Choose You This Day!

The 2014 People's Choice Awards may be the scene of a minor skirmish in the United States' culture wars, as a miniseries based on the Holy Bible will go up against an LGBT-themed television movie.

 

In the ‘Favorite TV Movie/Miniseries’ category, the hit History Channel miniseries  “The Bible” has as one of its competitors the HBO movie “Behind the Candelabra.”  Other nominees for the award are FX's “American Horror Story,” the social media B-movie sensation “Sharknado” from SyFy, and “The White Queen” miniseries from STARZ.

 

Produced by husband-and-wife-team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, “The Bible” was a 10-part miniseries that went through the stories of the Old and New Testaments, with the last episode airing on Easter Sunday 2013.  A major ratings success, “The Bible” was nominated for three primetime Emmy Awards, including ‘Outstanding Movie or Miniseries.’  “The Bible” won ‘Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries’ and ‘Movie or a Special and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries.’  “We have worked so hard for four years now, it has been a labor of love that deepened not just our faith but our marriage and our friendship,” said Downey in an earlier e-mail to The Christian Post.  “We are very grateful to the academy for recognizing the Bible series and we are thrilled to share this nomination with our cast and crew from all over the world who worked hard with us to bring the story of our Bible to the screen.”

 

In the HBO film “Behind the Candelabra,” the 6-year homosexual relationship between celebrity piano player Liberace and a much younger bisexual man named Scott Thorson is recounted.  Starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson, the film was based off of an autobiographical novel.  Steven Soderbergh, the film's director, said in an interview with NPR in May that he was initially concerned that the movie would lack an audience outside of the LGBT community.  “There was a sense that the movie wouldn't have any appeal outside of a gay audience, and that that audience wouldn't be big enough to return the investment.  And so we just couldn't get anybody to do it,” said Soderbergh.  “It's a very emotionally intimate movie, and there are scenes between them that are almost uncomfortable in their intimacy.”

 

For its part, “Behind the Candelabra” won several primetime Emmy Awards and beat out “The Bible” for the ‘Outstanding Movie or Miniseries’ honor.

 

Begun in 1975, the annual People's Choice Awards prides itself as being the award where the viewers get to decide which entertainment programs are honored with distinction.  So who will the people choose for the ‘Favorite TV Movie/Miniseries’ category?

 

Not knowing ‘who’ constitutes ‘the people’ makes me very reluctant to guess the outcome of which movie/miniseries gets the award.  Given these two choices, coupled with the reality of humanity’s fallen nature and attraction toward sin [what God explicitly prohibits], there’s a good likelihood that the HBO (Holy Bible Opposite) film will be selected.  After all, when ‘the people’ had the choice between Jesus and Barabbas … well we know how that went down.  [If you don’t, read Mark 15:1-15.]   

 

Regardless, the truth of God’s Word will remain for eternity … well beyond the shelf-life of plastic photographic film or DVDs.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel