What will be your legacy? Probably, unlike Nelson Mandela’s legacy. Before he passed away in December, aged 95, Mandela was in an uncommon position. Most of us can only speculate about the impact of our life. Mandela didn’t have to guess.

Mandela is the determined figurehead associated with the death of Apartheid in South Africa, and that nation’s subsequent Truth and Reconciliation process. His journey from political activist to longer-term prisoner, to peaceful freedom fighter, is so well-known it’s almost mythic. But Mandela was a real man. He lived to see his legacy live on, through the impressive achievement of victory against bigotry and oppression.

Reaching our cinemas this month, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom is a biopic based upon Mandela’s autobiography. Looking for a condensed treatment of Mandela, from young radical to international statesmen? Long Walk To Freedom spans about 50 years of his extraordinary life and has garnered praise for a charismatic performance by Idris Elba (The Wire).

Reviewers affirm Long Walk To Freedom is an unashamed celebration, yet one which doesn’t entirely paint Mandela as a saint. His being sentenced to life imprisonment, in the early 1960s, was for participating in bombings of police stations. Such guerilla acts of terrorism were tactics of the African National Congress, which Mandela was an emerging leader within. Battling against the Apartheid regime, Mandela’s initial stance of non-violence gave way to militant action.

However, as Long Walk To Freedom depicts, Mandela changed. Many credit his lifelong Christian faith as the reason.

Released in 1990, following 27 years of politically-motivated incarceration, Mandela’s mantra of forgiveness gobsmacked the world. In the aftermath of Apartheid’s demise, the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation enacted Mandela’s approach to national healing. Rather than retribution for confessed crimes, which occurred on either side of the Apartheid divide, amnesty and forgiveness were favoured.

Will Long Walk To Freedom spotlight Mandela’s Christian faith? Mainstream films rarely emphasise a public figure’s Christianity. Like William Wilberforce in Amazing Grace, the opposite usually happens – Christianity is downplayed, or ignored.

But Long Walk To Freedom won’t be entirely to blame if the South African hero’s faith is minimised. Mandela was a crusader who rarely spoke publically of his belief system. In his autobiography, he noted how the Dutch Reformed Church united its religious views with Apartheid. Mandela did not want to cause similar damage, by using Christianity as a political weapon.

One of Mandela’s rare speeches about his faith, was at the 1994 Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference. ‘Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith,’ he said. ‘It marks the victory of our risen saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave…. Our Messiah, whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be shamed are they who persecute others.’

Powerful. Inspiring. As is associated with Mandela.

His legacy will continue to impact the world. But how many people will not realise political revolutionary Jesus Christ was the driving force behind Mandela’s achievements? What if he had spoken more about Christianity, and how its worldview helped him transform a nation’s perspective?