“Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming / From tender stem hath sprung! / Of Jesse’s lineage coming / As men of old hath sung / It came a flower bright.”
These lyrics of the Christian hymn “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” played behind the penultimate scene of “The White Lotus’” season three finale, which aired Sunday, April 6.
Traditionally performed at Christmastide, the hymn recounts the birth of Christ, describing his descent to earth through the metaphor of a blooming flower. The hymn’s interplaying of a cappella harmonies and decided phrase endings accompany a montage of the unfurling fates of privileged, archetypal characters in the HBO dark comedy, which satirizes the US’s elite and affluent’s struggles and shortcomings amid a luxurious resort backdrop.
This season, set in Thailand, has carried the image of the blooming flower not only in the popular show’s name, but through representations of characters with a diverse array of religious and spiritual backgrounds and pursuits, spanning from Protestantism to Buddhism to Astrology — each seeking their own version of spiritual enlightenment, or blossoming.
MAX’s “The White Lotus” is among several top-rated 2025 streaming releases with a plot hinged on overtly spiritual themes, exploring how religious diversity manifests in our modern society or tackling interfaith relationships. Many shows – including Apple TV’s “Severance” and Netflix’s “Love is Blind” — approach philosophical questions and the challenge of finding common ground, especially in the United States’ religious landscape that , though it reflects increasingly fewer weekly church-going congregants, is seeing a rise of seekers, with 50% of religiously unaffiliated Americans identifying as spiritual.
As Chris White, religion scholar and professor of the Harvard course “Religion in American Media and Pop Culture,” describes, the way digital media has evolved in 21st century has created a television market with space and demand for more specific subject matter — including religion.
“One thing you notice from shows during [the 70s and 80s],” he said, in reference to a media model that required broadcast networks to develop programming to reach the broadest market possible and the influence of secularization theory on much of academia and culture, “is they don’t really like to touch religion.”
The age of streaming services and internet culture, however, not only brought a shift in how viewers consume television, but a gateway for diverse storytelling. “What that means for religion,” Chris White told Interfaith America, “is that it starts popping up all over the place … and there’s a marketplace for it.”
“The White Lotus,” created by Mike White, who grew up a conservative Christian and whose life and work is influenced by Buddhist principles, challenges its viewers with storylines of complex characters of different religious and spiritual iterations. Characters include former altar-boy turned financier Tim Ratliff who desperately attempts to hide his unraveling professional and ethical missteps from his traditional Southern family, his daughter Piper, on a quest for self-actualization and a struggle with her own privilege while exploring a Buddhist monastery near the resort, and the amateur security guard and Thai native Gaitok, who wrestles with his Buddhist practice and the principle of pacifism.
“I feel like there’s something that is an outgrowth of, I guess, my religious upbringing,” said Mike White, discussing the show’s humanism in a recent podcast appearance, “the best part of that – which is just… you know, that we are more alike than we are different and these little idiosyncrasies can be shared.”
Mike White’s characters, like the arguably most self-aware member of a trio of passive-aggressive, forty-something blonde friends, Laurie, who claims in a monologue in the show’s finale that she “[doesn’t] need religion or God to give [her] life meaning because time gives it meaning,” serve as more than just depictions of lifestyles or spiritual outlooks — they invite viewers to draw comparisons, question judgement and even reflect on their own religious or spiritual identities.
Where religion and media intersect, there are a few different ways to understand television series or movies not only as portrayals of spiritual ideas, but as mediums for viewers to find meaning for themselves, whether ritually tuning in during a popular show’s weekly release, finding community in a show’s fandom or engaging with “other still religious dimensions to viewing media,” as Chris White puts it, which “bring up spiritual ideas, and allow people to explore them and think about them.”
The long-awaited second season of Apple TV’s “Severance,” which wrapped up last month, is another recent streaming show that invites its audience to reflect on questions of morality and spirituality.
Viewers of the mystery box show might recognize themes like the pursuit of common goals across deep difference, the role of ritual in bolstering extremist ideology, the question of what constitutes a soul and the challenges and rewards of dialogue across difference. These themes play out in the cooperation between Lumon’s severed floor’s employees, each with different worldviews and motives; the religious symbolism of the Eagen empire’s baby goats and “Outdoor Retreat Team Building Occurrence” (ORTBO) lore, mirroring Abrahamic religions’ historic rituals of animal sacrifice and readings of sacred texts; as well as the relationship between Burt and Fields, whose convictions about the afterlife are put to the test through Burt’s severed status; and the interactions of Mark’s “innie” and “outie,” who attempt bridging across conflict in their tape-recorded conversations.
Meanwhile, reality television shows like Netflix’s “Love is Blind” touch on the struggles of dating in both an increasingly polarized political climate and religiously diverse society. The most recent season’s depiction of the complexities of Minneapolis couple Sara Carton and Ben Mezzenga’s engagement, and their attempt to build a relationship across their respective ex-Catholic agnostic and Christian worldviews, leaves audiences to question what it takes to navigate an interfaith partnership and the extent to which alignment on social justice issues is necessary for a healthy marriage.
The on-screen relationship of season three “Love is Blind” alums Alexa and Brennon LeMieux — a Jew and a Christian — offers a constructive example not only of interfaith marriage but a representation of religious diversity in streaming shows.
In an interview with Netflix, Alexa shared that she “received hundreds of DMs from Jewish people thanking her for speaking so publicly about her religion and identity.”
Similarly, last year’s Netflix release “Nobody Wants This,” which will return for a second season this fall, depicts the interfaith relationship of fictional characters Rabbi Noah and agnostic podcast host Joanne. The show approaches the experience of dating across religious and worldview differences through the familiar tropes of the romantic comedy genre.
As Dilshad Ali reported for RNS earlier this year, covering streaming shows centering Muslim narratives like “Mo” and “We Are Lady Parts,” there is value in authentic depictions of religious minorities on the small screen and a clear distinction between mere inclusion and accurate representation. Mixed reviews for “The White Lotus” and “Nobody Wants This” among practicing Buddhists and Jews also confirm the indispensability of religious literacy in production conversations and writers’ rooms.
As the US’s religious diversity continues to grow and our digital landscape evolves, stories on the small screen prompt viewers of all faiths, or none, to reflect on questions of meaning, representation and identity; join the conversation; or make space for what Chris White describes as “those characteristically religious emotions like awe and wonder at the universe.”
