Holy Week Miscellany, 4/14/25

Holy Week Miscellany, 4/14/25

There are two “Last Supper” movies.  Even tourists won’t be allowed to worship in China.  And Netflix plans a female Aslan.

There Are Two Last Supper Movies

If you are planning a family outing this Holy Week, know that there are TWO different movies in theaters about the Last Supper.  And, to add to the confusion, they both have “Last Supper” in their titles.

One is The Chosen:  Last Supper, a big screen preview of Season 5 of the streaming series on the life of Christ.

The other is just The Last Supper.  This one too is a faith-based film, produced by Pinnacle Peak Pictures, which put out the God Is Not Dead series.  The executive producer is contemporary Christian music artist Chris Tomlin, an evangelical, but the writer and director is the well-regarded Italian filmmaker Mauro Borrelli, a Catholic.

Both movies are said to be reverent and accurate treatments of the events described in Scripture. Catholic reviewers praise the high view of the Eucharist that comes across in Borrelli’s movie.  (See this and this.)

Here are the trailers for both movies:

I haven’t seen either of these.  Have you?  If so, please report.

Based on the trailer, which one looks the best?

Even Tourists Won’t Be Allowed to Worship in China

Do you want to see what it feels like to have your religious liberty completely taken away?  Go on vacation to China.

New laws go into effect on May 1 that forbid foreigners from worshiping with locals, leading worship services, or engaging in any kind of religious practice.  Upon pain of arrest.

Foreigners may attend–but not speak at–religious services only in the officially recognized Three Self Church or the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, both of which are controlled by the Communist Party and which feature “sinicized” theology, with scriptures and hymns rewritten as communist propaganda.

The new law also forbids any kind of missionary activity, including sharing one’s faith.

Netflix Plans a Female Aslan

In 2018, Netflix acquired the film rights to C. S. Lewis’s Christian fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia, promising to produce a whole array of movies and TV series based on the Narnia “universe.”

The first project, a movie version of The Magician’s Nephew, is now in pre-production. The director will be Greta Gerwig, who gave us the hit feminist comedy Barbie.  According to the Hollywood trade publication Deadline, the plans are that “Aslan will be female.”  Negotiations are underway with Meryl Streep to be the voice of the lion who symbolizes Christ.

So will the computer-generated-imagery of Aslan be a lioness, without the mane?  I predict that Aslan will have a mane, but speak with a woman’s voice.  This will be justified by the claim that the God being symbolized is a spirit and so doesn’t have a gender.  But the intended imaginative effect will be to give us a trans Aslan, a gender-queer Aslan.

Woke progressives consider it a crime to “misgender” someone by refusing to use their preferred pronouns.  Well, God has revealed to us His preferred pronouns.  He has clearly affirmed His gender identity.  So isn’t it wrong to misgender God?  (HT to my daughter Joanna for this point.)

 

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