“Why I stopped watching ‘The Chosen'”

Clickbait! – that’s not my headline or my experience (I’ve never watched a single episode). It’s the headline for an intriguing column in OSV by Leonard J. DeLorenzo of Notre Dame.

The reason?

I didn’t stop because I think the show is bad; to the contrary, I think it is very good. I didn’t stop because I think it is unfaithful to the Gospel; from what I saw, it is quite faithful even when it goes beyond the letter of the text. And I didn’t stop because I judged the show to lack insight or imagination; indeed, I think the fruit of genuine contemplation is presented throughout.

I stopped watching “The Chosen” because I suddenly realized, in a deep and visceral way, that television was robbing me of what the hard work of imaginatively constructing biblical scenes in prayer affords me. The problem was not the content or the quality of the production, but the very medium itself…

….I am the space of encounter. When the work was done for me by television, I enjoyed what I perceived by sight and sound, but I was missing the strange and unforgettable joy of having to struggle for what I experienced…

..I am staying away from “The Chosen” because I know what the televisual portrayal of the mysteries of salvation will do to me … or rather, what they will do for me.

In other words, he did not want the powerful medium of a dramatized version of the Gospel to define Christ in his inner life.

I thought about the two dominant dramatic expressions of the Gospel in my own experience – Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth and The Passion of the Christ. I haven’t seen either often enough or recently enough for them to play a huge role in my inner life, but the whole crucifixion scene of the former probably comes as close as anything, particularly the scene with Mary after Jesus has been taken down from the Cross.

So it’s interesting to consider the impact of dramatized narratives on our spiritual engagement. I’m on DeLorenzo’s side on this one, and it’s close to the same reason I have little interest in dramatized written retellings of the life of Christ, even “classics” like Guardini’s The Lord. Some find them helpful. I find them an obstacle.

But what’s the difference between all of that and static visual art, and even written expressions that are self-consciously “artful” – poetry, and so on?

Exploring that question, I think, has greater ramifications that just faith. If we are wary of the power of moving dramatic images on a screen, large or small, to shape our understanding and apprehension of Christ – what about the rest of life?

All that is a way to remind you of a couple of sites of, yes, mostly visual art, through which you might find pieces that could add to your Holy Week meditations.

First, of course, Art and Theology – all worth considering. I was especially interested in her long blog post on the image of Christ ascending to the Cross on a ladder:

In the thirteenth century, a new subject emerged in painted Passion cycles in both East and West: Christ resolutely climbing a ladder to the cross. He ascends willingly, even enthusiastically, demonstrating a heroic acceptance of death. In taking those steps up onto the instrument of his martyrdom, he exercises agency. As he tells a gathered crowd in John 10:18, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down . . .” Out of love for the world, he gives himself as a sacrifice, bringing about reconciliation between God and humanity…

…Art historian Thomas F. Mathews says that in the Armenian tradition, Golgotha is identified with the place where the Jewish patriarch Jacob had a vision of angels trafficking a ladder connecting heaven and earth. “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven,” Jacob exclaimed, dubbing it Bethel, Hebrew for “house of God” (Gen. 28:10–22). In Armenian manuscript illuminations, Mathews argues, the subject of Christ ascending the cross, very often followed by a depiction of Christ’s dead body descending from the cross, was thus interpreted as an extension of Jacob’s vision, as by climbing up and down the ladder of the cross, Christ opened heaven’s gate…

…However, the Ascent of the Cross isn’t so much meant to be a literal portrayal of what happened historically as it is an expression of the theological truth that Christ went to his death voluntarily. He was not forced onto the cross against his will. The Ascent suggests divine initiative and purpose. Even in those images where Christ is being prodded by his executioners, he does not resist. Instead, he bounds onward and upward to his chosen end.

And then Sacred Art Meditations. Much, much there.

The Passion of Christ through art from various eras and cultures.