| Cathleen Falsani

‘Jesus Christ’ takes your calls on L.A. radio

LOS ANGELES — Inside the dark, fourth-floor radio station studio on a recent Sunday morning, two television sets hang from the ceiling glowing with the images from CNN and Headline News.

Directly across from his desk, on the other side of the studio, a large flat-screen TV broadcasts a polished television preacher, with the volume muted.

At the studio host’s fingertips is a computer screen with the names of callers queued up to ask him questions; a dog-eared, highlighted Bible; several commentaries, and a well-worn copy of the Compact Dictionary of Doctrinal Words.

As he bounces in his seat to Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe,” which has been playing after a series of commercials, he replaces his earphones, straightens his chair, and pushes a lighted button to take the next call.

Jesus Christ is on the air.

“I am your holy host and I am glad to be with you this Sunday morning and every Sunday morning,” The Savior says. “I encourage you to go to those phones and be bold and brave.”

“How can I help you?” the Lord asks the next caller, his gentle, deep voice colored by just the hint of a Southern California drawl.

“Good morning, Lord,” the caller, a weepy woman named Rachel, says on the air. “I am asking for compassion, not for myself but for a friend of mine . . .”

Rachel explains that a good friend of hers has a newborn baby with a brain tumor.

“She’s so tiny. She’s so sweet and I’m asking you to bring this to the Father,” the caller asks the radio host who calls himself, at least for two hours a week, Jesus Christ.

His lengthy answer is complicated and thoughtful. He tells Rachel that she may not ever know why the baby is sick, or fully understand God’s will when it comes to suffering in the world.

“Healing is always possible, but it’s not always God’s will,” Jesus Christ tells her. “Even I in the garden said if this cup can pass from me let it pass, but your will be done, not mine.”

“It’s not what your future holds, but what holds your future,” he says, ending his call with Karen, and going to another commercial break as a Red Hot Chili Peppers song begins to play.

Serious business

The next call is a woman named Jenneaze. “I wonder if I’m possessed by the devil?” she says.

“Why do you think that? Honey, can I ask you something? Does Jesus dwell in your heart?” Jesus Christ asks her.

She says yes.

“Do you think I would share that space with the devil? If I am dwelling in your heart you are not possessed,” Jesus says.

Illness. Possession. Crises of faith. Theological questions and existential puzzles.

It’s just another Sunday morning for Jesus Christ, Radio Host.

And it’s no joke.

Neil Saavedra, the 35-year-old, bald, tattooed, pierced radio veteran with the pointy salt-and-pepper goatee and intense eyes, who hosts a weekly call-in show in character as the Son of God, takes his job quite seriously.

Saavedra, a born-again Christian who has studied the Bible and theology for years and doubles as the radio station’s director of marketing, doesn’t like to call his “The Jesus Christ Show” at thoroughly secular KFI-AM 640 in Los Angeles — the largest talk radio station in California — a ministry.

But, grudgingly, he’ll admit that’s exactly what it is.

“Is it entertaining? God, I hope so,” he was telling me the other day. “As much as I don’t like the word ‘ministry’ and freak out when anybody gives me any sort of title like that . . . I understand that it is a mission of sorts and it’s a calling and I have to be respectful of it. It isn’t a regular talk show.”

No. 1 in its time slot

“The Jesus Christ Show” was the brainchild of KFI’s program director, who got the bright idea about six years ago to have Jesus appear as a guest on another radio show. The guy immediately thought of Saavedra, the radio station’s resident theologian who at the time was hosting a current affairs talk show.

“I went, ‘Oh, no way in hell,’ ” Saavedra recalls. “They wrestled with me and said, ‘Well, why not?’ I couldn’t figure out a reason why it was blasphemous or theologically wrong.”

That first “special guest appearance by Jesus” was a hit with listeners and led to recurring spots, and, about 3-1/2 years ago, to “The Jesus Christ Show.” It’s now the No. 1 radio program in its time slot in Los Angeles and is broadcast over the Internet. Saavedra says he gets calls from all over the country and e-mails from around the world.

He tries to answer their questions as Jesus would, and not with his own opinions. “I don’t put any words in his mouth. Who needs that pressure?” he says.

So how does he get into character? How does Neil become Jesus?

“Spend a lot of time with whores and tax collectors. Drink a lot of wine. It’s what Jesus did,” Saavedra jokes. “Really, I do the most simple thing: I just bow my head during the opening music and say, ‘Your words, not mine. Your show, not mine. Help.’

“And then I grab a Depends undergarment and apply it and go with great trepidation to the microphone in hopes that I can do justice to the information.”

Back on the air, Jesus Christ fields calls from a woman whose soon-to-be ex-husband tells her she’ll go to hell for divorcing him, a young woman who wants to know if you have to be baptized to be “saved,” and a Christian guy who is dating a woman going through a divorce and wants to know if he should break it off with her.

Jesus’ short answers were: You’re not going to hell, Karen; no, you don’t have to be baptized to be saved, Arsenia; and break up with her, Blake, at least until after her divorce is finalized.

Saavedra hopes it’s what Jesus would have done.

“Remember, I am with you always,” Jesus Christ says, signing off for the week as Johnny Cash’s version of the Depeche Mode “Personal Jesus” begins to play.

“The Jesus Christ Show” can be heard from 6 to 8 a.m. PST every Sunday at www.kfi640.com.