Who Does Hollywood Say Jesus Is? Christian Actors, Filmmakers Share Their Experiences
TV producer Brian Bird, however, has had a completely different experience after three decades in Hollywood and said Christians sometimes scare people away from being accepting of Jesus.
"I would say that the perception of Jesus among people that I worked with for 30 years is that He was a great moral leader. I don't think most people that I've worked with would say He's Messiah or Savior of the world, but I do believe they picture Him like a great moral leader, like Gandhi or somebody in that category," Bird told CP.
He added that he doesn't believe they have "the same problem with Jesus that they do with Jesus followers."
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"I think that when I have pointed colleagues toward Jesus, they've been very open to hearing more about Jesus, about who He is. Where they get hung up a lot of times is with Jesus' followers and the hypocrisy that they see or the cultural strangeness that they see," he said.
The co-creator of the hit Hallmark Channel series "When Calls the Heart" explained that, in the past, Christ followers have worn their faith like "a giant, big weird hat." Wearing Christianity as something to be boastful of instead of genuinely showing Christ's love to others is what's caused the riff, he argued.
"When I first started working in Hollywood, having grown up in the church and been raised in the church and being a Christian for most of my life, I had that sort of sense that I had to clean these people up, I had helped them. Then, I got this deep soul impression of 'who do you think you are?'" Bird explained.
He said the soul stirring came from God who corrected him and asked him to "'love on them.'"
"'You represent me in a loving way and you just be a friend and love on them. I'll do the rest.' So I switched to that approach and I've just always been a person who wants to love on and be friends, and take my worldview and my faith into my work with me and do really good work. And also be a good friend," Bird added.
He ended his comments by saying that Hollywood doesn't care what people believe more than the level of excellence they put into their craft.
"You have to pursue your skill and your talents like Michelangelo would. If you're good at what you do, you could be a Buddhist martian and you would be accepted in Hollywood. There's not a big sense of discrimination for people who have earned the right to be there no matter what they believe," Bird specified. "If you're good at what you do and you're up for an authentic friend maker and you care about people, they want to be around you. They want to hear more from you. [Then] you earn the right to share what you believe."
