'Revelations': 'Must-See' TV

Hollywood has discovered religion--at least as a potentially lucrative market share. Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" has become one of the ten highest-grossing films in movie history. Combine that with Rick Warren's devotional "The Purpose Driven Life" (21 millions copies sold) and The DaVinci Code (25 million copies sold), and media moguls' ears definitely perk up. When you factor in the $650 million in sales generated by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' "Left Behind" novels based on the biblical prophecies in the book of Revelation, it is not difficult to explain why NBC has produced a six-episode "Revelations" miniseries which premieres Wednesday night, April 13.

NBC's "Revelations" is a fast-paced drama in which an initially skeptical (surprise, surprise) Harvard scientist, Richard Massey (played convincingly by Bill Pullman), teams up with a devout Oxford-trained nun, Sister Josepha Montefiore (Natascha McElhone) to investigate whether the signs and wonders portending the biblical prophecies concerning the "End of Days" have commenced.

As an evangelical Christian who takes the biblical prophecies of Revelation very seriously, and having previewed the first episode, several observations spring to mind.

First, the production values are first rate, and "Revelations" is an engrossing and compelling drama. Try to imagine a TV drama that is a cross between "The Exorcist," "The Omen," and "The X-Files" and you are well on your way to knowing what to expect when you see this miniseries.

Second, "Revelations" takes the reality of supernatural evil and Satanic power very seriously and portrays its sinister malevolence quite effectively. This is not what often passes in our society for quaint or neutral "spirituality," but clear demonic activity with diabolically malign intent.

Third, the religious figures on the God side of the good vs. evil struggle, such as Sister Josepha, are not caricatures, but fully developed and often sympathetic characters. The fact that Sister Josepha is an Oxford scholar plays against media stereotypes of serious Christian characters as uninformed and fanatical.

Fourth, "Revelations" takes the concept of the biblical prophecies in the New Testament's book of Revelation seriously as the book prophesies a cataclysmic struggle between God and Satan, good and evil, in the final years of earth as man has known it.

However, I agree with Jerry Jenkins that taking "seriously" is, in the case of a made-for-TV drama, not the same as taking faithfully an obligation to be bound by the actual Scriptures themselves. Hopefully, titling the miniseries "Revelations" rather than the biblical "Revelation," a distinction any serious student of biblical prophecy would notice immediately, is a signal to viewers that extreme dramatic license is being taken with the biblical narrative.

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