Jeanne D’Arc at Body and Soul expressed surprise over my earlier post wondering why some people are so obsessed with the crucifixion of Jesus. As she said, “Blow me over. I always thought that was a Catholic thing.”
She may have been surprised by my post because she thought it was only Catholics who were obsessed with the crucifixion; I’ve been surprised by the comments to my post that reveal how wrong I was in thinking that this was a predominately Protestant thing. In my mind I had it that the Catholics had the traditions surrounding the crucifixion–the Easter Day reenactments, the bloodied Jesus hanging on the wall–but the Protestant fundamentalists were the ones who really liked to dwell on the violence in their everyday speech and in their weekly sermons. Perhaps I’m wrong in that, but I don’t know that there are is a growing number of Protestants who are focused on the violent aspects of the crucifixion. As many have pointed out, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a movie steeped in Catholic imagery that has the Bible Belt Christians embracing it wholeheartedly.
There’s a reason for this.
Before I can explain what this reason is and where it comes from, I’ll need to describe two other groups I often encountered among the conservative Protestant set. These groups are the martyr-obsesed and the Revelation-obsessed. When it comes to Protestantism, the martyr-obsessed tend to be a subset of the crucifixion-obsessed, while the crucifixion-obsessed tend to be a subset of the Revelation-obsessed.
Like the crucifixion-obsessed, the martyr-obsessed tend to be male, outwardly devout, and leaders in their congregations and Bible study groups. Also like the crucifixion-obsessed, the martyr-obsessed have a tendency to make torture the subject of their Bible studies and bring up violence in their casual conversation, but unlike the crucifixion-obsessed the martyr-obsessed have broadened their area of interest to include every Biblical figure who was tortured and/or slain for his or her beliefs rather than focusing specifically on Jesus.
I knew one such martyr-obsessed man by the name of Bob. He was an ex-marine who had been converted to Christianity when he was in his thirties by a branch of the Crossroads Project. Because he had three teenagers, Bob was heavily involved in the youth group and was a member of the Bible study that eventually became the de facto youth group Bible study due to the number of families with teenagers who belonged to it. I was good friends with Bob’s sons and an active member of the youth group, so I had plenty of opportunities to interact with Bob and to participate in classes and devotionals lead by him. His favorite discussion topic was “How to resist the temptations of the secular culture,” almost always taught by way of a Biblical figure who stood up for God even in the face of potential or actual punishment. I can remember one particular lesson revolving around Stephen, the first Christian to by martyred in the New Testament after Jesus’ resurrection.
Stephen was stoned to death for his beliefs. His story is told in the book of Acts. It begins with Stephen in Jerusalem performing miracles and teaching the Gospel. A group of Jews were unable to argue him down so they conspired to have Stephen brought before the Sanhedrin where false witnesses would testify against him. There Stephen gave a speech denouncing the Jews for never having listened to a prophet of God and for having betrayed and murdered Jesus. This so enraged the Sanhedrin and the people present that they took Stephen outside the city to stone him. After begging God not to hold this sin against the people Stephen was blessed by God such that he fell asleep while being stoned so that he wouldn’t feel the pain of the rocks being tearing his body and crushing his bones. The important part of this story to Bob as he lead the Bible study, was not the bit about the evil Jews or the bit about the stupid Jews or the lesson underneath the anti-semitism that it’s important to do as God commands or the lesson about standing up for what you believe or that God rewards those who forgive others; rather, the most important part of the story to Bob were the rocks, the torn body, and the crushed bones. What Stephen said, how he said it, why he said it, and the fact the he stood up for his beliefs were all secondary. What mattered was how much it hurt.
