Christ in Jeans

"If Christ had been put on television to preach the Sermon on the Mount," says British Writer (and former Punch Editor) Malcolm Muggeridge, "viewers would either have switched on to another channel, or contented themselves with remarking that the speaker had an interesting face." Yet Christ is currently much in evidence on British TV. Most startling example: a Passion play in which Christ is a young man with an Elvis Presley haircut, scuffed loafers and worn jeans. The Virgin Mary, plump and nondescript, was the British version of anybody's mum. Pontius Pilate was suave and courteously detached in a well-pressed lounge suit, nonchalantly lighted a cigarette after he signed Christ's death warrant. The Roman soldiers were simple types in British battle dress.

The familiar succession of events came painfully alive in the mimed drama. Jesus wiping the blood from his face, writhing under the lash, stumbling beneath the weight of the cross, sweating with the pain of the nails, looked disconcertingly human. In all this abrasive immediacy, the mystery of God incarnate was largely lost, but the gain in impact was obviously a revelation to viewers. Last week, as BBC tallied up the mass of mail, Producer Michael Reddington reported that "all of it was enthusiastic, except for a few stuffy clergymen who couldn't be expected to approve."

Some of the critics came out on the side of the stuffy clergymen. Wrote Film Critic Robert Muller of the Daily Mail: "Has religion entered the marshmallow age? Is the Church in the queue with the rest of the pitchmen who clamor for our attention?" Despite such attacks, British TV is evidently trying to step into what it considers a spiritual vacuum in Britain. Other religious TV shows: a puzzled panel of youngsters alternating bouts of rock 'n' roll with questions to the Moderator of the Church of Scotland ("Why isn't it just as good to pray at home as in church?"), and a guitar-twanging trio of parsons.

British TV's Christian pitch found its most notable defender in Princess Margaret's friend and adviser, the Rev. Michael Phipps, chaplain of Cambridge's Trinity College and religious adviser to commercial TV. "Religion," he said, "must go back to the marketplace, and that means, in 20th century terms, the TV set. Christ spent most of his life in the marketplace. You must proclaim where your voice can be heard."

Producer Reddington last week was planning to film his blue-jeaned Passion play for worldwide TV distribution.

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