'Reacher' Actor Alan Ritchson Reacts To Christian Criticism Of Him Glorifying Fornication Through His Characters
Alan Ritchson, who plays Jack Reacher in Prime Video’s Reacher series, reacted to Christian criticism regarding his glorification of fornication through his characters that he plays on screen.
Speaking with GQ, Ritchson said, “People have this weird relationship with fictional characters, and sort of equate that to the real human being. “I don't have that problem, making that distinction. I get criticized a lot by Christians who are like, ‘How dare you have an unmarried sex scene on TV and then talk about Jesus?’”
He reacted saying, “I'm sorry—I doubt that's going to be part of the conversation when I'm standing at the pearly gates!”
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Ritchson previously addressed criticism that he should not play the character of Jack Reacher as a Christian.
In a post to Instagram, he said, “I love playing Reacher. I love telling this story. I love playing a character who creates a a kind of moral ambiguity that we should struggle against as we consider whether or not what he’s doing is good all the time or morally right. I think that kind of thing is fun and fascinating and I think escaping to that world um as an audience hopefully it’s as enjoyable for you as it is for me to help bring it to life.”
He continued, “But it’s funny to me how a lot of people criticize me, supposed Christians especially criticize me, for playing Reacher as if the only TV that should exist is seeing people silently folding their hands in the pew of a church. I mean what kind of stories are we supposed to tell?”
“If you look at scripture what do you find? You see a thousand years of an infinitely holy God holding tension with human beings as he tells the story of who he is, reveals who he is through an imperfect people. So we get stories of paganism, and war, and bloodshed, and ghost stories, mysticism. We see miracles and magic,” he said. “We see life and resurrection and death. And we see this incredible canvas where God is completely unafraid to tell the story of who He is through less than morally ambiguous characters, through through pure evil sometimes.”
Ritchson then stated, “So I think it’s laughable when people criticize me for playing characters that are not like saintly, you know. That’s not my job. And I don’t think God cares about only telling those kinds of stories. I think we can start conversations and we can reach people through these mediums in a way that I think God enjoys.
“And so here we are now where we can get to the heart of the matter where God has built a platform because of this show for me where I can reach people who maybe don’t think about these things all the time and maybe, maybe for those who are struggling, or feel lost, or want to try something new, they can find something that brings them hope like my faith has mine,” the actor said.
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“And so to go back to the heart of the matter, I think we only have to look at the first two verses of the Bible to see who God is, the purpose of what he’s doing, and what he wants to do in your life, and where that tension exists once humanity enters the equation,” Ritchson asserted.
“In verse one we get this: God created the Heavens and the Earth. We see that God is a Creator but what kind of Creator? We go to verse two to find out. It says, ‘Now the Earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The waters representing chaos, the Earth formless and empty. The Hebrew word for formless and empty is Tohu va-Vohu. It means wild and waste. There was nothing but wild and waste in the beginning. We sort of skip over the Big Bang and we’re just— we’ve got the planets forming and coalescing, but it’s wild and waste. There’s no good there yet. There’s nothing usable. It’s empty. And God’s spirit is hovering over the waters and out of that he creates a garden that is enviable among angels and Man, the Garden of Eden. He creates Humanity. He begins this Saga that is epic, an epic Saga of Love out of the wild and the waste,” he detailed.
“And I think that is exactly what God intended in the first two verses of the Bible to be revealed,” Ritchson shared. “That he is a good Creator. And that out of the wild, the waste, and the empty of your life he can create a garden if you let him, but the difficulty is the fact that when when God wills himself over creation and says out of this wild and waste just with my breath I will animate goodness and gardens and sunsets and sunrises and humanity that will learn slowly how to love each other. When it comes to people He’s a little standoffish because He doesn’t want to breach free will because He wants to respect the fact and see what you do with this opportunity to invite the spirit in that hovers over you, or to try to do it on your own and stay in the wild and the waste and be the king and lord over the emptiness. Would you rather be the king and the god of the emptiness, and the wild, and the waste, or would you rather participate under One who is the infinite, holy, good Creator of all in his garden? Participate in that garden?
