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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Wednesday, February 25, 2004 I hope this will be my first and last comment on The Passion of the Christ. I'm not likely to ever be a convert to one of the Christian Orthodox denominations. I don't think I could stand up for an entire service, if nothing else, and I'd be embarrassed to have to sit down. But one aspect of the Orthodox churches (besides their divine music) strongly resonates with me—their insistence on the ineffability, the transcendence, the mystery of God's relationship with His people. Many people will not have encountered the word "mystery" in this context. It simply means that we can't quantify, or describe accurately, or know (in the same way that we can know physical worldly facts) what God is like, or how Christ's sacrifice could have atoned for the eons of human wickedness. The Orthodox churches (rightly, in my opinion) reject Western theologians' attempts to explain these and other difficult doctrines of Christian belief in human terminology. They also vehemently reject the idea that their iconography is in any way representational. The portraits of the Holy Family, the angels and the saints of the church are meant to lead the mind of the worshipper into that indescribable place of communion with God that can only be experienced, never completely articulated. Protestants have never quite accepted the notion that the statues and pictures in Roman Catholic and Christian Orthodox churches were anything more than thinly disguised idols. So the enthusiastic reaction of the evangelical churches to Mel Gibson's outpouring of graphic violence truly bewilders me. Just as the evangelicals insist that one doesn't need statues of Jesus in order to know God, I would have expected to hear them say, "You don't need to see two hours of a young man slowly being tortured to death in order to accept that Jesus Christ died for your sins." [Note: slightly edited here, as I realized I hadn't done a good job of making my point in the original text.] With their ability to draw the viewer into almost a participatory experience, movies can imprint on even the non-impressionable person a lasting, intense and first-hand sensation of having been present at the events of the story. Ask anyone who went to see Saving Private Ryan how that film changed their understanding of the horror of battle. The problem with presenting an event of religious significance in such a realistic form, however, is that the over-powering intensity will forever take the place of whatever understanding an individual previously had of the event. Put in blunt terms, you will no longer have your understanding of the atonement of Christ after seeing this film. You will have Mel Gibson's instead. Unless you're a whole lot more tough-minded than most people, your private, sacred, communication with God on the subject of Christ's death, and what it means to you, will forever be drowned out by the grisly violence of this film. Franklin Graham himself confirmed this position. On NBC's Today Show this morning, he said that after seeing the movie, "every time you think of Christ, you will have images of this film in your mind." Even more troubling, we hear of pastors urging parents to take their children to see this R-rated film. On the Today Show, Katie Couric asked Franklin Graham whether it was something children should see. At first, he answered the question honestly, and I believe, from the heart. "This was an execution—would you take your children to see a criminal being executed?" And then he backpedaled and said he thought teens could "handle it." The issue is not whether teenagers may be capable of viewing something like this without having nightmares afterward, but whether they should be forced by their parents and religious leaders to have to cope with it. Did anyone recommend taking children and teens to Saving Private Ryan in order to convince them of the awful nature of war? And to echo Franklin Graham, would we take our children to watch a criminal being put to death? Advance viewers described the film as "life-changing." In a much-forwarded email I received from someone who had seen an early advance screening, the writer said she started crying at the beginning of the film and didn't stop until after it was over. She attributed this to the compelling power of the film, and I would certainly not argue with her. The reactions are eerily reminiscent of those of a generation ago when The Exorcist was first aired. That film also presented an emotionally charged subject in far more realism than film-goers of the time were accustomed to, and if you're old enough, you'll remember the accounts of people screaming, or passing out, or claiming that demons had been cast out of them as well. Human beings have strong emotional reactions to frightening events, and being human, have a tendency to ascribe those emotions to something more than the interaction of neurotransmitters in their circulatory system. Ask anyone who has been sexually or physically abused, or who has experienced some dreadful traumatic event, what long-lasting physical effects they experience. The name for it is "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." I have to ask whether parents want their children's understanding of God's love, and His resulting sacrifice for us, to be imprinted in their minds in