SPOILER ALERTS WITHIN!

If you’re looking for a movie that has a simple and easy to spot narrative and plot, then Jeymes Samuel’s The Book of Clarence is not the movie for you. If higher education’s catchphrase of “interdisciplinarity” could be applied to cinema, this film would be a textbook study of what that looks like on the big screen. At times this movie played to the basest of moods to tell a well-timed joke, other times I was clearly among the first to laugh at the dialogue—or the only—and I’m sure my advanced theological degrees were to blame.

I walked away wondering was it too smart for its own good. That is to say, what was the point of the movie? I gather that most people who pay to go to a theater and spend an ungodly amount on popcorn and drinks unless they sneak in their own hoagie, go for the sake of being entertained. There are still hundreds of theaters across this country that function as art houses to show films with a point. Be it the artistry of the director, the cinematography of the director of photography, or they go to support that story that doesn’t get told often or often enough is finally having a showing. I’m still not quite sure where Jeymes Samuel’s third feature-length film falls.

The director of “The Harder They Fall” starring Martin Luther King, Jr. aka Jonathan Majors and “They Die By Dawn” starring Rosario Dawson seemed to be going for more than showing Black folks in first century Palestine. Brooke Obie of Andscape in her review wrote of Samuel’s filmography that it “boils down to ‘What about Westerns, but with Black people! What about Jesus, but with Black people!’ and not going a drop deeper than that.” That’s too simplistic of a review of what happened on screen in Samuel’s ancient Jerusalem. For a movie as complex and multi-layered as this, any review of the movie that shies away from nuances seems to beg for a lazy conversation. The movie deftly plays with modern attitudes around race on the Black and white dynamic and the notion of imperial powers, driven by a two-millennium old religious narrative that is still carried in the hearts and minds of over two billion people till this day.

Early enough in the movie, the title character Clarence, played by LaKeith Stanfield, has a conversation with his mother Amina, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She sees the despondence in him. Born ten minutes after < Thomas, Clarence > bears the weight of not inheriting a birth right, and lives in his brother’s shadow. She tells him to “Hold space.” These words carry a theological weight that serves as a slow-beating pulse that vibrates throughout the whole movie.

If anything, I walked away from the movie lamenting one of the things I oft lament these days: the American loss of public theology.

For starters, Americans culturally don’t hold space for intellectual nuances. The Christian intellectual has long since gone the way of the dodo bird. Every so often the question of what became of the public theologian rises in public discourse, but the last time this conversation was raised was in 2016. Perhaps that will be the last elegy spoken for it. A movie such as The Book of Clarence is a reminder that even without the watchmen of yesteryear, guarding the bulwark of American Christianity’s moods and sensibilities, conversations about religious identity have not dissipated. The reality is that the pendulum has swung all the way in the other direction. No longer are there the watchmen—C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich—but seemingly anyone with a smart phone or laptop and a wifi connection are as good a person as any to comment on religious and theological matters of the day. To put it another way, there is more popular interest as to whether or not Bishop T.D. Jakes takes submissive roles in sexual intercourse with other men or whether or not a church should play F.L.Y.’s “Swag Surfin’” in a sanctuary than delving into the racial, ontological, and theological themes presented in The Book of Clarence.

Holding space for public discourse on theology would allow Christians to learn more about how their religion came to be. The in-fighting arguments over doctrine aren’t new. They were there at the beginning. For example, this movie depicts the story of a child Jesus playing with clay birds that suddenly become real. This isn’t some made up anecdote to give Alfre Woodard who plays Mary, Jesus’ mother, more lines. This story can be found in the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas (2.1-5). Moreover, the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the former) says “Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot become a disciple to me. And whoever does not hate his brothers and sisters and take up his cross in my way will not be worthy of me (55).” This gives credence to the beef Clarence had with his brother Thomas.

While I think there is deep value in individuals making meaning of the things they consume on their own, The Book of Clarence isn’t the umpteenth installment of the latest action sequel, nor a comic book superhero popcorn movie; nor is it a gut-wrenching drama that had sat in development hell for the last 30 years that was finally made. And ultimately, it isn’t the movie you stream on your service at home that you watch when you’re winding down about to fall asleep. It escapes easy categorization, and it resists being pigeonholed to a typical comedy or drama. Jam packed into the movie is a display of accuracy to canonical scriptures, a deft use of apocryphal literature, and deftly uses poetic license and anachronisms to critique sociopolitical norms of both the ancient and modern world at opposite ends of its linear history.

But who would know this except a theologian?

It was not missed on me that much of the movie relied on source material from some of the most contested parts of biblical scholarship. The scene where the woman being stoned encapsulated Jesus’ famous words “He who is without sin cast the first stone” is from John 7:53-8:11 a well-regarded passage almost uniformly regarded as a later addition; most printed and online Bibles make note that this passage was not included in the original manuscripts. The Last Supper scene pushes the envelope with Mary Magadalene, played by Teyana Taylor, figured next to Jesus—alluding to the alleged sexual relationship between the two that has been a mystery of the ages resulting in deep conspiracy theories even spawning the blockbuster The DaVinci Code. The fact that the movie seemed to end with the crucifixion, plays into Mark’s canonical gospel. The original manuscript of Mark did not include the resurrection narrative. Even Jesus’ elusive appearance with the disciples at the start of the movie lends itself to the theory of the messianic secret as Jesus’ oft repeated command “Go and tell no one.”