So the lesson consisted of descriptions of what happened to various organs when hit by rocks, how the skin would split more from pressure than from jagged edges, how the bones would break, when the skull would crack and what would happen to the brains once held inside. I don’t know how accurate his information really was, but Bob knew how to speak in such a way that left people squirming uncomfortably. I can’t recall know if it was he who brought a large rock in as a prop for the lesson, or if that was someone else at a different time, but I do recall being asked to imagine how it would feel to have that rock thrown into my chest or head. The implication was that if I wouldn’t be willing to take that, my faith wasn’t strong enough.
There were other lessons about other martyrs from Bob and people like him. After the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came over the twelve disciples shortly after Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, the Twelve divided to spread Christianity to other parts of the world. We got lessons about what happened to them: Peter was crucified, according to tradition he was crucified upside down; John died a prisoner on Patmos island shortly after writing the book of Revelation; others were burned or boiled alive. What happened to the disciples reads like an anthology of torture. We also got lessons on the prophets: Isaiah was cut in half with a timber saw, starting at the crotch so that he’d take longer to die; Ezekiel was ordered by God to tie himself to the ground and literally eat shit. Then there were the early Christians: Paul, who was beheaded; the nameless others who were fed to lions, killed in the Colosseum for sport, or impaled on spikes to be doused with oil and used to light the city.
There were object lessons in this. Hold your hand above the candle and see how long you can take it. Can you feel how it burns? Now imagine that that’s going over your entire body and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Hold your arms out to either side. I’m going to read the account of Jesus being crucified, or I’m going to talk about Peter being crucified, and I want you to hold your arms out for as long as possible. That was only twenty minutes; imagine doing that for six hours. Kneel down here and put your neck on this block. See that basket in front of you? Imagine that it’s filled with heads and that the block is slick with blood. This would be the last thing you’d see in life.
The implication behind these lessons was the same was the implication behind Bob’s lesson about Stephen: if you couldn’t take that–the heat, the blood, the heads, the cross–then your faith wasn’t strong enough. Your faith needed to be strong, not just because you could walk out that door and get hit by a bus, but because Jesus could come back at any moment.
That line, that bit about Jesus coming back, is the fixation of the second group of people I’ve set to describe to you: the Revelation-obsessed. If you’ve been following the culture war for long, they really don’t need much of an introduction. I’m not sure how many of these people there really are since the sales for something like the Left Behind book series aren’t a very reliable counter, but I do know that their numbers are growing and their voice is getting louder.
The central belief of the Revelation-obsessed is that the world is soon going to end as it’s described in the Bible. I’ve decided to refer to this group as the Revelation-obsessed as the book of Revelation is the Biblical part most often associated with the end of the world. However, the Evangelical view of the world’s end is descended from the original Catholic view of the apocalypse which was cobbled together from different parts of the Bible including Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Second Peter, the Gospels, and Revelation. So things like the Rapture (when all of the true Christians are taken bodily from the Earth in a single instant), which is taken from a vaguely-worded section of Second Peter, and the assault on Jerusalem by Gog and Magog (a coalition of countries) prior to the Rapture, which is taken from Ezekiel, aren’t necessarily agreed on by all. Some say that the Rapture will not occur at all, others say that the Rapture will occur at some point late in the apocalypse, while others take the view that the Rapture will be the first sign of the end times. Therein lies the problem.
The Revelation-obsessed are a people convinced that the end of the world is coming soon, but there is no consensus as to when the world will end and what signs will precede it, meaning that the faithful are left debating whether the end times are set to begin at any moment or if they have already begun. Either the clock is ticking toward midnight or is ticking past midnight, but in any case: the end has come. Because of the conflicting ideas about what elements, exactly, would make up the apocalypse it’s hard to give an impression of what the Revelation-obsessed are fearing, but there’s a generic story-arc that fits all of the interpretations of Revelation et al. that I’ve heard so far. At some point in time, a single figure who is Satan incarnated in human form will rise to power and will establish by way of war and trickery an empire that covers the whole of the planet. This figure is the Antichrist. At the same time that the empire of the Antichrist is being established, a new religion that is a corrupted version of Christianity will become the single dominant religion. Eventually this religion will hold up the Antichrist as the holiest of holy figures. During the reign of the Antichrist, Christians will be rounded up and tortured to death or executed for sport as they were in ancient Rome. After a period of time, Jesus will come down out of Heaven, wage a holy war on the Antichrist, and then cast the Antichrist into Hell. At this point some believe that Jesus will establish an earthly kingdom for a period of time, or will simply end the world right then, but in any case that’s the end of time.
