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You wouldnt know it from the Hollywood buzz machine, but on the first weekend of the month, in a limited release, the film Christmas with the Chosen: The Messengers raked in 8.45 million viewers and came in fifth at the box office. Originally scheduled for a limited three-day release, it has now been extended through Christmas, even while being made available via streaming.

For those who dont know the work, the short film is an offshoot of one of the most successful crowdfunded streaming projects in history, The Chosen, a retelling of the Gospels that focuses on the backstories of many of the major characters. Projected for seven seasons, with two already available online and a third set to begin filming shortly, crowdfunding has supported the $10 million to $18 million cost for each season.

The success of the streaming series and the Christmas film demonstrates the ongoing market draw for shows that celebrate, rather than ignore or denigrate, traditional faith. Yet many films in this subgenre offer nothing beyond predictable, polemical plotlines.

The original Gods Not Dead, released in 2015, set the pattern, with predictable characters and story. The central conflict is between an overbearing atheist professor who is forcing students to sign a God is dead statement and a rebellious Christian student. The latest installment (Gods Not Dead: We The People) is even more polemical as it shifts, following a strain of contemporary evangelicalism, in the direction of putting faith in the service of direct political advocacy.

The Chosen is different. Accompanied by Bible study-guides and created by Dallas Jenkins, whose father penned the Left Behind book series, the series and the film might seem to be more of the same. Yet, Jenkins repudiates the notion that this is a stick-it-to-Hollywood thing, according to The Wall Street Journal. Inspired to become a film-maker after watching the Jack Nicholson film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and who likens The Chosen to rich character-driven dramas like Friday Night Lights, Jenkins combines the best of Hollywood with the best traditional storytelling techniques.

The series and spinoff film pose the question what might it have been like to have encountered the person of Jesus in the course of ordinary daily life, to have lived, dined, traveled, laughed and mourned with him. And what might it have been like to begin to wonder about the strange capacities of knowing, healing and forgiving of this otherwise seemingly ordinary human being. The result is a captivating human drama invested with deep spiritual significance.

The Chosen series, whose episodes have been viewed more than 312 million times, is unique. It is sympathetic to faith in ways that Hollywood finds difficult. Yet in its openness to the best of Hollywood and in its avoidance of culture wars and political diatribes, it is atypical of faith-based films.

Its popularity is a good sign for our culture and for art. It reflects our exhaustion with politics and our longing for meaning that transcends ideological battles.

Especially in the faith-based audience, there is a hunger for depictions of faith that include, rather than rule out, doubt. In one episode, Peter here portrayed as a desperate fisherman with a gambling problem and mounting debts complains to God, on behalf of the Jewish people: You cant decide whether were chosen or not.

Viewers also want to see complex depictions of the struggle with evil in the depths of the human soul. While Hollywood continues with some regularity to produce fantastical and absurd stories of exorcism, the story of Mary Magdalene, in the inaugural episode of The Chosen, is a compelling and chilling account of what it might mean to be in the grip of evil. Her eventual encounter with Jesus fills her and the audience with surprise and awe.

The brilliance of The Chosen is to take the most influential story of all time and to make it fresh, not by altering it to suit contemporary fads, but by inviting us to inhabit the perspectives of Jesus contemporaries. In its use of indirection and in its focus on surprise and wonder, The Chosen adopts both the method of the Gospels and the tools of genuine art. It thus opens a fresh path, one with lessons for both faith-based and mainstream Hollywood filmmaking.

Thomas S. Hibbs is the J. Newton Rayzor Sr. professor of philosophy at Baylor University.

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How The Chosen embraced the best of Hollywood and showed it what people really want - The Dallas Morning News

BENGHAZI, Libya

Libyas top electoral body said Wednesday that the son and onetime heir apparent of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi is disqualified from running in presidential elections that are to take place next month.

According to a list of barred candidates issued by the countrys High National Elections Committee, Seif Islam Kadafi is barred because of previous convictions against him. He can appeal the committees decision in court within the coming days.

Seif Islam was sentenced to death by a Tripoli court in 2015 for use of violence against protesters who were calling for his father to step down, but that ruling has since been called into question by Libyas rival authorities. He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising against his father.

Libya is set to hold the first round of its presidential vote on Dec. 24, after years of United Nations-led attempts to usher in a more democratic future and bring the countrys war to an end. After the overthrow and killing of Kadafi, oil-rich Libya spent most of the last decade split between rival governments one based in the capital, Tripoli, and the other in the eastern part of the country. Each side in the civil war has also had the support of mercenaries and forces from Turkey, Russia and Syria and other regional powers.

The son of Libyas former dictator submitted his candidacy papers in the southern town of Sabha, 400 miles south of Tripoli, on Nov. 14. It was the first time the 49-year-old, who earned a doctorate at the London School of Economics, had appeared in public in years.