To do theology in public, and to do it well, requires above all, reflection. Something sorely missing in society that privileges and rewards those who react the quickest and the loudest. Taking the time to reflect doesn’t always net the best opinions on the matter, but at least it allows the person to make their claims in good faith. Far too often, I believe, when we as society’s individual members consume the quickest and the loudest reaction, they are often a result of a bad faith argument. Nuance escapes the moment. There is no space to relate things-to-things. Analysis becomes flattened and linear.

A public theologian’s reflections on this movie would help sharpen the sociopolitical connections that bubble to the surface in The Book of Clarence. Clarence and his posse’s run-in with the all-white Roman guards, the Centurions, were akin to racial profiling done by police departments from Chicago to Ferguson, Missouri pulling over Black drivers at a disproportionate rate; Jedidiah’s monologue in the face of power speaks not only for Black Americans, but for anyone living in an occupied territory worldwide. Pontius Pilate’s (played by James McAvoy) declaration about “dangerous thoughts” isn’t an anachronistic sentiment about Black insurrectionists inasmuch as it pays reverence to the real-life Maccabean revolts when the Jews rebelled against the Greek (Seleucid) empire about two centuries prior to the time period of the movie.

Perhaps the most diabolical of plot devices was the decision to place Benjamin the beggar, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, in what amounts to blackface. And have a transformation where he was “washed white as snow.” Although his character, by movie’s end, almost functioned as a comedic foil at times, the stereotypical images of a white and European Jesus ought not be missed compared to not one, but two Black messiahs. The message of that rings forth that, of course, a messiah for the underclass would never show up looking like that of the oppressors.

My intent here is not to romanticize “the watchmen” who, under the microscope of retrospectivity would never pass muster in the 21^st century (can’t you see a 2024 Reinhold Nieburh shuffling through the hallways of Union Theological Seminary known only to a handful of academics who saw each other at conferences only?). There can never be “watchmen” again. But I submit there still need to be those to practice the life of the mind that speak to their spheres of influence to answer the prudent, yet basic question of “So what?”

Most of us don’t have a walking on water experience as Clarence did where his claim “I don’t believe… I know” carried so much weight. Rather most Christians adopt Paul’s words from his second letter to the Corinthian church that “So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.” In the crucifixion scene, Mary approaches her son on the cross among other crosses and inverts Paul’s words and says, “Find your way back to me.” She has no desire to walk by faith but possesses the need perhaps only a parent can have in the face of the death of a child: she wants to see him again. Clarence utters the words to his mother, “Hold space.” This exchange solidifies the deep need for those on the underside of society to have divine intervention into their lives for the sake of liberation. Salvation from an existential afterlife known as hell is far down on the list of things they worry about. Clarence’s word back to his mother exists as the best thread that people living under oppressive states can grasp onto. People living in a hell on earth are not interested in the dogmatic claims about a place of fire and brimstone. A concept lost by many who thought it wise to disagree with Carlton Pearson in his last days on earth.

The movie’s happy ending that Clarence is in fact not dead, but resurrected, not only is sufficient in answering his mother’s plea to find himself back to her, but also answers Jesus of Nazareth’s command for the body politic to “rise up.” Not only do the words resurrection and insurrection in our modern English look and sound the same, even the Greek words found in the New Testament ἀνάστασις and ἀναστατώσαντες are of the same derivation. Insurrection only appears in the Greek New Testament once in Acts 17:6 when the city officials of Thessalonica appeared at Jason’s house seeking Paul and Silas to arrest them on charges of “turning the world upside down.” Note to translators: the word you’re looking for is insurrection.

The hopeful work of doing theology in public is that space is held for the ones who need it most. So that they can hold space for themselves as individuals, and as individuals that comprise a human society. The Book of Clarence doesn’t depict a messiah character who died for the sins of the world. In fact, the movie leaves it up for interpretation as to whether Jesus of Nazareth ever suffered a crucifixion, even the immaculate conception was only proven by Joseph and Mary’s story when Clarence stopped by accusing them of being grifters. Rather, I suspect the main thrust of the movie was to depict a messiah—be it Clarence or Jesus of Nazareth—that was profoundly mortal and acutely aware of the human condition of the oppressed. Jesus’ message in the temple according to Luke, quoting the Isaiah scroll does not declare that he is there to perform miracles, to make money, or die for the sins of the world rather to preach the good news, proclaim freedom for those imprisoned, recovery of sight to those that need to see, to set the oppressed free, and declare that this is the year of the Lord.

In other words, Jesus’ message to those of us who call ourselves Christians and followers of the Way, is that we ought to heed the words of Clarence’s mother and hold space. Holding space is hanging on by the thread and recognizing you’re still hanging on and the thread is stronger than it looks. Holding space is realizing the shadow that you see yourself as only exists because there is a whole body standing in the light that’s worthy of being kissed by nature’s sun. Holding space is remembering that the body can always rise up.

So, in the words of Jesus to Clarence, standing in a grave that was soon to be returned to its owner, rise up.