The Devil on TV
Tom Ellis, Neil Gaiman, and Walter Wink
One of the many dumb TV shows I watch is Lucifer. You can find it on Netflix now. It started on network television, got canceled, and the fans made such an uproar that it was resurrected on the streaming platform. It is like Dark Shadows meets The Munsters (and if you don’t know what either of those TV shows are, stop reading and do some research.)
I’m a big fan of the actor who plays the devil. His name is Tom Ellis and he played opposite Miranda on the BBC show titled Miranda. He is charming and good-looking and funny. As I am writing this, making sure I’m getting things right — for example, I almost wrote that he plays the piano. He does not play the piano. He is just a good piano actor! — I just learned that his father, uncle, and one of his sisters are all Baptist ministers. That explains a lot.
It isn’t surprising that I would find a TV show about the fallen angel, Lucifer, interesting. Less surprising when you consider all the theological implications. Even less surprising when you find out that Neil Gaiman is one of the character’s creators and producer on the show. Like Tom Ellis, I love everything that Neil Gaiman does. He often explores theological questions in his work — Good Omens anyone? Read the book and watch the show.
I don’t want to ruin the entire series of Lucifer for anyone. It begins silly and grows ever more silly along the way — silly in a soap opera kind of way. This may be a spoiler, though if you have read the book of Revelation in the Bible, it shouldn’t be. Near the end of the last episode, Lucifer says to another,
“I mean if I, the devil, can be redeemed, anybody can.”
Hell yeah!
Sorry, couldn’t help that.
When I was in seminary, I took a class on “the powers and principalities.” It isn’t very popular for a progressive Christian to talk about believing in demons and angels, but I do. I have had some experiences that I attribute to each of those. Maybe I will share those stories one day. Today is not that day.
The class was a course on the works of a particular scholar, Walter Wink. He set out many years ago to study the Bible in order to prove that such beings were metaphorical. He set out to prove biblically that there are no real angels, no real demons, no real unseen spiritual realm. By the time he got through Revelation after having started in Genesis, he had completely changed his belief about such things.
One of the major things I took away from Wink’s books was the idea of institutional angels. What some would call “the ethos” of a particular place, Wink would say is a feeling of what type of angel the place had. When you walk into church buildings, he says, you can almost instantly feel the presence of the angel. And, like Lucifer, some of those angels are fallen. And, like Lucifer, God provides hope of redemption regardless of how far they have fallen from God. Wink specifically uses the seven letters to the angels of the churches in Revelation as evidence for this.
I guess this is the only reason I remain inside the Church. I still hold onto the faith that the angel can be redeemed. There are days when it is easier to believe than others. But, there is no doubt in my mind that our angel has fallen. The angel of the western Christian church has fallen. And, while I consider myself progressive, my conservative siblings in the faith would probably say the same thing. Maybe traditional is a better description than conservative, though I would not call them orthodox. That is something we would disagree about. We all seemed worried about the Church Universal and we each believe we have diagnosed exactly what is wrong. I don’t think any of us is exactly right.
I think it happens to be good news that even Lucifer can be redeemed by the grace of Jesus Christ. Of course the TV show didn’t mention this particular grace. For the Gaiman character, Lucifer, it is all much more inward-focused and psychologically driven. But, even though that is a fictional re-telling of the story of the fallen angel, I got a little chill in my spine when I heard the character say that line. It gave me chills because I believe it is true. I believe that particular line in that silly TV show is biblical. I believe it is good news for the world we can see. I believe it is good news for the world we can’t see yet. This doesn’t make it cheap or easy. Like the character played by Tom Ellis, there is a lot of hard work on the way to redemption.
The good news remains.
If even the devil can be redeemed, then there is hope for all of us.
