As I’ve reflected on what makes this film series stand out among other LDS Christian literature, I’m beginning to think it’s the medium. For a very long time, LDS members experienced difficult trials. We have record and journals of the early saints, their hardships, difficulties, even deaths. They fought for what they believed in, yet still were expected to exercise peace and love towards their foes. Individuals in the Book of Mormon also killed because God commanded them. Still, the severity of these things perhaps isn’t fully realized through the literature we read. Perhaps, the light in our minds isn’t triggered only because of the medium, but possibly it’s because time and space have distanced us from the past.
The film series Jer3miah addresses both these issues. It’s set in the present, at BYU, which many refer to as “The Lord’s University.” However, the film series’ closeness in proximity and time changes the feeling of BYU as a “safe place.” It shadows things that LDS Christian audiences have read, but demonstrates them on a level that BYU students such as myself can connect. For example, the themes of controversial spiritual promptings, struggles of adoption, the importance of ancestral ties, and the overarching battle between good and evil, trigger a new sense of devotion for LDS members. While some view the secret combinations and supernatural good against supernatural evil as thrilling, this film series strikes a chord with believers, of the validity of the spiritual battle, which rages around us. We cannot see, cannot understand it. As the supernatural power protects Jeremiah from the supernatural evil, as a Judeo-Christian audience, we too strive for protection among the evils that govern this world, viewing Jeremiah’s fictional experience almost more realistic and more relatable than the historical events as recorded in the Book of Mormon and Church History.
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