Article

Comment

Easter

Politics

6 March 2025

4 min read

Amid the power plays the Passion of Zelensky stands out

How to respond to the Trumps and Pilates of this world?

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

President Zelensky, wearing black, sits silently.

White House via Wikimedia Commons.

It started with prime minister Keir Starmer’s shameful toadying to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, when he flourished a letter from his King inviting Trump for his second state visit to Britain.

My first thought was what Starmer was going to produce for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky when he visited London shortly afterwards. A Fortnum & Mason voucher? My second thought was marginally more profound. Thirty pieces of silver came to mind. And I wondered why. Was it possible that Starmer was betraying Ukraine for the trinkets and baubles of our monarchy, just to stay in favour with the world’s most powerful man?

As we have just slid past Ash Wednesday into the season of Lent, these thoughts take on a fiercer focus as the ends of our stories look like they’re in our beginnings, as the cast of characters in Passiontide ahead of Easter seem to take their places in our world politics now.

Is US Vice President JD Vance a little like the Temple high priest of Jerusalem, Caiaphas, when he demands rhetorically: “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish”? Isn’t the price of bringing Zelensky down and appeasing Russia’s Vladimir Putin worth it for peace in Ukraine?

It might be customary in a column such as this to continue to ascribe characteristics of the cast of the Passion of the Christ to the leaders of today’s great powers. But that’s too easy and doesn’t really work. Starmer is no Judas. His courtly flattering of Trump preceded the attempted humiliation of Zelensky in Washington and since that event Starmer is widely applauded across the political spectrum for playing a blinder and not putting a foot wrong.

He is no betrayer of Zelensky, quite the reverse. And, anyway, casting him in that role risks the sacrilege of deifying Zelensky, who is definitely not the Messiah. Indeed, you don’t have to be a devoted Trumpian to invoke Monty Python’s Life of Brian and note that his performance before Trump and Vance was not messianic, but that of a very naughty boy.

Such comparisons are not going to get us very far. Maybe it’s better to turn them the other way around. Of greater value, perhaps, is to use the power plays that we’ve just witnessed on our global stage better to understand the one we’ll shortly be commemorating from a couple of millennia ago in Jerusalem.

In doing so, we may even begin to peek into some insights that demolish any case that the historical events of Passiontide are of no relevance today. And this isn’t just about politics, it’s about our human capacity for abusive power.

Like Trump, Pilate just wanted to make a deal to keep the peace. Like Trump, he told Jesus that he wasn’t being sufficiently appreciative of what he was trying to do for him.

Take that scene in the Oval Office when Zelensky was bullied by the two most powerful figures (Elon Musk excepted) in the new US regime. It’s a classic weapon in any domestic abusive relationship to blame the victim. So it was that Trump/Vance sought to blame Zelensky and by extension his nation for his and its oppression by Russia.

And so it was when the Nazarene stood before Pontius Pilate, the mouthpiece of the most powerful man on earth of his day, the Emperor of Rome, Tiberius. The similarities between the two situations are striking. And not just because one can reasonably doubt that Jesus of Nazareth wore a suit on that day either.

The latter, a battered artisan and preacher from the provincial hills and a man described as being “without sin”, was a classic subject of victim-blaming. Like Trump, Pilate just wanted to make a deal to keep the peace. Like Trump, he told Jesus that he wasn’t being sufficiently appreciative of what he was trying to do for him. Like Trump, he told him that he had absolute power over his fate. And, like Trump, he is certain that truth is anything he wishes it to be in the moment when he asks contemptuously: “What is truth?”

The intriguing question is how this tells us to respond to the Trumps and Pilates of this world. In the immediate circumstances of interrogation in both the Oval Office and the praetorium, the answer seems partly to be silence. The Christ chooses it; Zelensky has it forced upon him by the coercive control of his interlocutors.

Again, I make no claim for a Christ-like Zelensky. But silence as a human response invariably has its source in humility. In the most worldly of senses, that is now very apparent in the conciliatory words of the Ukrainian president towards his bully, calling his leadership “strong”, regretting how the meeting turned out and expressing willingness to return to the table.

Humility isn’t weakness. It brings the power of peace and enables the triumph of love. That’s the lesson from two thousand years ago. And the lesson is also that no good can come from a total lack of it, just as for Trump as it was for Pilate.

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Article

Belief

Comment

Film & TV

27 January 2025

5 min read

When Faithfuls lack faith, there’s a lot more to lose

Having faith is hard. It can be a costly act of courage.

Jonathan Rowlands

Jonathan is a theology lecturer and Liverpool FC fan.

