The ‘Reacher’ actor is a Christian. And he’s fighting back against unfair criticism

Alan Ritchson, the Christian actor who plays Jack Reacher in Amazon’s hit TV show, has defended his decision to play the vigilante. James Cary says the Bible is full of moral ambiguity. If Christians don’t like it, they’ll need to take it up with Jesus when they see him

Tens of billions of dollars have been made by writing stories that show a good guy shoot the bad guys. It could be Indiana Jones shooting Nazis, Rambo shooting Russians or John McClane shooting criminals posing as terrorists. In the writing business, they say: “nobody knows anything”. But this one thing seems to work.

It’s working for Amazon right now, who have found a hit with Reacher, a drama based on a series of books of Lee Child. Many of us are watching the eponymous mass of muscles despatch wave after wave of henchmen for arms dealers. For a TV show, the body count is a little on the high side, but we’re rarely in any doubt that the baddies deserve it. They rarely speak to put their side of the story across, which makes it all much simpler.