Comments on: Fundamentalist obsession with the Crucifixion (Why are some people obsessed with the Crucifixion?, pt. 2)

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

“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.

By: Timothy Klein

Timothy Klein — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Raznor

Raznor — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Scooter

Scooter — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Elayne Riggs

Elayne Riggs — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Well done analysis, PDP.

By: Jeff Keezel

Jeff Keezel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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

By: kStyle

kStyle — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Jake Squid

Jake Squid — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Jeff Keezel

Jeff Keezel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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

By: Jeff Keezel

Jeff Keezel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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

By: Trey

Trey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Kija

Kija — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: PinkDreamPoppies

PinkDreamPoppies — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Bob H

Bob H — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: woodsman

woodsman — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Bob H

Bob H — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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. ;-)

By: Echidne

Echidne — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Jeff Keezel

Jeff Keezel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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