At first, I didn’t want to watch The Book of Clarence (2023). A hasty glance at the description made me assume the film would regurgitate low budget movies on the life of Jesus, except using Black actors this time. But my spouse thought it looked intriguing, so we watched it last night. And I’m glad we did. The film is thought-provoking and creative, presenting the gospel in a way that shatters tired and redundant versions. The movie is full of unexpected twists and turns, but the last scene brings it home in a wonderful way.
Clarence, played by LaKeith Stanfield, is a midrash on the speculated twin brother of Jesus’s disciple, Thomas, who the Bible indicates was also called Didymus (“twin” in Greek). But unlike Thomas who follows the Messiah, Clarence is a trouble-maker, dealing weed, lusting after women, and pursuing ill-gotten gain. He even hatches a plot to become a “messiah” himself, not to save anyone else, but to gain power, status, and wealth. Clarence travels to see Jesus’s mother Mary to ask how Jesus does all his “tricks,” so as to learn them himself. Mary (Alfre Woodard), a white-haired sage, makes it clear that Jesus is no trickster. Jesus is the real deal.
But Clarence remains unconvinced God exists, let alone a true Messiah, and so he persists in his fraudulent ruse. Clarence manages to persuade many that he is the Messiah, filling his coffers with money. But the more he gets what he wants, the more he realizes that all the money and status fail to satisfy him the way he expects. This provides a subtle existential window that prompts him to look more closely at himself. At one point in the movie he looks into a mirror and asks, “Who am I? What have I become?”
Will the Real Messiah Please Stand Up
The film capitalizes on the historical fact that many messiahs were running around in antiquity. Jesus was not the only one persecuted by the Greco-Roman government. So, who is the real messiah? Three messiahs are depicted in the film, Clarence, Benjamin the beggar, and Jesus. Clarence intentionally sets himself up as an imposter savior. He reflects all of us who chase power, status, and the things of this world thinking they will lead to salvation. Clarence is played like a modern-day guy from the hood (based on the film writer’s own experience of the hood) who struggles with common temptations experienced today.
The other false messiah is Benjamin the beggar. But he does not seek to be a messiah. Rather, he is put on a pedestal by others, including by Black followers, because of his lily-white skin. In a poignant moment in the film, Benjamin, whose grime covered face resembles blackface, goes to a salon to get cleaned up after Jesus gives him a charitable donation. The scene alludes to racist soap advertisements that compared Black skin with being dirty.
The result of the “cleanse” is so startling that the glowing white, former beggar is immediately idolized by everyone around him. The message is clear: the white, European Jesus depicted in church stained-glass windows, and ubiquitous in Western cultural portrayals, is a false messiah, propped up by all of us. Benjamin can also symbolize white-washed tombs, those who conform to socially-favored religiosity, but inside are full of vanity and bitterness.1
The film suggests the answer is neither status nor seeking after a white man’s European version of God. Rather, hope is found in the true Jesus who shows another way. In Jesus, God became flesh. More specifically, God became one of us. For the Black community, that means a relatable Black Jesus (Nicholas Pinnock). And not only a Black Jesus, but a gospel with Black apostles and a Black virgin Mary.
In other words, the gospel is not a white man’s message primarily for white people. Nor is it an escapist gospel concerned more with the Afterlife than this life. The God of Christianity is for everyone, and salvation involves real social action. To be clear, the gospel of Clarence is not secular humanism; it’s good news that how we live now matters and anticipates the eternal world to come.
The Gospel of Clarence
Let’s look at the gospel of Clarence more closely. What does Clarence come to realize? The gospel is illustrated not in a sermon, but in the life of Clarence as he comes to know truth. The seeds of conversion begin with noticing the enslavement of gladiators. At first, he is too self-absorbed to notice. Or perhaps too despondent living under Greco-Roman oppression, he doesn’t bother to hope for a different kind of world. But when he comes face-to-face with actual slaves, he’s startled by how many exist. Desire to help begins to well up, leading him to use his ill-gotten gain for freeing slaves, rather than for himself.
