Should Christian Actor Alan Ritchson Play Jack Reacher?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

So, should a Christian actor play a role that involves love scenes with partial nudity? Welcome friends to the line of fire. Michael Brown here to infuse you with faith, truth, courage to help you stand strong on the front lines. Literally tomorrow we are sending out our frontline newsletter. We have been working on this for some time.

It is chock full of life changing content, inspiration, edification, information. You can get it for free by getting our emails. If you are ready to get in them, you will get it tomorrow or the day after at the latest. Otherwise, if you are not getting my emails, go to thelineoffire.org. Thelineoffire.org. Right on the home page.

Sign up for frontline newsletter. Here is the number to call to get in on the conversation today. 866-344-Truth. 866-348-7884. Taking calls on the topic that we will be discussing today.

Alright, I am going to back into this a little bit and then play some clips for you that will speak for themselves. Many years ago, Nancy and I switched to Amazon Prime, paid for a service because we order so much from Amazon, books from me and other things and then all kinds of items that Nancy has ordered over the years. So you got like overnight shipping. You didn't have to pay extra for it or things like that. So initially, it was just for the shipping. And then find out, oh, there is a service with it where there is actually video. You know, maybe some sports event that they air or maybe an old TV series, you know, a monk, you know, the old series Monk which you can watch as like clean stuff like that or movies. So that's why most people get it as those other services. But I said, oh, it comes with that.

Didn't even realize that. So over the years, just maybe end of the day, just going to chill for a little while. I will try to look for something clean, something I could watch on Amazon Prime. And that's why I said like an old TV series like Monk which is, you know, you can watch.

There is no profanity or sex or junk in it, ridiculous violence. So anyway, so I see that there's this new series coming out, Reacher. And I read a little bit about this. Tom Cruise had played Jack Reacher in some movies. So he's kind of like this Lone Ranger vigilante guy, you know, unwanted. He gets caught up in things and real rough, tough guy, et cetera, and takes out the bad guys. And I'd read there was criticism because in the books, Lee Child's novels about Jack Reacher, that he's a really big guy and Tom Cruise is a little guy.

So I see there's this going to be TV series and Amazon Prime Reacher. And a friend of mine, a colleague had told me about Clear Play, which is a filter. So if you watch something and it's got profanity in it, right? And you don't want to hear profanity.

I prefer not to be entertained by profanity. So it'll blank that out. It gets in the way of the movie a little bit, but that's rather have that. Or scenes with sex and nudity, you just block those out. So I thought, oh, Reacher is just this big hulking actor and the kind of thing, you know, the bad guys, you know, get their due. He's going to take out the bad guys, et cetera.

So for me to watch it with a filter, that would be OK, you know? So anyway, so that's how I know about Reacher and this whole deal and the history. So to my surprise, I see a video by the actor Alan Ritchin. Ritchin, who is an outspoken Christian, a passionate outspoken Christian who is taking flack for his faith. And he plays this big hulking guy and plays the role well. And finally, he's a Christian. I thought, well, that's interesting because for me personally, I couldn't watch Reacher with a clear conscience without a filter.

You know what I'm saying? And I started looking at comments to the video, which has gone viral. It's since gotten over a million views, but this was early on when it was just starting to explode. I started looking through the comments and comment after comment after comment after comment is praising him, commending it. Now, by the way, I did try to reach out to him, don't know him and don't know anyone who knows him, but just because my greatest desire is always to see people grow in the Lord, not to get clicks over controversy or more views, but to help people grow. So if I can fix something privately behind the scenes and no one ever knows that and minister to someone, I'd rather do that than write some article that goes viral or some video goes viral. Wow.

He was amazing. You waited on his controversy. I'd rather deal with it privately if I can. So I reached out, I got online. I saw he had an agent in England. I texted the agent, didn't hear back and then reached out to a younger colleague who has a lot of Hollywood connections. He didn't know Alan. He was going to reach out to someone never heard back. So anyway, I did try to reach out and if somehow this gets to Alan, by all means, let's interact off the air, on the air. You're welcome to come on my show, give your viewpoint, but I'm reading through the comments and one after one is so thankful for him, for his open faith, for his passion, for the video and say, man, Reacher is amazing and I love watching it and you're the best to do it as a Christian, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay. And so all overwhelmingly positive. I looked again last night and overwhelmingly positive. It's got over a million views already on, on the video.

Overwhelmingly positive from Christians just scanning it. And then I read one saying, yeah, but it's very gracious. In fact, let's, let's put this up first before we even watch any, any of the, any of the clips that, that someone makes the comment says, well, what about doing love scenes with partial nudity?

I mean, how does, how does that work? That it's one thing that you're, you're acting out violence. It's not real violence, right? After the scene, the person wasn't actually shot or beat to a pulp, right? That didn't actually happen. The bad guy wasn't actually shot between the eyes. It's just, okay, good take.

Let's go have lunch or something. But if someone is taking their clothes off, like one scene that someone asked about where the woman is topless in the shower with him and a love scene, okay, so they're not actually having sex and they're, they are kissing in front of a camera and it's not, you know, whatever, right? It's like, okay, how does that work?

How does, how does that work as a Christian? So this is, so for those watching, we're just posting the comment, you can, you can read it there and you know, they're just asking it's, it's a fair question, but that is actual nudity. That is actually a topless woman that's being seen. You're actually in, in the shower with that person body to body or actually kissing lip to lip. You're not married to that person.

Everyone's watching it. So how do you do that as a Christian? So my, my purpose here is not to sit as the judge of Alan Richton because it's the word of God that judges us and I'm not his pastor. It's the word of God that judges us and he, we will both give account to God. I'm talking about larger holiness issues in the church.

I'm talking about larger questions of what's right and what is appropriate and the bigger question is, are there any lines that a Christian actor or actress could not cross that, that lines that would be forbidden for a believer to cross or does anything go? So let's listen to what Alan has to say. Clip number one, we're going to play most of what he had to say. Here's clip number one. I love playing Reacher. I love telling this story. I love playing a character who creates a kind of moral ambiguity that we should struggle against as we consider whether or not what he's doing is right.