Monday, June 05, 2006

Pet Hates #24601 - The Miracle Maker

When we have all-age services (for which read "services aimed almost entirely at children"), the reading is fairly often accompanied by a clip from a film covering the same groudnd. So, for example, readings from Exodus might be accompanied by a bit from Prince of Egypt, etc. Being a fairly conservative church, we tend to avoid stuff with actual actors, but animation is seen as fine.

One of the favourite films to use when covering a gospel story is the film The Miracle Maker, which is an animated version of Luke's gospel. I hate it.

I don't have a problem with depicting Jesus or anything like that. My issue is simply the way that Ralph Fiennes does the voice for Jesus. To my ears at least, Jesus always sounds uncertain - as if he isn't sure what he's saying or as if he isn't sure that it's right. I am happy to accept that Jesus may have been tempted to doubt, and that he had struggles and so on. Of course he did. But he had a sure and certain hope set before him. He knew that he had come to Earth to die. He knew that he had authority over demons, over the sea, over people. Perhaps Fiennes was trying to be a bit too nice, to make Jesus a bit more like the kind of person we might be comfortable meeting. But that's not the Jesus of the Bible.

1 comment:

Sparkle said...

Gosh, if that's conservative, ours must be ultra conservative! No film clips, so can't comment! We use a parish mass setting (join in with the choir) and the sermon is short, with children involved in some way such as holding things up (visual stuff, not the vicar, btw!). Also children do the intercessions. Having said that, I will confess to sometimes "escaping" by going elsewhere, because the all-age service often seems to crop up on really inappropriate weeks for one reason or another.