Clarence is both a sinner and the one through whom we begin to understand Christ better. Instead of an unrelatable Jesus, the film causes us to empathize with Jesus’s desire to free us (through Clarence’s desire to free slaves), as well as empathize with the pain of Jesus’s crucifixion. The film portrays this with an unexpected, creative twist. The relatable Clarence we have been getting to know, as we alternately despise and root for him, becomes the scene of crucifixion in a rather jarring way.
Whereas Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ shocks through excessive, over-the-top gore, The Book of Clarence jolts us out of our rote religion through the use of mixed genre. The film combines the comedic elements of Monty Python’s Life of Brian with the serious drama of The Chosen. This has led some movie viewers to complain, “Hey, I thought I was watching a comedy,” or “Hey, I thought I was watching a standard gospel story.”
Throughout much of the movie, one wonders if it will all conclude in some offensive, sacrilegious message or if it will preach the gospel. But the last scene brings it all together. I won’t give the details, but the very brief resurrection moment reveals that, ultimately, our salvation and comfort come from God, and the Holy Spirit’s power is available here and now to illuminate our minds to the way of Life. It’s through spiritual understanding and the indwelling Spirit that we come to live differently.
There’s a thread on the concept of knowledge in the film. Clarence, the imposter, preaches knowledge as salvation. But it’s not a knowledge that saves. The movie doesn’t state it, but the point dovetails with Scripture’s assertion that even the Devil declares Jesus is God, but is still opposed to God. That is, we can believe or have certain knowledge, but that doesn’t equate with knowing God. Later in the film, Clarence comes to a different kind of knowledge. He comes to know (not merely hold belief in) God.
Clarence’s conversion is gradual, not sudden. The film preaches “growth” or, in theological terms, sanctification, a life long process of being conformed to the image of God in Christ.
What about the Cross?
Since the Roman government is crucifying messiahs in general, both Benjamin and Clarence are caught up in the crack-down. Their divergent responses to the situation show that Benjamin was only a white-washed tomb, while Clarence has understood the heart of Christ.
Interestingly, a scene early in the film depicts Clarence smelly and dirty after a misadventure. His mother tells him to clean-up. He plops down on the floor, laying down with his arms out-stretched, appearing like he is on a cross, and says, “I do stink.” It reminded me of the verse, “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin” (Rom 6:6-7; NIV).
At this point in the movie, Clarence is still shackled in sin, but the way he lays on the floor foreshadows dying with Christ. Ultimately, the lines blur between Clarence and Jesus because of this oneness in crucifixion.
The film seems to uphold meaning in the cross, but it’s not about punishment. As a repentant Clarence eventually states, “We need enlightenment, not punishment.” He says this in the same breath as the famous line from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Ignorance leads to sin and opposition to God. In contrast knowledge of God brings transformation. This dovetails with Scripture: “The one who loves knows God” (1 John 4:7-8). Does this suggest the crucifixion is less about atonement than spiritual enlightenment? Given the allusion of Clarence dying with Christ (at least, as I interpret it), there still appears to be something occurring in the movie’s crucifixion, other than meaningless suffering.
Afterward
After watching the film, I was curious who wrote it and why. The film clearly has many rich theological, cultural, and ideological allusions. It’s a great film for evoking theological conversation. The writer and director of The Book of Clarence is Jeymes Samuel, a British-Nigerian filmmaker and songwriter. He grew up with Christian parents and watched certain Bible films growing up, but says, “Although I loved those films, the environment and the people just looked nothing like the environment and the people I was growing up in. So I wanted to tell a story about the environment that I grew up in but set in those days and kind of show how nothing’s changed and how alike we all are.”
Earlier, I interpreted the film as “mixed genre”—comedy and drama, but Samuel would express it differently. We are not looking at mixed genre, so much as a Black writer and director embracing the Bible film genre. It felt different only because, up until now, Bible films have centered white people and their biblical interpretations, making white seem standard. But Bible films are not inherently white any more than the Bible itself. Samuel wanted to do a Bible film, telling it from his own social location and perspective. As he points out, the hood has both laughter and terror. So what feels like an odd mixture of comedy and gravity is simply a reflection of Samuel’s own world meeting that of 1st century Jesus.
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1 Sally Gary, pointed out this insight on Benjamin symbolizing white-washed tombs, as we were talking about the film afterward. She also noted how Benjamin’s bad character is revealed in the crucifixion scene in contrast to Clarence, who is like Christ.