Four game show contestants and a host stand in the garden of stately home.

The Faithful Four.

And so The Traitors comes to a close once again.

Despite the small matter of it reinforcing my anxieties about our modern predisposition for isolation, I’ve really enjoyed this series. It’s been full of twists, tension, and just the right amount of over-the-top melodrama.

And in this respect, the series finale did not disappoint. Amidst the backstabbing, and the reveals, and the arguments, however, it got me thinking about the nature of faith.

Be warned: there are spoilers ahead for the finale of The Traitors.

As the finale begins, pseudo-Welshwoman Charlotte (I promise that makes sense in context) is the last Traitor standing. However, she is unmasked as a Traitor by Faithful Frankie, who wins the power to reveal one contestant’s identity and picks the right person through a mildly infuriating fluke.

Charlotte is banished and the remaining four Faithfuls enter ‘the endgame’. At this point, if all four agree, the game ends and they split the £94,600 jackpot between them. That is, unless a traitor remains in the game. In that case, the traitor takes the lot.

It was absolutely fascinating and more than a little heartbreaking to watch these four people – all of whom were Faithfuls – work out whether they can trust each other. If all of them agree to end the game, they each walk away with £23,500.

But they don’t.

Initially, all four contestants decide to continue. None of them quite trusts the people around them. And so, the hapless Alexander is voted off next. He was too pure for this game anyway; he would have given his share to charity.

Three remain. All three once again vote to continue.

One contestant, Jake, says

“I’m just not confident that I can trust the people around me.”

And so he, along with the other remaining Faithful Leanne, votes to banish Frankie. The same Frankie who outed Charlotte as a Traitor. The same Frankie who wanted the money so she could surprise her boys back home.

Two remain. And so the game ends by default.

But the doubts don’t end. Jake and Leanne are left wondering if they will leave with £47,300 each, or if they’re just about to be screwed over by the other. The viewer gets the impression that, if each could banish the other, they would.

“Why won’t you look me in the eyes?!” Leanne asks Jake in a panic, now seemingly convinced Jake is a traitor, about to take away all her hard-earned money. About to take away her only chance at IVF, and a baby.

Both are revealed as Faithfuls and the game ends with joy and tears. Jake gets to renovate his house, Leanne gets to try for a baby. All is well. Except for the 23 other contestants who leave with nothing, dreams in tatters.

I’m not saying that Jake, Leanne, Frankie, and Alexander are wrong for being suspicious of others. Having faith is hard. It is an act of courage.

The only way the common good is most fruitfully attained is through the exercising of faith in one another.

It’s easy not to have faith in very much at the moment. Our politicians are a heady mix of inept and corrupt. Our institutions often appear as little more than opaque, faceless entities hell-bent on self-preservation and self-interest, costs be damned.

It’s hard to make a compelling case for why you should trust the state. Or the police. Or even the Church. Or any other number of people or institutions. Each is surrounded by a litany of failure and cover up. In such a context, faith seems an act of foolishness.

And notice, too, that having faith in their fellow Faithfuls would have been a costly decision to make. Leanne and Jake leave The Traitors with £47,300. Had they trusted their fellow Faithfuls, that number would be halved. Still a remarkable amount of money but, when you’re attempting IVF or renovating a house, this can be the difference between getting everything you’ve dreamed of, or not.

That’s exactly what The Traitors finale brings into such sharp relief. It takes courage to have faith. It is not a cop out. To have faith in those around us is to put our neck on the chopping block and hope no-one swings the axe.

To have faith is to risk that which is most dear to us in the hope that others might have what matters most to them. It is a deeply vulnerable act of selflessness. It is not meant to be easy.

And so ultimately, we can forgive the Faithfuls their faithlessness. Would you trust a complete stranger if £47,300 was on the line? When I think of everything that money would mean for my family, I’m not sure I would.

But the only way the common good is most fruitfully attained is through the exercising of faith in one another. Only through faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity can we reach a truly equitable society where Leanne gets her baby, and Jakes gets his house, and Frankie gets to treat her family, and Alexander gets to donate to charity. (Bless that man, but he is slightly undercutting my point with his selflessness here. How selfish of him.)

Having faith is not easy, or fun, or comfortable, or without sacrifice. It is an act of love that costs much. An act of love that places us in a relationship with others that is vulnerable to abuse and deceit and harm. And for those who have had their faith repaid with abuse and deceit and harm, the cost of continuing to live in faith can understandably seem too high.

But maybe, just maybe, there is truth and goodness and beauty to be found in humanity of those around me. Maybe, just maybe, The Traitors warns us of the dangers of allowing our suspicions to trump our faith in each.