So what does all of this have to do with Evangelical support for The Passion of the Christ, and what does it have to do with the growing number of Protestants who are crucifixion-obsessed?
Many of the martyr-obsessed and crucifixion-obsessed fundamentalists I’ve met have been of the opinion that the end of the world was either about to kickoff or had already been running for awhile and that Christians would soon suffer through a Holocaust of their own. These people also tended to be of the opinion that Christians were already and oppressed minority in the United States, making it that much more likely, in their view, that we may soon begin to see modern-day Stephens stoned to death in the wake of show trials.
These visions of immanent persecution have, I believe, led many fundamentalist Protestant Christians to become interested in the persecution of Christians and/or prophets of the past. The question or whether or not your faith is strong enough for you to hold your hand over the candle or be burned alive is a pressing question to these people because it’s something they may have to literally face in their lifetime. This idea that the world will soon be ending, and with the end times there being mass slaughter of Christians, has led to the rise of the martyr-obsessed and crucifixion-obsessed among the Protestant fundamentalists.
This fixation on the end of the world is also a contributing factor to the widespread Evangelical support for The Passion of the Christ. With the end times approaching, many fundamentalist Protestants feel that a battle line has been drawn in the sand and that something must be done about the heathen culture of the United States before the end times. Some feel that if the culture is repaired that the apocalypse will not come, others feel that it is their duty to convert as many people to a righteous lifestyle, by force if necessary, before the world ends, while still others feel that they need to build up the United States as a base of Christian support for the coming war with the rising Antichrist. The Passion of the Christ is one of the things on that line in the war for America’s soul. Regardless of how pre-Reformation the depiction of the crucifixion is in that movie, it’s a movie about Jesus and a criticism of the movie is a criticism of Christianity at large. For some, not seeing The Passion of the Christ or questioning its motives and religious merits is a fundamentally anti-Christian act.
It does not help, of course, that many fundamentalist Christians really do feel that the Jews killed Jesus. It also doesn’t help that for some people, this movie is an object lesson not entirely unlike holding your hand above a candle flame. When watching the movie, they might say, think about what Jesus did for you and ask yourself if you could do that for Jesus. You may have to when the end comes.
There’s one more point I’d like to add, and it’s very important: I’ve been careful to try to use the term “fundamentalist” as often as possible because I’m trying to make a vital distinction between the people who believe this and the majority of Christians in the world. Not every person who is a Christian believes that the world is going to end in the next couple of years and so everything must be done to pull the United States back from the brink of Hell. There are Christians who support same-sex marriages and Christians who would like to kick in Jerry Falwell’s teeth but won’t because it violates their beliefs or because they just haven’t had the chance yet.
The people I’ve discussed in this post are not the majority of Christians, and so you should not hold these beliefs against all Christians. On the other hand, the people I’ve discussed have done a good job of cowing less fundamentalist Christians into following their lead, which is really what the ascendancy of the Religious Right has been all about: a small group of fanatics who have done everything they can to force their definition of Christianity on other Christians and non-Christians in the country, while convincing those Christians who disagree with them that disagreement will hurt Christianity as a whole.
They’re not the majority of Christians, just the most vocal..
“At some point in time, a single figure who is Satan incarnated in human form will rise to power and will establish by way of war and trickery an empire that covers the whole of the planet. This figure is the Antichrist.”
“war” Like invading Iraq?
“trickery” Like lying about WMDs?
