To relate this strategy to The First Temptation, during Jesus’ birthday party Orlando performs a song to the tune of Jingle Bells. The lyrics include this line: “God is very good; he created the world in seven days, and sometime after that he drowned his kids.” The implication is that a good Creator God would not drown the world’s inhabitants in judgment. Orlando correctly identifies God as a good Creator, but suggests that divine goodness excludes divine punishment.
But on what basis does Orlando (and the script-writers) claim that worldwide judgment is immoral and unbecoming of a good God? How do we denounce biblical revelation on the one hand (judgment) while claiming a moral high ground on the other (an idea of goodness)? Non-believers often make statements that reveal a desire to believe in a good God, but stumble over other revealed doctrines. Christians should press these tensions as a starting point to justify biblical revelation as the moral standard that allows humans to make any moral judgment about what is good.[20]
Finally, the bulk of Justin’s apologetic centers on Jesus Christ. Several chapters overview the teachings of Jesus, and more than twenty survey the many prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand.[21] Justin’s goal is to demonstrate the truth of Christianity by appealing to fulfilled prophecy.
The takeaway for modern believers is that any defense of Christianity should focus on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Justin was not afraid to denounce the immoral values of a world that did not know God, and neither should Christians. But he did not do so without continuous reference to the Son of God who lived, died and rose again to save sinners from their sin. Whatever ideas may arise in the culture that challenge the truths of Christianity, seek to respond to them by humbly appealing to the people who actually hold those beliefs, looking for ways in which they may be borrowing from the Christian worldview, and answering them with the beauty and merits of Jesus Christ.
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[1] Rodrigo Van Der Put, dir., The First Temptation of Christ, Porta dos Fundos, 2019, https://www.netflix.com/title/81078397.
[2] Greg Wheeler, “The First Temptation of Christ—Netflix Film Review,” The Review Geek, December 3, 2019, https://www.thereviewgeek.com/thefirsttemptation-filmreview/.
[3] Gregory Sousa, “The Major Religions of Brazil,” last modified August 7, 2018, WorldAtlas, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/religious-beliefs-in-brazil.html.
[4] Ernesto Londoño and Letícia Casado, “In Brazil, Firebombs Seek to Terrorize Makers of Film Portraying Jesus as Gay,” The New York Times, December 26, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/world/americas/brazil-gay-jesus-netflix-movie.html.
[5] Nic Williams, “Remove blasphemous film The First Temptation of Christ from Netflix NOW!” Change.org, accessed January 29, 2020, https://www.change.org/p/netflix-remove-blasphemous-film-the-first-temptation-of-christ-from-netflix-now, and CitizenGo, “Ask Netflix to cancel film Depicting Jesus as a homosexual!” accessed January 29, 2020, CitizenGo.org, https://www.citizengo.org/node/175927. The total number of signers as of January 29, 2020 was 1,724,804.
[6] The Associated Press, “Brazil Judge Orders Netflix to remove film with gay Jesus,” The Associated Press, January 8, 2020, https://apnews.com/eca41cd7a079c709b2e0f86a147ca6ac.
[7] Justo González, The Story of Christianity: Complete in One Volume, The Early Church to the Present Day (Peabody, MA: Prince, 2006), 50.
[8] Gonzalez, Story of Christianity, 50–52.
[9] Gonzalez, Story of Christianity, 52.
[10] John Kaye, The First Apology of Justin Martyr, Addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1912), 1, Openlibrary.org, available at: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL14007954M/The_first_apology_of_Justin_Martyr_addressed_to_the_Emperor_Antoninus_Pius, accessed January 29, 2020. Justin specifically addresses, “the Emperor Titus Aelius Adrianus Antonius Pius Augustus Caesar,” Caesar’s sons, and the “sacred Senate.”
[11] Kaye, First Apology of Justin Martyr, 2.
[12] This citation and the following summary taken from Rosario Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith (Pittsburg, PA: Crown & Covenant, 2012), 8.
[13] See the strategies articulated in David Helm, One to One Bible Reading: A Simple Guide for Every Christian (Kingsford, NSW, Australia: Matthias Media, 2011).
[14] The quote is taken from Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1971), 143, who notes, “the writings of the apologists, even those of Justin, were addressed to readers on the outside.”
[15] See, e.g., Erwin Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr (Jena, Germany: Verlag Frommannsche Buchhandlung, 1923), and Marian Hillar, From Logos to Trinity: The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagorus to Tertullian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ch. 5: “Justin Martyr and the Logos.”
[16] Kaye, First Apology of Justin Martyr, 7.
[17] Kaye, First Apology of Justin Martyr, 10.
[18] Kaye, First Apology of Justin Martyr, 28.
[19] Kaye, First Apology of Justin Martyr, 28, records the exact quote as, “If, then, we hold some opinions near of kin to the poets and philosophers in greatest repute among you, and others of a diviners strain, and for above out of their sight, and have demonstration on our side into the bargain, why are we to be thus unjustly hated, and to stand distinguished in misery above the rest of mankind?”
[20] A good example of this is Tim Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Penguin, 2008).
[21] Kaye, First Apology of Justin Martyr, 19–25, and 38–67, respectively.
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