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The Stranger Collection - DVD – John White, 11/28/2009The actor who portrayed Jesus did a fine job of being meek, humble, and reacting to the humanity of Nikki without sinning. I wondered when the nailprints would reveal that she really was sitting opposite the Savior, and the filmmaker did a great job of handling this aspect of the movie. I actually started to think, "I guess they aren't going to show the wounds."
My major gripe, and the reason I won't be able to show this otherwise fine film in our church or Sunday school class, is the way that Jesus is portrayed drinking today's alcohol. My study of the Old and New Testament texts leads me to conclude that God doesn't condone drinking intoxicating beverages. Modern wine differs significantly from the wine that obserant Jews would have drunk in the first century. They cut their fermented grape juice with water to prevent violating God's commands not to become drunk. In addition, new wine (tirosh) in the OT is most often a reference to the freshly squeezed, non-alcoholic juice of the grape. In my humble opinion, this is what the master of the wedding reception in Cana meant when he said, "You have saved the best for last." Nothing beats fresh grape juice (or fresh juice for that matter.)
Why do today's evangelicals insist on defending social drinking and forcing it on the rest of the church? Alcoholism led to my grandfather's demise, my father's loss of his inheritance, and countless other problems in my family's history. The temperance crusaders of the last century and a half knew that strong drink and wine were no friend to the Christian in his walk with God nor a source of family harmony and contentment.
I am 99.99% certain that Jesus would not sit with an unsaved person and drink alcohol today so that they and all observers might conclude that there was no danger in booze. Was it NECESSARY to include that element in the movie? How did it propel the story line? All it did was (1) create a stumblingblock for the person who struggles in the area of drink, (2) send a message to those who believe in abstinence from alcohol saying, "You're a Neanderthal!", (3) affirm to the world that drinking liquor is fine, and (4) invite every young person in the evangelical churches who show the film to try a glass a wine because WWJD might stand for What would Jesus drink?
I am not a rabid, militant backwoods, snake-handlling kind of Christian. I am a student of the Bible who is tired of the shoddy way that most people do their word studies when they decide that Jesus turned the water into wine (oinos) and conclude that the wine was alcoholic. If I say, "Would you care for a drink?" have I offered you a beer or a soda or a glass of milk? The word drink in this example is ambiguous as to its complete meaning. So is oinos when it comes to fermented or unfermented grape juice. The context has to guide the reader in instances like this. In my case I never offer anyone alcoholic beverages, so the latitude of meaning for drink would have to be water, milk, soda, juice, coffee, tea, or hot cocoa.
I've gotten far afield from reviewing the film, but I wanted to provide a full explanation for my distaste that the filmmaker choose to add this element. Historically, Baptists and many other Christians in the first half of the 1900s would have cringed at such a portrayal of the Savior. Not because they were anti-liberty. Because they believed the Scriptures set standards of Christian holiness that were more important than trying to "win" the world by becoming just like it.
Dr. John S. White, NJ