“an empire that covers the whole of the planet” Like trying to establish an enforced Pax Americana?
My god, the Antichrist is George W. Bush! Why didn’t we realize this before?
There’s more:
“a new religion that is a corrupted version of Christianity” Like the one whose prime commandment is to hate homosexuals?
Yep, the Apocalypse is coming, no doubt about that.
It is not at all surprising that the Bible is full of persecuted Christians — around the time of Christ, being a Christian really could get you fed to the lions.
So I find it totally unsurprising that the Bible is chock full of stories about torture (how much can you take without ratting out your buddies?), loyalty (tie yourself to the ground and eat shit, ‘cus the big boss told you so), and death (lots of folks eventually got caught).
What is interesting is that the idea is still completely fundamental to modern American Christians. So many of them seem to really believe that Christians are a persecuted minority. The persecuted part I think is total bunk, but there is at least some (wrong) argument to support it.
But the minority part is what really gets me. It is so inane. Yet even the more sane and level-headed Christians I meet seem to feel that being a Christian in America is a rare thing. Is is extremely divorced from reality — and I bet has simply perpetuated from the actual persecution that existed, and was thus codified into the religion, at the time of Christ.
But much of what you describe is conditioning. It is trying to build a following who will do anything without question. It is cult behavior. And it is damn scary.
Timothy, the sense of being persecuted is rather general, and not simply a religious tradition. The usual reference cited in this context is The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard Hofstadter. Think of the right-wing militia types who fantasize about an invasion by the U.N. (and we know what a fearsome fighting force they are!).
I wanted to mention that Catholics have a much richer selection of martyrs than Protestants, since they have a catalogue of saints in addition to the Bible. It’s a rare painting of the Assumption which doesn’t include Saint Sebastian looking like a pincushion, arrows sticking out on all sides.
Also we have to take into account the fact that early Christianity was strongly defined by martyrdom. This was due to the fact that they were subject to a particularly nasty period of Roman history (the early Empire) which seemed more than happy to martyr them.
Of course we have a shift in the last 2000 years where Christianity becomes one of the dominant religious powers in the world. But that’s another story. And I’m too tired to comment more.
I’m of the opinion that some of the people who call themselves Christians, likely including the Revelation-obsessed and the martyr-obsessed, are no longer technically Christians. Are they following Jesus’ teachings? I’ve got my doubts.
I also get the feeling that, if Mel Gibson had lived 2,000 years ago, he would’ve been hollering for Pilate to release Barabbas.
Well done analysis, PDP.
Excellent follow-up to your original post. Don’t know if you saw this but Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek reviewed The Passion as a macho torture test of its audience.
She writes: If we flinch from the sight of nails tearing through flesh or the sound of human bones cracking, we’re automatically denigrating the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice. “Are you man enough to take it?” is Gibson’s relentless unspoken demand, and the answer had better be yes.
The review is here:
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2004/02/26/passion/index.html
Also, the blogger Slacktivist was doing some deconstructing of the Left Behind books a few weeks back that made for some fascinating reading. Slacktivist theorizes that one aspect that feeds “rapture-mania” is the idea that good Christians get to go to heaven without dying.
The other people – those Left Behind – must gird up their loins, toughen up, and get ready to battle the anti-christ and all his minions. They get to drive around in hummers and carry all manner of assault weapons in their quest to set things right for Jesus.
One final bit, can’t think of who posted it, but it was in reference to the anger and disappointment people display when confronted with the fact that this or that urban myth was just a myth. They really wanted to believe it.
I’m seeing the same phenomenon at work here. People really want to believe that this movie is the real live, straight Gospel story of the crucifixion – finally told by someone who really cares. They’re “excited” about seeing it.
But when you point out that the Biblical text is very vague about the physical humiliations heaped upon Jesus – they get a bit angry and defensive.
