Dramas


These plays are about famous people who struggled with faith. Some had it early.  Some lost it and regained it. Some doubted until life and death changed their minds. Some felt their God wouldn’t leave them alone, others felt a void. Some came to faith after intellectual wrestling, others were forced by crushing loss to question their doubt and move toward faith. 

 

Abraham Lincoln Stories of FaithAbraham Lincoln: God’s Better Angel

Abraham Lincoln loses two of his three sons while fighting to save the Union. His struggle slowly persuades him to have faith in God.

Though not a religious man in his early years, Abraham Lincoln came to place his trust in God as personal losses and the strains of Civil War wore on him. Lincoln and Mary Todd had four sons, lost two of them to illness, one in Springfield, the other while they lived in the White House. These losses drove her to despair, him to consider what he believed about faith in God. His story of faith tells of the enormous pressure of trying to save the Union, debating freeing slaves, and learning to trust God.  Click here for an excerpt of this drama.

 

King DavidKing David: Blessed King, Suffering Man

A play about King David’s rapid rise to power, love affair with Bathsheba, and killing of her husband Uriah. David’s story of faith leads him to admit his sin to God and worry that his children squabble over replacing him as king.

Blessed by God as the greatest king of Israel, David was young, handsome, smart, brave, and charismatic. He proclaimed his faith in God publicly. The chief priests and ruling judges of the scattered twelve tribes believed they could save Israel from invaders only by being led by a king. By defeating Goliath and the Philistines, David convinced Israel he was their best and bravest warrior. He nearly threw away his revered place by falling in love with the beautiful Bathsheba and arranging to have her husband killed in battle. His children quarreled about who would succeed him and one tried to kill him. This story of faith tells how David’s faith in God was tested and how he pleaded with the Lord for forgiveness.  Click here for an excerpt of this drama.

 

Dietrich BonhoefferDietrich Bonhoeffer: The Man Whom God Would Not Let Go

Bonhoeffer fights his own Lutheran church and Nazis for the church’s soul in the 1930′s. God will not leave him alone until he works to destroy the Nazis.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, born an aristocrat and trained as a religious thinker in the 1920’s, gradually became an active fighter for the soul of German Protestantism. His training as a theological student did not prepare him for the whirlwind of National Socialism. In his story of faith, he sees his church abandoning its Christian principles to embrace Nazism and fights back; first, with words, then, with defiant action. Like Martin Luther, his faith in God’s grace is strengthened by struggle. He argues against taking the easy way out of faith through cheap grace. Instead, he battles for the cost of discipleship or living our faith through tough choices. By 1939, the German Lutheran church embraces Nazism completely. Slowly, Bonhoeffer begins to see God is calling him to oppose Hitler, even if it costs him his own life.  Click here for an excerpt of this drama.

 

St. Francis of AssisiSt. Francis:  Fighter, Fool and Lover of God

A Story of Faith in which Francis of Assisi resists God’s call to care for the poor.

Francis of Assisi joyously loved God and brought charity to the poor. Yet, as a young boy he wanted to be a knight fighting Muslims in the Crusades. As with Paul, God appeared to Francis on the road. The boy resisted for several years, but finally saw that God had called him to a life of serving the poor. His friends and family called him a fool for giving away his earthly possessions and following Jesus. Francis’s story of faith begins with the Pope supporting his idea that Franciscans should have no earthly possessions and no administrative structure and continues with opposition from the Cardinals and some of his own followers. Late in his life, Francis sails across the Mediterranean to Egypt and to convince the most powerful Muslim sultan to convert to Christianity. Francis places his life in the hands of a powerful warrior with no protection but his own reason and faith in God.  Click here for an excerpt of this drama.

 

St. PaulSt. Paul: Champion of Christianity

St Paul’s story of faith weaves his religious training by chief rabbi Gamaliel together with his tax collector days and with his conversion on the road to Damascus. His faith is tested during his preaching and church-founding days as he travels around the Mediterranean Sea.

Raised a devout Jew, Saul of Tarsus became a tax collector in the hinterlands of the Roman Empire. Especially hard on those who claimed to believe in Jesus, Saul was very successful. He is transformed by Jesus’ appearance on the road to Damascus. Giving up his first life, the new Paul preaches the teachings of Jesus to Jews and Gentiles throughtout the Mediterranean. His story of faithtells how he is trapped between Rome’s power and Jerusalem’s religion.He is the first to argue that God’s grace is a free gift, if it is accepted.  Click here for an excerpt of this drama.

 


 

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