It may surprise many Christians to learn that Jesus is one of the most revered people in Islam. In fact, Jesus is mentioned 25 times in the text of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, and Mary is mentioned more times than she is in the New Testament. Like Christians, Muslims believe Jesus will return one day.
So, it is fitting that in Messiah, the new Netflix series that premiered on Jan. 1, a man who many suspect to be the second coming of Christ appears first among Syrian Muslims in Damascus. As his appearance coincides with a massive sandstorm that helps push Islamic State forces out of the city, many come to call the man “al Masih,” or Messiah.
Whether Masih is actually divine or simply a charlatan forms the basis of the first season’s intrigue. We, as viewers, are given ample reason to believe both.
From Syria and Israel to Texas and Washington, D.C., we follow Masih around the globe as he spreads his gospel, offering a newer and somewhat more woke brand of religion to the masses. “Why are there no women here?” he asks a group of Muslim elders. When one laughs, he pushes him aside and asks him to give a woman his seat.
Alongside his preaching, Masih performs miracles. He heals a boy who has fallen from an apparent gunshot wound. He miraculously escapes from an Israeli prison cell. And you can just take a guess as to what happens when he approaches the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool.
But the showrunners seem almost bored by a premise that focuses on the return of God to Earth. For the faithful, the second coming would be the most sacred of moments. One might imagine that the series would be able to tell poignant stories about believers across the planet wrestling with their faith and the questions raised by Masih’s appearance.
We do get a little bit of that: One of the breakout stars of the show is Sayyid El Alami, who plays an orphaned Palestinian-Syrian refugee who helps lead a nonviolent protest movement against the Israeli military. For El Alami’s character, Jibril, Masih’s arrival is an opportunity to recommit himself to his beliefs and to draw on the courage provided by faith to put his life at risk.
But for every interesting subplot, there is a cliché. Michelle Monaghan stars as Eva Geller, a cynical CIA hand, while Tomer Sisley’s Avrim Dahan is an atheist Israeli intelligence officer who just can’t take organized religion seriously. They both see Masih as a potential threat to be monitored closely. “This might be your city, but when Israel tips, we all tip. And when this region blows, we all feel it. And that makes it our problem,” Geller tells Dahan during some tense drinks. Their dialogue doesn’t get any better, but their personal and professional relationship dominates the first season, crowding out more interesting storylines.
The inclusion of banal spy movie characters such as Geller and Dahan shows the limits of Hollywood’s imagination when it comes to religion and spirituality. “What was Jesus, after all? Just a populist politician with an ax to grind against the Roman Empire,” Geller tells Dahan. She may well be speaking for the show’s writers, who go to great pains to make Masih a political figure who banters on CNN and lobbies the U.S. president to withdraw his soldiers from the Middle East.
But one of the great errors driving our social and political polarization is the conflation of religion with politics: the sense that one’s moral and spiritual center can and should be expressed through protest marches, moralizing tweets, and who you happen to vote for every four years.
It is undoubtedly true that many of the world’s great religious figures tangled with political authorities in order to preach their faith. But the role of religion in the hearts of believers is not limited by political questions such as who to vote for or where the United States should deploy its troops (which is the basis for another fairly clichéd subplot). The role of religious and spiritual life is to commune with the unknowable and seek connection to something outside of ourselves. Whether times are good or bad, we can find peace by centering ourselves with our creator.
In Messiah, religion is reduced to politics by another name. The plot is driven by the interaction of several powerful governments and Masih’s budding social movement. And since Masih is rendered as just another populist activist, the question of whether he actually is the second coming becomes somewhat irrelevant. Who needs God when you can persuade the president that your policy choices will give people what they need?
Our best religious art understands that believers are engaged in a constant process of seeking truth while accepting that we won’t always get a straight answer. This understanding is reflected in stories, such as The Life of Pi, that offer ambiguous but oddly satisfying answers about life and the universe. Such stories admit we may never find the exact answer we’re looking for but remind us that our task, as believers, is to keep searching.
Messiah, on the other hand, falls prey to a boring literalism. It tells us that the truth about religion can be ascertained by spy agencies tasked with determining whether or not a man can actually heal the sick and walk on water. The showrunners should have known that when it comes to authentic faith and spirituality, the answers to these questions couldn’t be less relevant.