So I think you’re going to see a lot of glazy eyed people coming out of theaters insisting it was a great and powerful event in their lives. They really want to have a great and powerful event in their lives and what easier way to have one than to go to the movies. God help the children subjected to this movie.
What would be cool would be a movement of people to go, sit in the front and start doing a “Mystery Science Theater” rap on in – really laugh it up. Turn it into an unintentional comedy. That would be worth the price of admission…thekeez
One thing that stands out to me is that Bob in PDP’s post was a marine. I wonder, did Bob see active duty? Perhaps he was working through his war experience through a violent form of Christianity?
Many thanks, PDP, for making distinctions between different groups of Christians.
In response to: “But the minority part is what really gets me. It is so inane. Yet even the more sane and level-headed Christians I meet seem to feel that being a Christian in America is a rare thing.”
I believe that this is because people only view their sect as “real Christians”. I’m amazed at the number of people who think that Catholics are not Christian. Certainly, many of the evangelicals do not view other flavors of Protestantism as “Christian”.
Just my feeling on the matter.
I think a lot of the “wagons-in-a-circle” thinking among Christians comes from popular culture. The only television family which prays with any regularity is the Simpsons – and many conservative Christians won’t watch the show.
They are bombarded with dozens of tv families that never pray, say a grace, go to church or refer to god at all. Then on Sunday morning, they look around their church and see the familier faces. They start to feel like it’s just their small group huddled in an alien environment.
What they have failed to notice is that there are churches every two or three blocks. Heck, most of them probably passed half a dozen churches to get to theirs. Christians are hardly a tiny minority in a sea of aliens, but it looks that way on tv.
And let’s not forget that many, many clergy use the language of siege to keep the flocks in line. Jim Jones and David Koresh are just extreme examples of theology and doctrine that gets spewed by corrupt clergy every week…thekeez
And there it goes again. Check out Tony “quack, quack” Scalia’s dissent on the recent ruling against giving gov’t money to divinity students:
“Let there be no doubt: This case is about discrimination against a religious minority,” Scalia wrote for the two.
Poor, downtrodden christians…thekeez
An excellently written entry. I would be surprised if most mainstream protestants identified with the movie and its focus (uber-focus?) on the suffering and crucifiction. It is not part of traditional protestant theology (or Mormon theology either, which I’m familiar with), this focus’s more on redemption and the cross as a symbol of that, not of suffering.
i’m not surprised that ‘fundamentalist’ Christians, as you have pointed out, love this movie. I’ve been constantly amazed at how _often_ fundamentalist organizations (from FRC to 700 club) focus on their own ‘suffering’ and ‘persecution’. I believe they see themselves in this movie to some extent.
I grew up in the Baptist faith and never met a Bob. To me, Bob sounds like a sadist whose using his class to gratify his obsession.
Kija,
I’m something of an eternal optimist and so would like to believe that the Bobs of the world were simply drawn to my church and that the weird obsession with torture I observed was something particular to my church. Something like that would make me a very happy person, indeed.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. I spent a year at a Christian college in Oklahoma and while there was exposed to people from congregations across the country; everyone I met identified someone like Bob in their church. As the school I attended was supported by and geared toward the Church of Christ, the denomination I was raised in, I’d be inclined to accept that this problem was endemic to that particular branch of Protestantism, except that I spent a good chunk of time reading the books that are popular among the fundamentalist sect, watching their movies, listening to their music, and, most importantly, attending non-Church of Christ churches, and I found that the Bob-type people are a present-and-growing minority of fundamentalist Christians.
I’m happy to hear, though, that you didn’t have any Bobs in your church while growing up.
This is an excellent analysis of strands of right wing religous thinking. I do find PDP’s writing to be most stimulating and thoughful. Having said that – I’d like to beg to differ :-)
There are evangelical and fundamentalist churches in my country (Australia) but they do not carry the political muscle that they seem to carry in the U.S. More importantly,the extreme expressions of self hate inherent in the martyr/revelation styles that PDP identifies are not anywhere near as significant within fundamentalist churches in Australia. More common is the the pentecostal theme of being filled with the holy spirit and talking in tongues. There are various expressions of this ranging from people being ‘possessed’ to people acting as the spirit moves them.