He was captured by fighters in the town of Zintan late in 2011, the year when the popular uprising, backed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, toppled his father after more than 40 years in power. Moammar Kadafi was killed that same year in October amid the ensuing fighting that would turn into a civil war. The dictators son was released in June 2017.

The announcement of his possible candidacy has stirred controversy across the divided country, where a number of other high-profile candidates have also emerged in recent weeks.

Several controversial candidates came forward this month, including powerful military commander Khalifa Haftar and the countrys interim prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.

The long-awaited vote still faces challenges, including unresolved issues over laws governing the elections and occasional infighting among armed groups. Other obstacles include the deep rift that remains between the countrys east and west, split for years by the war, and the presence of thousands of foreign fighters and troops.

Link:
Kadafi's son disqualified from running for president of Libya

ROME (AP) The United Nations migration agency said 75 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya earlier this week as they attempted to reach Italy by boat.

The International Organization for Migration reported the latest tragedy in a tweet on Saturday, attributing the information to 15 survivors who were rescued by fishermen and brought to the port of Zuwara in northwestern Libya. It did not immediately provide further information.

Also on Saturday, the Italian Coast Guard rescued more than 420 migrants, including dozens of minors, from boats in difficulty in the Mediterranean Sea,

A coast guard statement said 70 people were brought safely by one of its motorboats to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily.

Meanwhile, a different coast guard vessel was headed to the port of Porto Empedocle on Saturday evening in Sicily with more than 350 migrants aboard after they were plucked to safety from a foundering fishing boat 70 miles (115 kilometers) from the Sicilian coast, the statement said. Among them were more than 40 minors.

That fishing boat was in danger, due to the bad weather conditions at sea and due to the elevated number of persons on board, the Coast Guard said. After being rescued by two motorboats, they were transferred to a larger Coast Guard vessel.

The statement described the rescue of the larger number of migrants as complex. Four cargo ships in the area were pressed into service to mitigate the impact of the wind on the rescue operation, it said, allowing the migrants to be safely rescued.

Each year, thousands of migrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia attempt the deadly Mediterranean sea crossing to Europe on overcrowded and often unseaworthy boats. More than 1,300 men, women and children have died so far in 2021 trying to cross the Central Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and Malta according to IOM.

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Follow all AP stories on global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.

Originally posted here:
UN agency: 75 migrants drown in Mediterranean off Libya ...

The bodies, including those of a baby and two women, were found late on Saturday in two separate locations in a coastal town.

The bodies of at least 27 Europe-bound refugeeshave washed ashore in western Libya, the countrys Red Crescent has said the latest tragedy on the worlds deadliest migration route.

The bodies, including those of a baby and two women, were found late on Saturday in two separate locations in the coastal town of Khoms, some 90km (55 miles) from Tripoli, the Red Crescent branch there said.

Three other refugeeswere rescued, and search efforts were underway for others, it said.

The bodies advanced state of decomposition indicates that the shipwreck happened several days ago, a security official told AFP news agency, adding the toll could rise.

Images published by Libyan media outlets showed corpses lined up along the shore then placed in body bags.

The refugeeslikely drowned in recent shipwrecks off Libya, a key departure point for African and Asian migrants making desperate attempts to reach Europe.

About 1,500 refugeeshave drowned in numerous boat mishaps and shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean route this year, according to the UN migration agency.

Migrants often endure horrific conditions in Libya before embarking northwards on overcrowded, often unseaworthy vessels that frequently sink or get into trouble.

The latest tragedy comes only days after 160 refugeesdied within a week in similar incidents, bringing the total number of lives lost this year to 1,500, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The IOM says more than 30,000 refugeeshave been intercepted in the same period and returned to Libya.

The European Union has cooperated closely with the Libyan Coast Guard to cut numbers of refugeesarriving on European shores.

On their return, many face further horrific abuses in detention centres.

Excerpt from:
Bodies of some 27 refugees wash ashore in Libya: Red Crescent - Al Jazeera English

It is located in western Libya in the Nafusa mountain at the bottom of it, about 170 km away from the Libyan capital, Tripoli. It is bordered to the south by Jadu, to the west by Al-Jawsh, to the east by Qasr Al-Hajj, and to the north by Sahal Jafara.

It consists of three tribes; Awlad Al-Badri, Awlad Shebl, and Al-Shaqran.

It is considered an oasis, it has palm trees and more than six water springs.

In the past, it supplied Jadu area and other areas with vegetables and grains, as it was famous of the cultivation of the cress or onions at the level of the western mountain.

Most of its residents depend on sheep and camels grazing.

It has many archaeological sites, among of which is the Qasr Al-Ahmer (Red Castle), which is about 400 years old was and it was named because of the use of red bricks in its construction, in addition to a number of old houses in which our ancestors lived.It also has an electricity station, which feeds most of the mountain regions.

Its population reached about 3000. It has hot climate and is famous for its rocks, as it was a destination for geology studies at Libyan universities, due to the diversity of rocks in it.

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The Shakshuk Town - The Libya Observer