such horrific images that the child will never be able to escape from them. Let's try an analogy here: if the father of your children died while saving them from a house fire, would you want the children to watch a film that showed him running into the flames to rescue them, knowing that they were watching the imminent death of their beloved parent? Then how, in God's name, can you subject them to this film that revels in the physical torture of God's beloved Son? Let's not forget that Mel Gibson's previous filmography has such notable entries as the Road Warrior (Mad Max) films, strongly criticized by many religious leaders for their celebration of violence. If this film portrayed any other event than the death of Christ, he'd be drawn and quartered by the very people who are flocking to praise him now. Is it possible that he has simply found a socially acceptable outlet for an outpouring of violence that he couldn't present in any other form? Another disturbing outcome of this film is going to be the anger that people will inevitably feel. How could anyone watch another person being put to death before their eyes without a welling-up of rage against the perpetrators? Franklin Graham made it clear that "all of us" are the perpetrators, and I'm sure that message is going to be widely pronounced from America's Christian pulpits this coming Sunday. But not everyone will be able to internalize that guilt without acting it out. Whether the acting-out is directed specifically toward Jews, as many Jewish leaders fear, or just results in an overall increase in violent crimes in general is anybody's guess right now, but the point is that you can't put images like this in people's minds without something inimicable to society coming back out. I'll toss out one final personal objection of my own, and that's all. One young woman interviewed on television said, "You will never want to sin again after seeing this movie." In her words, I could plainly hear the old threat that has thundered from pulpits (and their equivalents) since the beginning of time: "Offend ME and you'll be sorry." In this case, we're supposed to understand that Christ was made to "be sorry" for our transgressions. Jesus made it explicitly clear, however, that his death and resurrection ushered in a new order, a new relationship between God and His people. We are now to love each other, as God loved us. In the words of the old hymn, "They Will Know That We Are Christians by Our Love." Unfortunately, the reputation of American Christians around the world owes much more to the images shown in this film than it does to loving our neighbors. posted by Liz @ 8:51 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. 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I hope this will be my first and last comment on The Passion of the Christ. I'm not likely to ever be a convert to one of the Christian Orthodox denominations. I don't think I could stand up for an entire service, if nothing else, and I'd be embarrassed to have to sit down. But one aspect of the Orthodox churches (besides their divine music) strongly resonates with me—their insistence on the ineffability, the transcendence, the mystery of God's relationship with His people. Many people will not have encountered the word "mystery" in this context. It simply means that we can't quantify, or describe accurately, or know (in the same way that we can know physical worldly facts) what God is like, or how Christ's sacrifice could have atoned for the eons of human wickedness. The Orthodox churches (rightly, in my opinion) reject Western theologians' attempts to explain these and other difficult doctrines of Christian belief in human terminology. They also vehemently reject the idea that their iconography is in any way representational. The portraits of the Holy Family, the angels and the saints of the church are meant to lead the mind of the worshipper into that indescribable place of communion with God that can only be experienced, never completely articulated. Protestants have never quite accepted the notion that the statues and pictures in Roman Catholic and Christian Orthodox churches were anything more than thinly disguised idols. So the enthusiastic reaction of the evangelical churches to Mel Gibson's outpouring of graphic violence truly bewilders me. Just as the evangelicals insist that one doesn't need statues of Jesus in order to know God, I would have expected to hear them say, "You don't need to see two hours of a young man slowly being tortured to death in order to accept that Jesus Christ died for your sins." [Note: slightly edited here, as I realized I hadn't done a good job of making my point in the original text.] With their ability to draw the viewer into almost a participatory experience, movies can imprint on even the non-impressionable person a lasting, intense and first-hand sensation of having been present at the events of the story. Ask anyone who went to see Saving Private Ryan how that film changed their understanding of the horror of battle. The problem with presenting an event of religious significance in such a realistic form, however, is that the over-powering intensity will forever take the place of whatever understanding an individual previously had of the event. Put in blunt terms, you will no longer have your understanding of the atonement of Christ after seeing this film. You will have Mel Gibson's