Now what this suggests to me is that it is the national culture that is influencing the church as much as the church influencing the nation. The holy spirit resonates, for instance with many Aboriginal beliefs and traditions and pentecostal style fundamentalism has strong backing from this community.
On the other hand, what is striking about U.S. culture this days, especially as seen through the lens of Hollywood is the depth of self loathing and bleakness that comes across in many films.As an example, two that I’ve seen recently “Fight Club” and “Monster’s Ball” I found quite difficult to watch because of the grinding self loathing that was expressed in them.
I’m no great film buff, but I do think that over the last 10 or so years nihilism has crept into many U.S films and nihilism is very much a sister to revelation style beliefs. I cannot imagine Hollywood being able to pull off “Lord of the Rings” because of this. The idea of heroic virtue seems to be completely alien to the current sense of U.S. movies.
I realize that equating Hollywood with U.S culture is a dubious analogy at best, and I certainly don’t think that everyone in the states has lost the plot when it comes to heroic virtue or idealism. But I do think that U.S. culture in film and music (which is how it’s mostly exported) is showing signs of eating itself and that this is reflected in the self hatred of the religous right.
I would like also to say that some of most powerful christian ideals of the 20th century have been expressed within the U.S. The Catholic Worker movement, the involvement of the churches in the fight for racial equality in the 60’s and the feminist critique of christianity which has seen women priests and bishops since the 70’s are just as important even though they may be only a ‘small voice’ against the cacophony of the religous right.
Bob H has to accept some collective responsibility for Mel Gibson, as an Australian. I think the nihilism he interprets as part of American cinema is really what happens when social policies that don’t revolve around Ayn Randian self-centered individualism are not allowed. If there is no channel for outlet of the stress at our decidedly anti-Christian economic and social systems, where can it go? And Monster’s Ball was deeper than just a nihilistic expression-it was really about redemption and hope. Watch it again until you get it and don’t look at the boobies, because the Surgeon General will no doubt soon have a statement up about the health consequences of African-American boobies.
American television and cinema to my recollection has always featured sanctimonious public preachifying, to the extent that Eastwood mocks this rift in the American consciousness in “High Plains Drifter.” “They’re your brothers and sisters, father, why don’t you put them up?” “Brothers and sisters, my flock will put you up for the duration, and will charge no more than the usual hotel rates.”
America is not and has never been a Christian nation, as per Bertrand Russell. We are the nation of the Christian Businessmand. We are a nation of institutionalized madness, pursuing Mammon while shouting hosannas for Christian virtues.
OK, Woodsman, Mel is also an Australian – why do I always get this knee jerk reaction? The ‘redemption and hope’ in Monster’s Ball is there – but it’s the standard Hollywood upbeat. The nihilism in the film is not the conscious script but the unconscious one – the characters seem to be sleepwalking in a nightmare of suicide, anomie, and bigotry. The final acceptance at the end by Halle Berry’s character is way too pat. Your remark “don’t look at the boobies” is just plain offensive.
Your final remark “We are a nation of institutionalized madness…” seems to confirm my point – it’s symptomatic of the nihilism and loss of ideals that I’m describing.
PDP, I think there’s a simpler explanation for the popularity of the Passion among Protestants. The Protestant Christian community in this country has given rise to an enormous parallel media industry; there is a great hunger for Christian books, videos, etc. This movie is simply the first major, mainstream movie to come along in quite some time that tells a Christian story in a manner respectful to believers. It’s been more typical for major movies to approach the faith from a perspective that is revisionist (Last Temptation, Superstar) or cartoonish (Dogma, Sister Act). Movies produced more specifically for the Christian community tend to have poorer production values and amateurish acting (Left Behind).
