By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week
“If you’re looking for your own personal Jesus this Easter”, said Steve Rose in The Guardian, then “you’ve never had it so good,” because Christian television content is enjoying its own resurrection.
With shows like “House of David”, “The Chosen” and “Jesus Revolution” drawing high ratings, production houses and streaming platforms are taking advantage of the fact that “the copyright” on biblical intellectual property “expired 2,000 years ago”.
Christian fervour
Jesus’ “viewing figures”, much like Christ himself, “have risen”, said The Economist – “The Chosen” has been watched by around 280 million people worldwide.
Christian dramas have “proved profitable” because they’re “relatively cheap and simple to make”, they don’t need big-name celebrities as Jesus “offers name recognition enough” and because they can tap into the 2.4 billion people who “identify as Christian”.
Although some reviews of the shows have been a bit “unchristian”, this critical negativity hasn’t particularly dented their appeal because “in entertainment, as in history”, some “persecution seems only to deepen Christian fervour”.
But it’s not just Christians watching, noted Hanna Seariac in the Deseret News, because the content “treats faith as part of people’s lives” rather than preaching about it. “Taking this tack” makes the shows and films “accessible to wider audiences”.