instead. Unless you're a whole lot more tough-minded than most people, your private, sacred, communication with God on the subject of Christ's death, and what it means to you, will forever be drowned out by the grisly violence of this film. Franklin Graham himself confirmed this position. On NBC's Today Show this morning, he said that after seeing the movie, "every time you think of Christ, you will have images of this film in your mind." Even more troubling, we hear of pastors urging parents to take their children to see this R-rated film. On the Today Show, Katie Couric asked Franklin Graham whether it was something children should see. At first, he answered the question honestly, and I believe, from the heart. "This was an execution—would you take your children to see a criminal being executed?" And then he backpedaled and said he thought teens could "handle it." The issue is not whether teenagers may be capable of viewing something like this without having nightmares afterward, but whether they should be forced by their parents and religious leaders to have to cope with it. Did anyone recommend taking children and teens to Saving Private Ryan in order to convince them of the awful nature of war? And to echo Franklin Graham, would we take our children to watch a criminal being put to death? Advance viewers described the film as "life-changing." In a much-forwarded email I received from someone who had seen an early advance screening, the writer said she started crying at the beginning of the film and didn't stop until after it was over. She attributed this to the compelling power of the film, and I would certainly not argue with her. The reactions are eerily reminiscent of those of a generation ago when The Exorcist was first aired. That film also presented an emotionally charged subject in far more realism than film-goers of the time were accustomed to, and if you're old enough, you'll remember the accounts of people screaming, or passing out, or claiming that demons had been cast out of them as well. Human beings have strong emotional reactions to frightening events, and being human, have a tendency to ascribe those emotions to something more than the interaction of neurotransmitters in their circulatory system. Ask anyone who has been sexually or physically abused, or who has experienced some dreadful traumatic event, what long-lasting physical effects they experience. The name for it is "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." I have to ask whether parents want their children's understanding of God's love, and His resulting sacrifice for us, to be imprinted in their minds in such horrific images that the child will never be able to escape from them. Let's try an analogy here: if the father of your children died while saving them from a house fire, would you want the children to watch a film that showed him running into the flames to rescue them, knowing that they were watching the imminent death of their beloved parent? Then how, in God's name, can you subject them to this film that revels in the physical torture of God's beloved Son? Let's not forget that Mel Gibson's previous filmography has such notable entries as the Road Warrior (Mad Max) films, strongly criticized by many religious leaders for their celebration of violence. If this film portrayed any other event than the death of Christ, he'd be drawn and quartered by the very people who are flocking to praise him now. Is it possible that he has simply found a socially acceptable outlet for an outpouring of violence that he couldn't present in any other form? Another disturbing outcome of this film is going to be the anger that people will inevitably feel. How could anyone watch another person being put to death before their eyes without a welling-up of rage against the perpetrators? Franklin Graham made it clear that "all of us" are the perpetrators, and I'm sure that message is going to be widely pronounced from America's Christian pulpits this coming Sunday. But not everyone will be able to internalize that guilt without acting it out. Whether the acting-out is directed specifically toward Jews, as many Jewish leaders fear, or just results in an overall increase in violent crimes in general is anybody's guess right now, but the point is that you can't put images like this in people's minds without something inimicable to society coming back out. I'll toss out one final personal objection of my own, and that's all. One young woman interviewed on television said, "You will never want to sin again after seeing this movie." In her words, I could plainly hear the old threat that has thundered from pulpits (and their equivalents) since the beginning of time: "Offend ME and you'll be sorry." In this case, we're supposed to understand that Christ was made to "be sorry" for our transgressions. Jesus made it explicitly clear, however, that his death and resurrection ushered in a new order, a new relationship between God and His people. We are now to love each other, as God loved us. In the words of the old hymn, "They Will Know That We Are Christians by Our Love." Unfortunately, the reputation of American Christians around the world owes much more to the images shown in this film than it does to loving our neighbors.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
RSS Feed
PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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