The Second Coming & Family First

This article first appeared in the Age on April 30, 2005

It’s a question I, and millions of others have asked themselves, either as idle dinner party chat, or for more fundamental reasons of faith: what would happen if a man announcing he was the second coming of Christ arrived on earth? Would he simply be locked up as a madman? How would he prove he was the Son of God? The Second Coming (Sunday, ABC, 8.30 p.m) takes this premise and runs with it, in relatively punk style.

Steve Baxter (Christopher Eccleston - soon to be seen on our screens as Dr Who) is found incoherent on a moor in the North of England after being missing for 40 days and 40 nights, mumbling that he is the Son of God. His friends are relieved that he is alive but are worried that he’s gone mad. His dearest friend and love interest, Judith (Leslie Sharp), is particularly concerned. Steve decides to stage a major event to make the world believe. He selects a football stadium as his venue and silences his critics by performing a miracle. He goes on to tell the crowd that mankind must write its own Third Testament or face Judgment Day in five days time. All hell - somewhat literally - breaks lose. The Devil emerges in yobs and policeman alike, trying to throw Steve’s potential good works off track. The media goes crazy, and Steve becomes a kind of rock star forced to be held in police barracks for his own safety.

The Second Coming is playful in its reworking of elements of the original stories of Jesus. Is Judith a female Judas or is she a modern day Mary Magdalene? And while Steve doesn't have a virgin for a mum, rather he has a dad who shoots blanks. Eccleston's performance really is brilliant, and he works well with the schizophrenic undertones of Steve (and Jesus') belief that they are sons of God and eternal life is theirs, while also giving him the grace and force of a man of wisdom.

For such a good idea The Second Coming falls strangely flat. The film loses the courage of its (considerable) convictions. Instead of leaving us tense and in doubt as to whether we are witnessing something miraculous, the Devils have eyes that glint and, despite Eccleston's attempts to infuse his performance with a mad poignancy, it's made pretty clear from early on that this guy is the real deal. The film makers seemed to have lost faith in the audience to make their own connections and draw their own conclusions. That said, the film's twist, which lies in the content of the third testament, is a radical and thought provoking one - and certainly not one that members of Family First, the subject of the documentary that follows The Second Coming, would accept.

Compass (Sunday, 10.20 p.m.) explores Family First's dramatic debut on our political scene. No one had heard of them 6 weeks before the last federal election, but they were catapulted from obscurity to winning a senate seat in Victoria and almost gaining balance of power. Some Australian were inspired by their call for a return to family values others were alarmed by such a call co-existing with the inevitable attacks on minority groups. Concern was also expressed at Family First's veiling of it's close ties with the pentecostal Assembly of God and associated questions to do with the separation of Church and State. Whether they will make a second coming in the next election, or merely succeed in pushing political debate even further to the right is yet to be seen.

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