The violence of the Passion is Gibson’s idiosyncratic vision, and I imagine that is probably is very shocking to many Christians. Nonetheless, those people are going to the movie because there haven’t been other movies about Jesus out there to choose from. Or to put it another way, if Gibson had made a lighter, less violent movie about a broader period of Christ’s life, I suspect that the Christian response would be just as enthusiastic, if not more so. They’re there for the Christianity in general, and not specifically for the Crucifixion or the violence thereof.
Of course, if this movie makes enough money, perhaps there will be a sequel. ;-)
This stuff scares me a lot personally, but the need for seeing sacrifice done has always been there in the human psyche. Jesus was simply one in a continuation of harvest gods which were sacrificed every year to guarantee the harvest that kept the people alive. The reason why I’m scared is that I don’t think it’s a good idea to fan those deep flames. We have about sufficient of pain and suffering as it is.
Tom T. wrote: “Nonetheless, those people are going to the movie because there haven’t been other movies about Jesus out there to choose from.”
Actually, there was a very well-made film called “The Gospel According to St. John” in the theaters not three months ago.
This is clearly celebrity driven. It has nothing to do with the quality of the production. It has a MOVIE STAR associated with it. In fact, a MOVIE STAR whose recent work included two real flag wavers: “The Patriot” and “They Were Soldiers” both of which clearly demonstrated Mel’s taste for violence and gore.
The fundies have stars in their eyes. I mean, what the hell did Mel Gibson ever have to say to the religious community? When was he ever a voice in that crowd? Never.
Suddenly he shows up with a movie about Jesus, a movie the HOLY SPIRIT told him to make, a movie he NEEDED TO DO because he was depressed 13 years ago and JESUS SAVED HIM from depression. He also confides how he is being PERSECUTED by the EVIL ONES for making this movie.
And these idiots just eat it up.
These folks have been played. Mel doesn’t even believe they are going to heaven. Yet he’s more than happy to take their money. The only benefit of the doubt I can give him is that maybe he hopes this movie will convert all these protestants to his primitive catholic sect.
For indeed, the movie is clearly made for believers. There isn’t enough back story to understand just why these things are happening to Jesus.
So if he intentionally wrote the script for believers, if he intentionally turned his back on the unchurched in the crafting of his film, then what is his purpose? To convert the conservative protestants to Pious X catholicism? Or just milk the fundies for their money? ($125,000,000 as of Monday, March 1)
Back in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s FCC began deregulating broadcasting. One of the first things to go was free broadcast time for the church. And the mainline churches were unwilling to pay to play. And they went off the air.
And Oral Roberts and Jim Bakker and Jerry Falwell and the rest were willing to pay and they did with a host of other fundie outfits and the evangelical church has been on a steady rise while the mainline church has been on a steady decline.
And now we have republicans in charge of everything with a born-again dry drunk as president and a creepy movie star making a sadistic Jesus movie and quintupling his financial investment in the thing in five days. Coincidence?…thekeez
Like it says in the Bible: “Jesus.”
The Keez has made me laugh. Thank you, Keez. Thanks also for the info on FCC deregulation giving rise to the fundies. Makes sense and very interesting.
I would argue, though, that lack of backstory in the movie doesn’t indicate it’s just for believers. I think the basic story arc is well-known enough that non-believers would catch on. (Like tuning into “Friends” partway through…;) Perhaps it’s just poor filmmaking.
Uhhh….I might be wrong here, but I thought Mel Gibson was born in the U.S. and spent some time in Australia. Do I have this right?
And at the risk of becoming a splitter, I would like to add to PDP’s distinctions among Christians by pointing out that Fundamentalism itself is not monolithic. The term comes from a series of pamphlets backed by a Southern California oil tycoon called “The Fundamentals.” In essence, the various authors put forth certain “fundamental” truths about the nature of Christianity–biblical inerrancy and the authenticity of Biblical miracles were two, as was the redemptive nature of Christ’s sacrifice. Embracing these fundamentals did not make one necessarily a “martyr-obsessed” Christian.
