Living Biblically: Producers, Writers and Cast Aimed for Accuracy and Sensitivity

There was both a Christian pastor and a rabbi on the set while they were filming.

That, to me indicates that the creators of the situation comedy Living Biblically which debuted on CBS-TV last night were trying to avoid the many pitfalls of dealing with a sensitive subject: Religion.

Based on — they use the term inspired by — A.J. Jacobs’ book The Year of Living Biblically, the show is about a man distraught over the death of a friend who decides to live for a year (or possibly at least the nine months until his child is born) according to every precept and commandment in the Bible.

Brent McCracken previewed a few episodes for The Gospel Coalition (TGC) and noted the lengths to which the production team had gone to deal respectfully with both the Jewish and Christian faiths which share the book we call The Bible.

Living Biblically wants to be a comedy that both Christians and atheists can watch and laugh at—one that provokes both sides without belittling or dismissing them. This is not an easy task, and we’ll see if the show maintains this balance, without feeling boring or neutered, for the rest of the season.

But you can’t expect a show like this to go deep. McCracken, mindful of the perspective of TGC readers adds,

But is this really what Christianity is about? It remains to be seen whether the show will find Chip encountering Jesus, grace, the cross, and the true gospel (I’ve only previewed three episodes), or whether it will continue exploring faith through the vague, but sadly pervasive lens of moralistic therapeutic deism.

And what about the church? Aside from a few visits to a Catholic confessional booth, Chip’s journey is largely of the “personal path” variety, unencumbered by institutional accountability or ecclesial authority. And in this way his faith is a bit more Protestant. It’s just Chip, the Bible, and his experience, with dashes of “clerical guru” wisdom from his ecumenical God Squad sidekicks.

Though meant for laughs, this one-liner from Leslie (describing her husband’s spirituality) is telling: “He’s not super religious. He’s just living 100 percent by the Bible.”

That may be asking a lot of one program. This is CBS, not TBN.  However as Branson Parler at Think Christian notes:

Later episodes, however, do highlight a more complex take on what it means to live biblically in the modern world. When engaging the question of idolatry, Chip is attuned to the way in which his smartphone functions as an idol. Having smashed his phone in a Moses-like fit of rage, he dons a fanny pack in a futile attempt to replace all the functions of his smartphone. Fanny packs aside, this episode presents a more nuanced way of reading Scripture, of understanding not only the message it contained for the original audience, but thinking through what it means to be people shaped by that text in today’s context.

I only watched the one episode but I also watched a 25-minute Facebook discussion with two of the producers and four of the cast members in which I noted that they themselves had been impacted by participating in the series. Behind the project is Johnny Galecki, better known as Leonard on The Big Bang Theory. They pitched the series simultaneously to four networks and Christian Cinema reported that all four were willing to air the program.

…So why do I write all this?

Watching the comments on Twitter after the show had aired, I have to admit I got baited by a woman who found the program blasphemous. I have to admit, while I know the meaning of the word, this sent me looking for various definitions online.

While various dictionaries suggested it involved being sacrilegious, the Christian sites offered a different meaning. BibleStudy.org wrote,

The word blasphemy is mentioned fourteen times in the King James Bible. It is used only twice in the Old Testament and twelve times in the New. Two of the main Scriptures that use the word are found in the books of Matthew and Revelation. In Matthew, Christ uses the word to warn the Pharisees who accuse him of using the power of the devil to cast out demons. In Revelation, the word is used in reference to the Beast power that will soon take control of the entire world and force the worship of Satan onto all people.

BibleStudyTools.com takes this in greater detail:

In English “blasphemy” denotes any utterance that insults God or Christ (or Allah, or Muhammed) and gives deeply felt offense to their followers. In several states in the United States and in Britain, blasphemy is a criminal offense, although there have been few prosecution in this century. In Islamic countries generally no distinction is made between blasphemy and heresy, so that any perceived rejection of the Prophet or his message, by Muslims or non-Muslims, is regarded as blasphemous.

The biblical concept is very different. There is no Hebrew word equivalent to the English “blasphemy, ” and the Greek root blasphem- [blasfhmevw], which is used fifty-five times in the New Testament, has a wide meaning. In both Testaments the idea of blasphemy as something that offends the religious sensibilities of others is completely absent.

I did not see blasphemy by either definition in this program.

I told her she needed to lighten up. Like many, she fails to grasp the place for humor and satire, something we got into here a few weeks ago in this column.  There I noted,

The enemy of The Church today is not those who poke fun at our sacred cows, but the people who simply walk away. I responded to the woman who left the comment:

…For what it’s worth, “hardened hearts” don’t engage. They walk away. They are apathetic. Most of us read something like this and it’s very easy to resonate with the spirit of it, and that is fully compatible — to me at least — with being indwelt by the Spirit of Christ.

Sadly, the person who wrote to me said I had “lost another reader.” In other words, she chose to walk away rather than engage.

See also this article — especially its second half — on being able to laugh at ourselves.

I thoroughly enjoyed the premiere last night and look forward to next week’s program. It raises some interesting themes, and offers what I would call a healthier Hollywood perspective. I hope the “holy rollers” as one Facebook comment called them don’t mess this up with complaints and criticisms.

The humor in Living Biblically is because of the way in which the characters respond to what the Bible says, not at the expense of the book itself.