Thursday, May 3, 2018

Who or what is the devil? -- "The Christians", at Road Less Traveled Productions

A friend and I went to The Christians, a play by Lucas Hnath, performed at Road Less Traveled Productions, downtown Buffalo NY. Directed by Scott Behrend. 

You can read Ben Siegel's good review of the production in the Buffalo News. He said some things better than I can.

I was so glad that Lucas Hnath, the playwright, takes the Christian characters of his play seriously. The small group of characters depend on their church to guide them through their lives and to inspire them.  They are not the ignorant cartoon Christians so easily mocked in comedy skits and Twitter rants. Their anguish at having their old beliefs and practical concerns pushed aside is real, and makes them sympathetic characters with echoes to my own life and experiences.

The central story of the play is about a successful mega-church evangelical pastor (played with admirable modulation by Dave Hayes) who one day tells his congregation that he can no longer accept his church's doctrine that only a Christian who has made Christ his savior can be saved from eternal Hell. The pastor voices a legitimate dilemma. He cites an example, an event he saw on a video. A brave young non-Christian boy in an Asian country sacrificed his life to save his sister from a fire -- and despite his sacrifice, he will be consigned to Hell for eternity because he never announced Christ as his savior. How can Christians accept this? The pastor announces a revised version of Heaven and Hell: all are instead eventually welcomed to Heaven after death, regardless of faith, or what they've done on earth. There is no judgement waiting us.

This announcement causes the young associate pastor (movingly played by Aaron Moss) to leave and form his own church, troubles the church elders, and nearly causes the pastor's wife to leave him. All rebuke him for having shaken the church and the lives of the congregation without consulting them first. A parishioner pointedly asks him if he would have made his radical announcement if the church had not recently paid off its mortgage. Why didn't he say these things before? Was he deceitful? Was he actually filled with doubts but afraid to say anything lest the church lose its financial footing? The pastor's replies are all variations of, "God had not made ready to talk until now".

You can hear all sorts of echoes to other church life issues in the play -- the role of money, financial tensions, the tensions between ancient accepted beliefs with modernity. All of it will feel familiar to anyone who attends some faith, or who has struggled with faith. 

One thought I had about the play's central premise is that many Christians are quite comfortable with the idea of non-Christians finding their own sense of salvation. I think the emphasis on emphatically accepting Christ as one's savior in order to assure salvation is an evangelical Christian doctrine. As an Orthodox Christian, I believe we and other branches of Christendom accept that salvation is not assured, and that God's actual judgement is unknowable. Therefore, it's hard to get too worked up about whether you are Christian or not -- you are not simply assured of salvation one way or another based on your avowed faith. It's your life's actions that matter.

This is a terrific production by Road Less Traveled Theater. I liked all five actors. I thought it was a great decision to make for the associate pastor to be played by a young black actor. Aaron Moss effectively shows us a man who fought and sacrificed his way up through his faith to get where he is, and he's not about to lose it all. The RLT stage was sparse, but gave a good feeling of the characters speaking to a larger auditorium. The sound design and lighting were effective, with each character using a microphone, as if on a Sunday service.