The particular group that PDP discusses sounds a like lot those folks who believed firmly that the millenium would NOT begin until after Christ returned to defeat the anti-Christ–hence, they (and others) call themselves “premillenial.” (Postmillenialists tend to express a much more optimistic view of human nature.) In addition, this broad group has a collection of folks who argue that the best way to understand scripture is by positing sacred history as fundamentally discontinuous–that divine intervention can change the fabric of reality. They call these periods “dispensations.” In the early years of the twentieth century, the Scofield Reference Bible would map out these dispensations (and the age of the planet) quite nicely, it was an extremely popular book.
Taken together, this group (often part of fundamentalist or evangelical communities) might be called “premillenial dispensationalists.” But I have a feeling that won’t catch on. My main point is simply this–many conservative Christians might embrace such things as Biblical inerrancy and Christ’s redemptive suffering and yet not suffer from a persecution complex. (Catholics, the dysfunctional family in which I was raised, are another matter entirely. They are oppressed, but almost entirely by one another. An example–the father of one of my friend assures him that his decision to wear his hair long is “killing your mother.”)
lack of backstory in the movie doesn’t indicate it’s just for believers. I think the basic story arc is well-known enough that non-believers would catch on.
Indeed. A parallel would be Steven Spielberg beginning “Saving Private Ryan” at D-Day, without recapitulating the history of WWII.
As for the Gospel of St. John, it never made it beyond a very limited release. Certainly, Gibson’s star power helped secure a wide release for the Passion. I think it’s hard to argue, though, that Protestants are not in great numbers feeling a genuine spiritual connection with the movie.
“Gospel of St. John” made it to Richmond, VA so it wasn’t that narrow a release.
In terms of the backstory though, I really believe the principal audience was believers. You make very firm and clear decisions about these things when you make a film. Long discussions about who the audience is and what they need to know and what you can assume they know.
You didn’t need to know a thing about WWII to get what Speilberg was trying to say about the horrors of war and the bonding of warriors and the nobility of sacrifice in “Saving Private Ryan.”
But there’s a whole lot to the Christ story. And if you don’t know the story, don’t have any experience of the church’s teachings – no experience of the creeds, no experience of the doctrines and theology, then what are you left with after viewing this movie?
Some guy made some speeches about love and they beat the snot out of him and killed him by nailing him to a cross. Then he gets up and walks “into the light – into heaven” as one 6th grader described it to me.
So where’s the resurrection – a fairly pivotal point of the gospels? Where’s the divinity of Christ? He’s just a man in Mel’s movie if you don’t fill in the blanks with your own embedded theological knowledge.
Which is not the main point – but a subordinate point to trying to figure out who this movie is made for, who would get off on such a brutal telling of the crucifixion.
I’ve never met any of the “Bobs” described in the original post. I’ve seen a lot of people coming out and parroting things they’ve heard religious big-shots like Franklin Graham say but I don’t really believe they liked the movie.
I think it is evolving into a faith test – are you a strong enough Christian to take it? “Thank you Mel, may I have another? Ooooo, eyes pecked out by a raven! Thank you Mel, may I have another?…”
I still think little teams of snarky people should be going into these theaters and doing a whole MST rap on it: “Ow, that’s gonna leave a mark!”…thekeez
Of course we have a shift in the last 2000 years where Christianity becomes one of the dominant religious powers in the world. But that’s another story. And I’m too tired to comment more.
Actually, there were more martyrdoms in the 20th century than in any before. Just so you know.
It’s rather hard to argue with anecdotal evidence, but I’ve never met someone like “Bob”… even if there was one “Bob” at every church, as someone said above, it would still be quite the minority…
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