Passionate POVs

[neadods]

Although I don't want to see the movie (I'm not big on the gore and guts for any reason, and as an atheist I'm not really willing to pay to be proselytized) I have been following the reviews and commentary on The Passion of the Christ with interest.

And after a while, particularly in seeing the various responses from the public in breathless/horrified anticipation, I finally realized something.

There are, to oversimplify, two kinds of Christians.

One kind, the kind I grew up with/as, focuses almost entirely on Christ's life. Yes, he died horribly, but that's glossed over with the simple chant of the creed weekly - "He was crucified, died, and was buried." But that's not the important part; that's what comes next in the creed. "On the third day he rose again, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father..." What is stressed is how he lived, what he taught, and that he lives still, and you can too if you live according to What Would Jesus Do?

The other kind, and these are the ones that Passion is aimed completely at, focuses more on the death than the life. The point here is less on what would Jesus do than what he did - offer himself up as an Old-Testament-style blood sacrifice, the literal scapegoat for humanity. The prayer on the back of Chick tracts says "I believe you died for my sins" and never mentions "I will live according to your teachings." The hymn sings "washed clean in the blood of the Lamb." Was it Mel or was it one of the ministers singing the praises of his film that said "Jesus didn't give one drop of blood for us, he gave every drop of blood for us!"

Looked at that way, of course the movie is going to be as graphically sanguinary as possible. The suffering is the whole point.


Mind you, this still leaves me wondering about another either/or that came up recently:

Last summer, a religiously-based group of people drove a major kink convention out of Ocean City. Although the activities would have been completely shrouded in a hotel, the objections were "what about the children, what if they're exposed to it?" and "people shouldn't be allowed to hurt other people, even if they think they want it!"

This spring, several religious groups are founding a major drive to take children to see what is, in essence, a torture snuff film.

Can anyone explain that to me?

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

What you say is right and sadly, all too true, particularly about true believers never questioning and indeed fighting off questions. But it's not quite what I'm talking about, although on reflection, they may be related (bear with me, I'll get to that.)

In my oversimplification I wasn't drawing distinctions between Catholic and Protestant, but they become crucial here. Catholicism doesn't focus more on the death than the life, but it does go into rather graphic detail on the death; I saw horrifically bloody, suffering crucified Christs in many cathedrals in Europe, particularly the Medieval ones when life was sanginary in general. And IIRC, some of the stations of the cross commemorate some of Jesus' torments, including falling while dragging the thing. So there is more of an emphasis on the death.

But for the rest of it, what made me say what I did - well, maybe this is something that has to be seen from the outside in. I'm assuming that Howard doesn't have a lot of people wandering by trying to save your heathen souls. It's different when you're a pagan or an atheist, both of which I've been in a long and wierd journey. There isn't a lot of evangelizing from the live-and-let live folks, the Christians of faith as you put it. What there is, boils down along the lines of "I shall let my life serve as an example and hope you emulate it."

But the really in-your-face evangelists, the ones who nag and insult and bully are a different matter. For one thing, you're right, they're "true believers" many of them; the very existance of alternative groups is an affront that must be dealt with. But the manner of the dealing, almost inevitably, focuses on pain and suffering, either Jesus' or yours. Not that Jesus is Good or Jesus is Love or that life will be better if you follow him. But Jesus is GOD and Jesus loved you enough to DIE for you and if you don't follow him you will BURN in HELLFIRE ETERNAL! It's amazing how many people assume that if they just pop in and tell the story of the crucifixion, nonChristians will drop to their knees with a gasp and a cry of "Why didn't anyone tell me? I believe! I believe!" (Jack Chick is notnotnot any more a true representative of Christianity than Fred Phelps is, but oy, a sad number of people think that evangelism works like his little tracts - which show up like a bad rash anywhere a blatently nonChristian group gathers. Christianity, according to Jack, means believing that Christ died for your sins. You can be a complete scumsucking villain as long as you believe, and Satan's most pernicious lie is that good people go to heaven.)

Maybe it's not an internal focus of the groups that I've mentioned, but simply the manner of evangelism - one focusing on the benefits of a Christian life and the other focusing on the... something... of Christ's death. Certainly there's been a component of the marketing of The Passion that outright says "everyone should see this movie," "this movie is a powerful marketing tool," "this movie will make you believe."

But.. believe in what? That human beings can torture one of their own to death? That much is an established fact. But watching it play out for two hours may make me lose lunch, but it won't make me find faith. I can't imagine anyone who would be convinced who didn't walk into the theater with a predisposition.

And you don't even discuss the fact that the people who are most upset about this movie are Jews -- who feel it is anti-Semetic

Because there isn't much to discuss there; that ground has been pretty much covered. However, the anti-Semetism was just the opening shot of what has become a wider set of controversies, and it's those issues that interest me. Is it an evangelism tool? If so, is it effective? Is it too graphic for children? Adults?

If you see it from the POV of someone who considers sin and the sacrifice for sins as the most important thing, then at least the dwelling on the gore makes sense.

I'm going to be very interested to see what happens over the next few days as people finally get to see the film for real and have their own opinions as opposed to the ones fed them by their ministers/rabbis/local reporter/hopes/fears.

