Peter Knew Jesus' Face:

The Jesus Experience: Christianity around the World

The Hallmark Channel
12:00 noon ET/PT
Sundays until April 13, 2003

About 10 years ago, shortly after completing his now classic film Romero (the life of the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero), Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser began planning a television series that would feature a unique perspective on the person of Jesus Christ. He called it "The Jesus Project."

Fr. Kieser died in 2000, but his successor, Paulist Father Frank Desiderio and team at Paulist Productions in Pacific Palisades, CA has fulfilled Kieser's dream with the recent release of The Jesus Experience: Christianity around the World. This outstanding eight-part series is airing weekly on the Hallmark Channel - and has created a new standard for the credibility and production quality that "Christian" and religious television needs to reach to attract and inspire audiences.

"The series is explicitly about Christ," said Desiderio. "It offers the most expansive view possible of how to look at and experience Jesus. It also counters a certain fundamentalist mentality that looks at Jesus in a narrow way. Instead, we have presented the cultural context for how people experienced Jesus through the ages. For example, the black Jesus that people in Mozambique worship is just as valid as the white Jesus that people in Orange, CA worship."

From the very first segment, Jesus in the Roman Empire, viewers are invited into what it might have been like to know Jesus face to face, as Peter did. From then on, the series is an experience itself of how a stellar cast of individuals, some we know and some we don't, played in the spread and development of Christianity around the world today.

"We decided early on that the series would be character driven," Fr. Desiderio explained. "We tried to choose personalities that could tell the story of how people in a certain time and place experienced Jesus, those who crafted their own image of Jesus in their own realities and thus changed their cultures."

Some of the "celebrities" we encounter throughout the series are ones we might expect, St. Augustine, St. Patrick, Mother Teresa, Cardinal Lavigerie of the White Fathers and Matteo Ricci. One of the surprises of this series, however, is its respectful and even-handed telling of the Jesus experience from people of other faith traditions besides Catholic, such as Vladimir of the Russian Orthodox faith, Gandhi, a Hindu, Desmond Tutu, an Anglican, and William Wade Harris, of the "Harrists" and precursor of more than one million Christians in Ivory Coast. And another surprise is the telling of women's stories, from that of Saints Perpetua and Felicity to that of female evangelizers in India and Africa.

I found The Jesus Experience to be intelligent, artistic and engaging. I kept learning new facts and insights, such as the story of the Incan layman, Filipe Guama Poma de Ayola who wrote and published a book in the 17^th century. It outlined how the disrupted order of the Incan civilization could be restored through the return of the land to its rightful owners and still participate in the emerging world and Christian order of the times. If you've ever wondered what the "preferential option for the poor" means, this series offers viewers a way to understand it in the human existence of real people.

The Jesus Experience more than effectively shows, through its layering of history, personalities, landscape, cultures and theologies that in every era and place, people have experienced Jesus differently. Depending on their cultures, people have experienced Jesus in "community" and others through an accent on the individual - and still others who struggle with their identity and social actions between the two. This knowledge and experience of Jesus has implicitly, if not explicitly, transformed cultures and even political life, such as the commission for truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Against the backdrop of their indigenous traditions and often the invading colonizer, people received the message of Jesus and through their faith, sought and still seek, understanding.

The Jesus Experience is expertly and narrated by some of today's entertainment celebrities: Mike Farrell (M.A.S.H., Providence), Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman), Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond), Blair Underwood (L.A. Law, Full Frontal), Joe Campanella (That's Life), and Bob Gunton (Patch Adams, The Perfect Storm.) The series was written by documentary writer Frank Kosa (who also produced the 1995 mini-series, The Revolutionary War) and directed by award-winning documentarian Silvia Gambardella.

This series is so watchable that I hope it will spark a new interest in church history, theological reflection and efforts for justice and peace. Truth be told, I was entertained, enlightened and never bored. The chapters are easily navigated on the DVD and teachers will be able to select clips to support spirituality, theology and history. Historians will appreciate the research and care taken with details in the entire series, though the scripts for the segments on the Celts and Slavs would have profited from some extra finessing.

The other segments of The Jesus Experience include: Jesus in Early Europe, in Modern Europe, Among the Slavs, in Latin America, in North America, in Asia and in Africa.

The DVD/Video of The Jesus Experience: Christianity around the World is being distributed by Questar (1-800-633-5633 or www.questar1.com). The very good news is that the series (retitled Christianity in World History) is already available for classroom use with study guides from New Dimension Media (800-288-4456 www.ndmquestar.com.)

If you are a person who thinks our culture needs "better" television, then be sure to watch The Jesus Experience: Christianity around the World on the Hallmark Channel, then take a moment and let the channel know you appreciate their efforts: www.hallmarkchannel.com or write to Hallmark Channel, 12700 Ventura Blvd. Studio City, CA 91604-2469.