In the Tyler Perry-narrated 'The Passion,' Fox hits on several TV trends

Fox, the network that let the Prince of Darkness out of Hades to fight crime in Lucifer, presents The Passion, a two-hour musical retelling of the Easter story that will air live at 8 p.m. Sunday from New Orleans.

There's probably more at work here than balancing some cosmic scales, the way the late producer Aaron Spelling tried to do in capping a career of sexy schlock like Melrose Place, Dynasty, and, yes, Satan's School for Girls with the prudish schlock of 7th Heaven.

They don't call it broadcasting for nothing, and in the age of time-shifting, those who need a bigger-than-cable audience to pay the bills are looking to live events.

Executives at Fox, whose Grease: Live this winter was one of the better-received of the recent spate of live TV musicals (and whose hit Empire returns March 30), are also big believers in the power of music to draw a crowd.

Could The Passion - hosted and narrated by New Orleans native Tyler Perry in a city whose association with the Christian season of Lent is through Mardi Gras - draw a crowd of believers?

In the Netherlands, where the format for the newest twist on the centuries-old Passion Play was developed - and where it has been an annual live TV event since 2011 - the majority of the population reportedly no longer identifies itself as Christian.

Not so in the United States, where Christianity is waning, according to the Pew Research Center, but where seven out of 10 people still consider themselves Christians.

Among major sects, only evangelical and historically black Protestant churches were reported by Pew as not losing a significant percentage of their adherents between 2007 and 2014. Evangelicals alone represent about a quarter of the U.S. population.

That's a huge potential audience, and in the case of those whose churches feature contemporary music in their worship, one that might be more open to seeing the story of Jesus' arrest, death, and resurrection told in modern dress, with popular music (and a 20-foot illuminated cross carried in procession through the streets).

But will that audience find its way to the home of Family Guy? Will Family Guy fans tune in to see American Idol veteran Chris Daughtry as Judas, Trisha Yearwood as Mary, or Seal as Pontius Pilate? (Jencarlos Canela, of NBC's Telenovela, plays Jesus.)

Mainstream TV's record with religious-themed programing is hit or miss. The History Channel's The Bible drew huge ratings in 2013, but the NBC sequel, A.D. The Bible Continues, was canceled after one season, and ABC's Old Testament series Of Kings and Prophets debuted this month to pitiful numbers and was canceled Thursday.

But then Lucifer, which no longer has The X-Files as its lead-in, has had its numbers decline steadily since its January debut. Things are tough all over.

And live is live.

Whether The Passion proves to be a soaring, spiritual success or the kind of celebrity-clogged train wreck in which Twitter revels, it's two hours guaranteed not to be quite like anything else on television Sunday.

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