What would Jesus do with his free time?
The Young Messiah doesn’t ask that question, in particular, but it does explore what Jesus might’ve been like as a child outside of the stories told in the canonized Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It’s made no less controversial by the fact that it’s based on a novel by ex-Catholic writer with a fondness for penning tales about vampires.
Similarly, Risen is a film that also wants to explore Jesus in between the pages of the facts we already know. To visualize a more three-dimensional version of the Christ than any flannelgraph ever could.
Reactions to both films have been mixed. Some love them. Some shun them. But what’s actually there? Are they faithful to the Bible? Does exploring the life of Jesus in ways not talked about in Scripture constitute historical fiction or heresy? Although answers to these questions are complicated and nuanced, the fact remains that these are all great questions. Questions that should be asked… and talked through.
So we thought we would do just that.
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