Religious Fatalism and the Politics of Change
By: Allison J. Van Tilborgh
Tags: Politics, Spirituality, Film, Music, Religion

Oppressor versus Oppressed

Jesus Christ Superstar follows two main characters: Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot. Both characters are Jews living in Roman-occupied Palestine in what we now call the 1st Century AD. Depending on how you were raised, you may view the Roman Empire as a force of progress or a force of terror. It is true, Rome was able to connect far-reaching parts of Europe and the Mediterranean to one another, stretching from London to Alexandria. They built elaborate governmental buildings, bathhouses, and stadiums. Useful technologies were disseminated much easier, and medical advances too. But on the flip side came oppression, slaughter, war, rape, and pillaging… in the name of power and wealth and sometimes even in the name of peace.

The Jews under the Roman empire had special privileges. They didn’t have to pray to the Roman state gods: Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Saturn, and the like. They were allowed to worship in their own Temple and celebrate Jewish festivities.

At the time of Jesus’ life, however, tensions were increasing. Rome was anxious that the Jews of Palestine would try to revolt, cause trouble, try to get away from their grip. Rome sent large groups of soldiers to Jerusalem around Jewish holidays, such as Passover, to ensure no one ‘got smart’ and try to inspire a Jewish revolt. It would be inconvenient for Rome to deal with, but at the end of the day, they would have no problem razing their Holy city and enslaving the lot of Jews. So long as they knew their place, Rome would let them be.

Jesus and the Disciples at the Last Supper. Telegraph.co.uk

It is along this tension that Jesus Christ Superstar thrives. The musical opens with a song from the perspective of Judas, called Heaven on their Minds. You can watch the clip from the film here and read the lyrics here.

In many ways, this song indicates the beginning of the end for Judas. It is at this point that he now realizes that Jesus has become a superstar, a larger than life celebrity that surely will catch the eyes of Rome. He is afraid of all this could mean.

Perhaps some will not see him as a wise, charismatic sage but instead, confuse him for being God himself. Perhaps the man Judas loves will get killed at the hands of the state. Perhaps the world will forget all the good things Jesus had done in his life, and remember him instead as a mere political insurgent — the man who destroyed Jerusalem and brought the Jews back into foreign bondage. Judas is torn between wanting to keep the peace, caring for the least privileged, and his deep love and admiration for Jesus.

The relationship between Jesus and Judas provides us with two alternate histories. In the first, Judas turns Jesus in, Jesus falls into the hands of the state, is crucified, and becomes seen as a deity himself. In another, Judas does not assist, Jesus lives on, preaches, and dies. Is he remembered?

This is not a simple, oppressor versus oppressed relationship. There are nuances within both groups, revealing that all the characters in this world are fully human, not merely caricatures.

Fully Human

“Why I should die?

Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?

Would the things I’ve said and done matter any more?” — Jesus, Gethsemane

After watching the film adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar, I realized that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is built on caricature versions of each Biblical figure. Joseph is an innocent kid. Joseph’s brothers are scheming and unaware. Jacob is gullible. Potiphar is a chump. Potiphar’s wife is the embodiment of lust and evil. For the kind of play that Joseph is, it is perfect. It’s fun loving, whimsical, full of bright colors, and containing songs like Joseph’s Coat, which straight out make me laugh today.

I expected the exact same thing out of Jesus Christ Superstar. Instead, I found a really pointed exploration of how each of these Biblical figures would act, think, and move as the events of 33AD went down. For example…

PETER

“I had to do it, don’t you see?

Or else they’d go for me”

Peter denies Jesus because he fears the movement will die if he turns himself in. Also, he’s just afraid for his life in a way he’s never been before. It’s the first time the threat of persecution becomes real to him. Peter’s Denial.

MARY MAGDALENE

“Yet, If he said he loved me

I’d be lost; I’d be frightened

I couldn’t cope”

Mary Magdalene wrestles with the male-female relationship she has with Jesus, unsure how to love him correctly. She craves acceptance from someone as perfect as she images Jesus to be, but at the same time has a deep fear of commitment. I Don’t Know How to Love Him.

JESUS

The character of Jesus, at times, revels in his love and support. He unapologetically accepts the attention of the women who follow him, touching him, rubbing his skin (Everything’s Alright). Jesus also has a genuine desire to help people. He believes he can heal those who believe in him. But no matter how much he tries to spread himself, he understands that his time is running out, leaving less of himself to give in the first place.

The Temple/The Lepers brings the audience into the existential horror of this concept, where toward the end the infirmed envelope Christ. He feels he cannot escape and anxiously cries out, “There’s too little of me; don’t crowd me! Heal yourselves!”

The masterpiece of the musical, Gethsemane, dedicates over five minutes the humanity of Jesus. Jesus cries out, unsure who even began the whole ministry: himself or God. If he chooses to believe that he caused all of this to happen, he is left in bitter despair and hopelessness.

Though if he chooses to believe that all these acts are orchestrated, he can find the courage to drink ‘His cup of poison’ and suffer the death he knows will come soon. The question of free-will will be discussed again later on.

JUDAS

Judas is not the one-dimensional betrayer of Jesus. He feels an overwhelming need to act, to challenge the frivolous actions of those around him (such as Mary using oil for Jesus instead of selling it and giving to the poor), to care for the least privileged, even if it meant betraying his great love: Jesus Christ. No song in the musical better illustrates the complexity of Judas than Damned For All Time.

