story by which all other good stories are in fact based. This story can be told in four chapters.
The only world we've ever lived in, the only world there is, is a created world, and that establishes for us the realities of truth, beauty, and goodness, as well as the essential nature of human beings to reflect the Creator. created good, this world is now fallen. The biblical explanation for that is that something has gone wrong with God's good world, and that something is us. Thank God the story does not end there with that evil and sorrow and brokenness. In Christ, God works to redeem his image-bearers so that now they can become agents of restoration.
In this story, Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration, There is hope. not as some feeling of wishful thinking, but as a certainty. That the one telling the story of the world will one day finally make all sad things untrue. The success of the Bible in pop culture is evidence that, as much as we may try to reject it in our sin and cultural rebellion, This story of the world can never be fully suppressed. And we need not update, massage, embellish, or water down the message of the Bible.
It's already the best story in history. That's because it is the story of history. And many years ago, Father Richard John Newhouse wrote about that. Quote, we Christians, you see, have it, this coherent, compelling, comprehensive story of the world. It's the only one on the world stage today that's filled with promise.
For it is the promise of God himself that the human project ultimately will not fail. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast.
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