[stratfordbabe.livejournal.com]

I could go into all the various discussions of "Old Testament" Christianity vs. "New Testament" Christianity, etc. I will say that I would bet very good money that those bloody depictions you saw of the cruxifiction were over 100 years old.

And Fundamentialists, of any stripe and any religion, tend to promote from the negative. Those who have prostelytized to you have no doubt reacted to you as a middle class white female. You'd get a very different pitch if you were of the lower class. Then they tend to focus on the aspect of being loved and accepted within the church. Around here, that's definitely the angle they take (and yes, I have been preached at and bothered by evangelists here -- just as racism is often worst within a given race, religious intolerance is often at its highest within the given religion).

I suspect we are talking about much the same thing, but you see a different source for it than I do. Really, you are talking about much of the difference of Old and New Testament Christianity -- and that gets into a whole 'nother can of worms. :-)

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling a little defensive of Nea at the moment. Why is it not possible for her to have come to different conclusions about the nature of Christians? Just as I am certain you would not say you represent every Christian, so Nea is not saying that every single Christian falls into one of her two categories. If she did not seek out your specific opinion, does that invalidate the experiences she's had with other Christians?

Surely you are both coming at the same conclusion from different angles. I am an outsider observing, and it does seem to me that both of you are describing tolerance vs. intolerance, strict adherence to the Bible vs. interpretation of the Bible in order to follow the principles described within it. It's like Constitutional law. you either follow blindly or you interpret. And if adherence to the letter of the law = fixation on the description of the death of Christ, and interpretation = extrapolating one's own Christianity from the resurrection and LIFE of Christ, then in the end, you both mean the same thing. For me it's easier; I accept that there is some sort of Higher Power/God/Supreme Being - I can't understand how the Big Bang happened without a God creating the stuff that exploded. I just don't believe in religions, because, hey, look at all the crappy stuff that happens, that we've all described here. And once again, religion is coming between people who otherwise are simpatico. Just read the posts above.

[stratfordbabe.livejournal.com]

Trust me when I say that fgwriter needs little defending from me. She's quite capable of having someone argue an opposing point and make her own arguments -- just as I am. I took exception to something she said in her original post and stated my opposite theory. We've now exchanged something like seven posts about it and are exploring new areas and enjoying the give and take. In my LJ, she asked for my input here, and I gave it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Hey, can we all take a deep breath? Not that I'm not flattered to have a defender, but Shay, Stratfordbabe and I tangle on a regular basis; the result of rather radically different worldviews. I think we both get ahold of the wrong end of the stick more often when we're reading each other's writing as opposed to talking, but we generally talk around it and figure things out. (The whole New Testament/Old Testament Christian thing is a new and interesting angle; I want to ponder on that before I respond.)

But on the whole, to quote the Bard, we "strive mightily but eat and drink as friends."

You are very right about tolerance vs intolerance, but now I'm going to start another hare because I love a good discussion. Is it possible to follow any written document, be it Constitution or Bible blindly? Isn't anything, even "it literally means this" an interpretation? Mel interprets "the rending of the veil of the temple" as an earthquake; Massachusets interprets the Constitution as *already* supporting gay marriage. Both the filmmaker and the judges can point to words and say "They literally mean..." but there are those who argue that it's a wrong interpretation.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

You'd need to ask Antonin Scalia that question, I think.

[stratfordbabe.livejournal.com]

Nearly forgot -- here, the controversy has entirely been over the anti-Semetism.

What is the wider controversy that you see? I mean, I know that some believe you should not portray Christ, etc., but is there something else beyond the amazing hype both by the entertainment industry and the various Christian groups.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

This is spinning far out of... control, really, I almost typed something else, but control's the only word that comes to mind.

Hauling back to my original thought process, while the anti-Semitism (I think we've both been misspelling it) has been the main topic of media discussion, what interests me now is the newish controversy - the question as to whether the movie is too violent. In particular, if it's too violent to achieve its goal as an outreach/evangelism project. I've heard mention of the violence before, but only in the last couple of days have I started to see letters to the editor and op eds and Google news articles and reviews that specifically argue whether the violence is over the top or not, and whether children should or should not see it.

That's the bit that interests me, particularly in context of having seen the Black Rose be literally thrown out of town by a Christian coalition for violence and its effects on children.

[stratfordbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't realize that was a controversy. It's certainly something we've been discussing here, but more along the lines of the old "movies used to be better when they couldn't show everything" argument.

I haven't seen a lot of the Gibson interviews, so I honestly don't know this. Did he set out to make an evangelical tract? I mean, was that his intention? Or was he just trying to tell a story that he found powerful and felt very strongly about?

Here, at least, no one as seeing this as a way to convert the masses. Just as no one felt "The Ten Commandments" was meant to convert people, either. I think the assumption being made here is that it was a story that Gibson felt the need to tell and that this was the way he wanted to tell it.

I definitely think that the violence will keep people away -- but I think most of the people it will deter are those who would have wanted to see it to begin with (aka Christians). :-)

I do also know of Christian groups who are against the film because of its violence.

Sorry I hijacked the topic. I clearly must have misread your original post.