“That is the question that we face in the first two verses of the Bible,” he reiterated. “That is the heart of the matter and when we are distracted with other questions of like, ‘Are you, can you possibly be a Christian and play a character like Reacher?’ We’re missing that that moment that confrontation that God is waiting for in all of our lives and for some of us it comes sooner than others.
Ritchson concluded, “I hope if you haven’t confronted that question yet that this conversation helps bring you to it sooner. Do you want to be the god of emptiness, wild, and waste or do you want to be a servant in a garden?”
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Ritchson, who also runs a YouTube channel called InstaChurch, previously discussed his faith in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last year, “I’m a Christian quite simply because of what Jesus calls us to do. Love other people until death. It doesn’t mean we’re all to be hung on a cross, but how can I suffer for you? That is a beautiful thing.”
However, he then decried his fellow Christians, “Christians today have become the most vitriolic tribe. It is so antithetical to what Jesus was calling us to be and to do.”
As far as Ritchson’s claim that Christ will not confront him for glorifying sin. This is patently false.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification or immediately—or immediate and everlasting damnation.”
Furthermore, creatives have a responsibility to promote what is good and true. St. Pope John Paul II explained in his message for the 38th World Communications Day in 2004, “This year’s theme is also a reminder to everyone, both communicators and those whom they address, that all communication has a moral dimension. As the Lord himself has said, it is from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. People grow or diminish in moral stature by the words which they speak and the messages which they choose to hear.”
He later noted, “These same media also have the capacity to do grave harm to families by presenting an inadequate or even deformed outlook on life, on the family, on religion and on morality. This power either to reinforce or override traditional values like religion, culture, and family was clearly seen by the Second Vatican Council, which taught that ‘if the media are to be correctly employed, it is essential that all who use them know the principles of the moral order and apply them faithfully.’ Communication in any form must always be inspired by the ethical criterion of respect for the truth and for the dignity of the human person.”
He specifically warned about the glorification of fornication and how it is detrimental to the common good, “Infidelity, sexual activity outside of marriage, and the absence of a moral and spiritual vision of the marriage covenant are depicted uncritically, while positive support is at times given to divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Such portrayals, by promoting causes inimical to marriage and the family, are detrimental to the common good of society.”
What do you make of Ritchson’s response?
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"He reacted saying, 'I'm sorry—I doubt that's going to be part of the conversation when I'm standing at the pearly gates!'"
There won't be a conversation. There will be judgment, and it will apply to all your actions, even when you're playing make-believe with another human being subject to those actions. This guy's going to have a bad time of it in the hereafter if this is his attitude.
Sorry, but I am going to have to push back on this take. I love your work in pop culture that you have done for years John, but this pedantic view of art is going to kill your credibility on critical analysis of storytelling.
The puritanical approach to culture has killed the ability of the church to reach others and makes their attempts at storytelling come off as insincere, un-creative and propagandistic in execution.
How is this actor glorifying sin? Is he only allowed Christian contemporary films that have absolutely no intimacy, violence or other forms of sin? Are we not allowed to watch anything with sinful behavior? Are gentiles the only ones allowed to act in sinful roles and it makes it okay now? What’s the cut off point for a story with flawed characters where it becomes a story that isn’t Christian anymore?
These questions come to mind and more and this only shows that you are moralizing like Pharisees and Saducees and finger wagging at audiences like the wokies do. I think you guys need a moment of introspection that dictating what others watch, create and do for entertainment limits the ability of true creativity and expression. Just because think you are right doesn’t mean that you don’t have a blind eye in this argument and puts into question whether you even care for all these pop culture IPs that you comment on.
It comes off as this is a battlefield for your ideology/politics/religious denomination and not that you have a personal stake in storytelling and fandom. This is why Christian contemporary fell flat on its face because it was more worried about offending people and church politics than telling a story that can genuinely uplift people.