Risen a New Faith-based Film

Risen New Movie by Kevin Reynolds

 

By CHARLOTTE ALLEN WSJ

Risen New Faith-based Movie

Nothing says cultural marginalization of Christians like the phrase “faith-based films.” The connotations: mediocre acting, directing and writing; cut-rate production values; and, most of all, niche product. When I went to see “Risen,” the freshly released New Testament movie from “Waterworld” director Kevin Reynolds, I sat through previews for “The Young Messiah” and “God’s Not Dead 2” (yes, there was a “God’s Not Dead” 1), and the latter at least looked as though it embodied what I mentioned about talent and budget. Yet with a nationwide release and at least one A-list star, “Risen” has performed reasonably well at the box office. It was the third-highest-grossing movie last weekend, when it opened, bringing in $11 million—a good showing for a project with a $20 million budget. That may be because Mr. Reynolds has—for the most part—avoided the melodramatic clichés that have marred many an overblown Jesus movie.

Furthermore, Mr. Reynolds has placed a distance between the passion narrative and the movie’s protagonist, Clavius ( Joseph Fiennes), a hardheaded and battle-weary Roman military tribune tasked by an exceptionally uneasy Pontius Pilate ( Peter Firth) with making sure that the dead Jesus, called Yeshua in the movie and played by Cliff Curtis, stays dead and that his body stays in his tomb. And after the body predictably disappears, Clavius must find it—or when that proves impossible, dig up a similar-looking crucified corpse. The movie manages to maintain the distance between the passion narrative and Clavius even after his door-to-door investigation brings him face to face with the risen Yeshua sitting with his disciples and showing his wounds to doubting Thomas.

... Mr. Reynolds could have skipped a resurrection scene that lights up Yeshua’s tomb with an exploding sunburst and an ascension into heaven that resembles the Bikini Atoll detonation. The director didn’t seem to trust his audience to take those seminal Christian events seriously unless he presented them with dogged literalness. That is too bad, because—no offense to the Son of God—the center of the movie isn’t Yeshua but Mr. Fiennes’s powerfully realized Clavius. At the movie’s end he wanders alone through the Judean desert, a liminal figure exiled from Roman society but unable to join with the disciples in preaching their gospel. He is a character who could have lifted the film out of the Christian-cinema ghetto to speak to a militantly secular world where faith seems not only impossible but risible. ...
read full WSJ article HERE
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Also see new book Risen: The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus HERE

Risen: The Great Sign of the Resurrection of Jesus

 Risen: The Power and Position of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

by Mike Robinson

Jesus is Risen - His tomb is empty

I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead (Thomas Arnold, Author of The History of Rome).

History can be conspicuous at the cruel ending.

David Koresh goes down in a blaze of fire as the “sinful Messiah.”

Jim Jones swallowed lead and perished as a phony.

Joe Smith takes a gun and tries to shoot his way out of jail killing a man. Smith is killed by a gunman who responded to Smith’s attack.

Muhammad is poisoned by his Jewish wife.[1]

Jesus Christ is crucified, dead, and buried. Nonetheless, He rises from the grave after three days.

On Easter Sunday, churches from around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ—the only man who predicted His resurrection and fulfilled His prophecy.[2]

With Christ’s resurrection confirmed, wouldn’t you expect the whole world to accept Christ as Lord and Savior? For all men to toss away their false gods and idols? Ha, right. Truth may be true; history may be choreographed—Jesus the only religious founder with proof, a perfect life who offers perfect love—but truth is not always embraced. Surprise. Surprise. Jesus offers truth, grace, and mercy like no other. And unlike any other, His life streams out hundreds of fulfilled prophecies; unlike any other He doesn’t stay in the grave. He is risen.

Wow! It is so beautiful.

Yet, many reject His love.

Don’t feel sorry for Christ, who, it should be said, wouldn’t feel the least bit sorry for anyone who rejects the truth. Jesus said He would get all who are His, not one would perish. Jesus was history’s most compassionate man—it was part of what makes Him great, His willingness to reach out and love and heal every hurting person, sometimes even among His enemies. His most telling parable was that of the Good Samaritan. An enemy of the Jewish people was made the hero in Christ’s compelling tale about extending mercy to those who do not deserve it. By the end of the story, we will all have deep inspiration to reach out to all men with compassion, friends or enemies.

Jesus crucified, entombed, and risen.

But it’s not the ending.

Jesus, after His resurrection ascended into Heaven.

Jesus reigns in Heaven with the nail scars on His glorious resurrected body. A Savior who is never overmatched.

Christ is risen and ascended as He rules from His celestial throne.

 See my new book for the impressive proof for the Resurrection of Christ Risen HERE

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NOTES

 

1. Following a bloody conquest, Islamic history records that Muhammad was poisoned by his Jewish wife, Safiyah, because he ordered the torture and beheading of her husband Kinana, the leader of the Jews at Khaibar.

2. A powerful proof for Christianity is the messianic prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. The Old Testament foretold the coming of the Messiah in precise detail. The text was written centuries before the coming of Jesus and predicted more than 300 prophecies about Him. No other founder of any religion can provide a similar prophetic record of their life written down centuries before their birth. Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, David Berg, Muhammad, and Buddha did not supply a widely transmitted, pre-existing written record that accurately predicted the specific details of their lives.