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The Pendragon Cycle Treats Christianity Like The Prophets On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
By Jennifer Asencio
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Daily Wire’s King Arthur epic, The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, is about the lives of Merlin and his father Taliesin as their legendary lives affect Briton during the 4th through 6th centuries. One of the major events of this era was the introduction of Christianity to the British Isles; the story is contemporary to the real-life Saint Patrick of Ireland, who converted the island nation to worship Jesus. This is a major theme of the show as Taliesin becomes a convert and later, Merlin channels divine energies to help unite the Britons against the Saxons.
Since it was produced by Daily Wire, I was skeptical of a show that was branded by its creator, Jeremy Boreing, as “probably the most Christian piece of entertainment since Braveheart.” I’m very eclectic in my spiritual beliefs, and definitely not Christian. I was also a religion major at first, but I specialized in Buddhism and neopaganism. I am far from the target audience of a Christian show. Despite this, I genuinely enjoyed most of the Left Behind series, a heavily preachy book set about the Rapture and its aftermath, but I was expecting The Pendragon Cycle to be heavily preachy and evangelical in the same vein as Left Behind.
The Pendragon Preaches Knights And Swordfights, Not Jesus
So it was with pleasant surprise that I watched the series and didn’t feel proselytized to at all. Sure, there are characters who convert to Christianity through direct contact with the bright light that is the show’s “One True God,” called by his medieval name of Yesu. But there were no attempts to convert anybody else, and no attempts to convert the audience.
Taliesin says nice things about his God, and Merlin can’t understand why everyone doesn’t embrace Him, but a show that was preaching would expect its audience to accept the truths of the two bards as their own personal truths rather than merely those of characters on a show. The Pendragon Cycle never does that. The show no more evangelizes Christianity than Deep Space Nine evangelizes the Prophets and the Orbs.
Other Religions Clash With The One True God
The other thing I noticed about religion in the show was its treatment of other gods. Bel, the god of the Atlanteans, is a terrifying bull who blows up his people’s island with a volcano, but he at least has the courtesy to warn Charis beforehand so she has time to evacuate as many as she can, including her father, Avallach, and sister Morgain.
In Briton, the druids worship Cernunnos, who was a real deity honored all over western Europe in the pre-Christian era. He is portrayed as a terrifying skeleton, similar to the Grim Reaper, but with antlers like a deer’s; historical Cernunnos looked a lot like what we think of as a satyr or Pan from Greek mythology, but with antlers instead of goat horns. As a character, his glowing red eyes are very scary, but so are the primeval woodlands that are his domain. He is never portrayed as evil himself; characters do evil things to harness his power for their personal gain, but he is never accused of being demonic or Satanic.
The Pendragon Cycle Does Not Engage In Evangelism
Evangelists believe every other religion in the world is Satanic, especially other forms of Christianity that are different from theirs; they don’t consider Catholicism to be Christianity at all. They believe the various other religions and Christian sects are expressions of Satan trying to trick humans into turning away from God. Even the saints of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox religions are viewed as “pagan” and therefore “Satanic,” and no mercy is shown to ancient religions like Druidism or those of the pre-Columbian Americas. This is why they have such urgency to convert people: they believe they are saving people from a terrible fate.
None of that is in this “Christian” show. Very few of the major characters actually convert to Christianity and never enter into conflict with their pagan kin and allies about it. No attempts are made to enforce the religion on the other Britons or even convince them that Yesu is anything but a deity more forgiving than the primordial gods of the natural world, the ones who reign over volcanoes and deep forests and hungry predators. No one is ever asked to hate the Old Gods, not even the Atlanteans, whose god destroyed their home.
Indiana Jones Is Preachier Than The Rise Of Merlin
Merlin channels the power of God frequently, but he never expects anyone to convert to his way of thinking, except in one instance that really proves the point. In a flashback to his childhood in the cold open for Episode 5, he stands before the druids and proclaims the power of God to them; they protest that other Christians have destroyed their holy groves. Merlin decries this act as “the act of ignorant men,” then proceeds to destroy their meeting place. I remember being annoyed by his hypocrisy, but later on, he sobs to Charis that he doesn’t understand why the druids weren’t convinced by his power. Charis’s response really sums up how religion in the show is treated overall: “Not every man will choose to believe… and nothing you or anyone else can do will change that.”
The Pendragon Cycle isn’t trying to change anyone’s belief and isn’t even trying to tell as Christian a story as old 1950s blockbusters like The Ten Commandments or Dimitrius and the Gladiators. Even Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade gets preachier and talks about Christianity far more than Jeremy Boreing’s masterpiece. Maybe a better comparison for the level of religious discussion in The Pendragon Cycle would be Raiders of the Lost Ark, which invokes the powers of the same God Merlin follows, but to everyone’s delight rather than the derision the King Arthur series has received.
King Arthur Was Always A Christian Legend
Finally, as I have mentioned before, the entire mythos of King Arthur is steeped in Christianity. He is ordained by God to be the Once and Future King, and famously quests for and achieves the Holy Grail, something even Indiana Jones didn’t get to keep. The original folk tales King Arthur was based on came from around the time The Pendragon Cycle takes place and were further solidified and Christianized in the 1300s by Thomas Mallory.
The Arthur we know from classics like Excalibur and even shows like Netflix’s Cursed was always Christian. Anyone who enjoyed King Arthur content before can easily appreciate the Daily Wire show because it has all the same themes they’ve been savoring all along. Avoiding this show over perceived religious proselytizing and the expectation of overbearing religious messaging is, as another Jeremy B once said, “nonsense on stilts.”
The Daily Wire Factor
Daily Wire does have a lot of conservative Christian content, but most of it is Catholic or archaeological. They’re not talking to Evangelicals or trying to convert the masses. None of their fictional content has overly religious overtones, and all are merely projects that mainstream Hollywood won’t touch because they can’t warp them to reflect their own values and politics.
The Pendragon Cycle is only as religious as it needs to be and is only a story that happens to include Christianity rather than being a Christian show. Its mild religious overtones shouldn’t be an excuse to miss out on this incredible production; it’s definitely a weak excuse, and I say that as one of Charis’s “not every [wo]man.”
The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is now streaming in its entirety on Daily Wire+.