Judas has approached the Pharisees to try to do something about the movement, which he sees will inevitably end in the destruction of his home. He feels Jesus’ message is going in the wrong direction, based on the events of the first half of the musical. He repetitively tells us, “I have no thought at all about my own reward, I really didn’t come here of my own accord,” when he is negotiating with the Pharisees, Jesus’ sworn enemies.

The listener is left to wonder why Judas would go through this hassle if he’s not interested in any award. Even stranger, Judas admits his powerlessness in this situation, as if it was not his decision to betray Jesus.

To the point of tears, on the ground, we transition to Blood Money, where Judas is given his iconic silver shekels, a symbol of betrayal. Profit over people, perhaps the greatest person there ever was.

But… Judas hates wealth. He must be coerced into taking the silver only by convincing himself he can give it to the poor. He doesn’t align with the Pharisees or their mission at all. He loves Jesus, so much so that he spends his last sane thoughts speaking of how much he loves him.

“When he’s cold and dead, will he let me be? Does he love me too? Does he care for me?” — Judas, Judas’ Death

Like Mary, he wants to be accepted in spite of what appears to be his choices out of free will. If all the characters in the play are fully human, then indeed, Judas would have betrayed Jesus in a very transactional, worldly sense. But it is when the narrative is spiritualized, when it becomes Jesus’ destiny to die upon the cross, that it becomes troubling to assign blame to Judas. Didn’t someone have to turn him in? Didn’t someone have to arrest him, try him, kill him?

“Our ideals die around us, all because of you And now the saddest cut of all: Someone has to turn you in Like a common criminal, like a wounded animal” — Judas, The Last Supper

Free-Will

Pontius Pilate, like Judas, is a crucial link in the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar. But beyond revealing Pilate as man, perhaps one that even tries to set Jesus free, Andrew Lloyd Webber goes one step further and uses Pilate as an unlikely prophetic vessel.

In one of my favorite songs from the musical, Pilate’s Dream, we meet Pilate far before he ever becomes a critical player in the narrative. Here, Pilate has a dream that reveals the rest of Jesus’s life, death, and the unfolding history of Christianity until modern times.

“Then I saw thousands of millions Crying for this man And then I heard them mentioning my name And leaving me the blame”

This very short, eerie song serves three functions. First, it affirms that this musical will play out as we expect. Jesus will be betrayed. He will be killed. His legacy will then go on to found the Christian movement which will become a major world religion.

Second, the song encourages the viewer to ask themselves whether or not any of these characters have free-will in the context of Jesus’ story, if he is, indeed, the Messiah. No matter what Pilate does in his life, he will always have to try Jesus. No matter what, he will be hated merely for existing.

Finally, if we are to believe that Pilate exists within a spiritual framework that pre-ordained the events of Jesus’ life, the viewer must accept that Pilate was animated as much by God as even Jesus was. Pilate receives visions of the future, being affirmatively told that the events of his dream must happen directly by God. There is no other way.

Just as all the actors in the film play a part, Pilate must play the part of the Roman, ruthless establishment that love must overthrow. There cannot be an oppressor without an oppressed, no hope without fear.

Unanswerable Questions

“Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land? If you’d come today, you would have reached a whole nation Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication Don’t you get me wrong — I only wanna know” — Judas, Superstar

Though viewers, like me, left Jesus Christ Superstar with fresh perspectives on the relationships between Rome and the Jews, Jesus and Judas, and the like, the rock opera ends by leaving many questions unanswered.

In a surprise reappearance of Judas (perhaps now an angel, rewarded for carrying out his end of God’s deal or a haunting memory in Jesus’ mind), Judas begs these questions before Jesus’ carries his cross:

“Tell me what you think about your friends at the top Who’d you think, besides yourself, was the pick of the crop? Buddha, was he where it’s at? Is he where you are? Could Mohamed move a mountain, or was that just PR? Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake, or Did you know your messy death would be a record-breaker? Don’t you get me wrong — I only wanna know”

Jesus provides no answers to Judas, just as he remained silent in the face of Pilate’s earlier interrogation in the musical. Jesus accepts the life he has lives as he lived it.

Upon the cross, the final words of the musical are uttered by Jesus:

“God forgive them — they don’t know what they’re doing Who is my mother? Where is my mother? My God, my God, why have you forgotten me? I’m thirsty It is finished Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit”

As someone with a pronounced interest in the historical criticism of the Bible, this choice by Andrew Lloyd Webber strangely excited me. Instead of trying to select which version of Jesus’ last words he wanted to use, he actually used all of them. Yes, each of the Gospels of the New Testaments provides different ‘last words’ from Jesus, revealing different aspects of his nature in earthly death.

We cannot know what the last words of Jesus actually were. It’s impossible, and even the versions of events many consider infallible tell us very different accounts of the moments leading up to Jesus’ death. Perhaps, in combining each of Jesus’ last words, Webber reminders the viewer that Jesus, in principle, is a construction of versions of him we identity with, versions we co-create daily. Much like celebrities who are consumed by a fan-lore that paints an alternate reality of who one is, Jesus becomes the sum of those who tell his stories later on.

Jesus Christ Superstar ends without a resurrection. We are left with a melody titled John Nineteen Forty-One, of which the verse reads:

“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.” John 19:41 NIV

From this point on, we are responsible for determining Jesus’ story because, well, Jesus is no longer in it. He has died. What will the viewer do with his metaphorical body? Will we move his body to the tomb? Will we believe that his body rose up? Will we flee Jerusalem, trying to protect ourselves, as his own apostles did? Will we consider Israel safe from insurgence? Will we write about him? Will we create films about it? Sing songs of him?