Outis

Having written on “The Passion” in greater detail for the University of Chicago Press, I now believe the analysis in my earlier entries could go further in linking religious masochism to political violence and, perhaps, one of the crucial questions at the heart of Christianity: is ours a cult of violence or peace?

Gibson is right to cast the story of Jesus Christ—King—as an action movie. “The greatest story” has been told so many times, in so many ways, by so many different people, that it can only benefit from new and contemporary interpretations; in the vernacular, as it were.

But what his action hero lacks is a moral dimension. Gibson’s is an untroubled and unwavering Jesus, driven to doubt only by an onslaught of torture that would have killed a mere mortal. Likewise, by depicting Judas as wrestling with “real” demons, courtesy of computer animation, Gibson further compounds this disavowal of doubt—internal, psychological—as the fundamental human condition.

In sum, Mel Gibson, the recent convert, is arguing that only sinners have doubts. Real men soldier on: act first, ask questions later. Moreover, Gibon’s decision to place Satan front and center in the affairs of men further absolves even the guilty of their transgression. “Satan made me do it.” So much for the mystery of free will.

In my opinion—that is, according to my faith—this premise puts the cart before the horse. It reverses the experience of religion by making faith a precondition for experiencing the divine when, by most accounts, it is doubt—in the laws of man, in the laws of nature —which leads to an encounter with that which we can neither dominate nor ever fully comprehend.

The political implications of Gibson’s understanding of faith are significant. By choosing to make an action movie wherein the plot points are the Stations of the Cross and torture, alone, drives the narrative forward, the director has made an argument for a version of Christianity that is both militant and oddly militaristic. (The closing scene of his movie is scored with martial drums.)

In answering the third oldest question posed by the Bible—why does Cain kill Abel? why does man kill man?—Gibson has responded with a confused, heart-wrenching account that both laments violence and exploits it. In one scene, Gibson’s Jesus holds forth on “the enemies” that will soon persecute His friends. Why will they be persecuted? What drives these enemies? Their refusal to believe in the Gospels and the true identity of Jesus.

In other words, evil acts are perpetrated not by all mortals but by non-believers. Moreover, by glossing over—if not avoiding—the rich and deep teachings of Jesus, “The Passion” trivializes the radical pacifism at the heart of Christianity.

For if one takes into consideration the words and works of Jesus, his violent death is intended to be the last such offense. If we believe Jesus is the son of God, then his murder, an act of homocide, is also an act of deicide. The message: don’t kill one another because doing so kills God.

But, if you omit most of the teachings of Jesus and nonetheless wallow, masochistically, in his death by torture, the message of his final hours is much less generous. While Gibson’s statement of faith does not explicitly condone the killing of infidels, neither does it explicitly condemn such acts as blasphemy. By placing believers in a different category from those who refuse to accept Jesus as the Son of God, Gibson asks us to think less of them.

It’s not murder if you believe the victim is not a child of God. And while I am of the persuasion that we are all children of God, there are many who reject such claims.

Apparently, among them is not only the film director Mel Gibson, but, also, President George W. Bush.

[7/20/2004]
postscript: Voices in the modern American wilderness?

The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asks: “Should we really give intolerance a pass if it is rooted in religious faith?”

Even more to the point, David Greeneberg explores the distinct faith of President George W. Bush in the New Yorker. Greenberg’s is by far one of the best reflections on the last four years that I have read.

Americans are finally waking up and smelling the coffee. And someone secretly switched the brand.

As Michael Moore hits them over the head with the same agitprop style they know and love from advertising, Fox News and today’s Department of Justice, the reality of the horror they have just visited on a people already long suffering is slowly creeping in.

It wasn’t the invasion that President George W. Bush botched, it was the liberation. And when the liberators — our American sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, co-workers and neighbors — became overwhelmed as occupiers, their hands and our hands were drenched in blood.

All of which goes to prove one small point: ideas matter.

Ideas: invisible, odorless, silent, weightless things that can make the difference between one death and one thousand, between one dollar and one billion, between one man and one nation.

Reactionary extremists aside, the weeks after 9/11 clearly demonstrate that the emotional make-up of our society, while woefully out of touch with the feelings of its neighbors, is resilient and mostly magnanimous.

Yet, in the months and years that followed, that same cultivated naivete, that carefully guarded ignorance that is often described as “our freedom” — as in freedom from the duties of self-government — became a stain on our chest; a scarlet exclamation point that should, instead, have been a question mark.

I remember an episode of MTV’s the Real World “Paris, France” where a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed blonde girl advocated on behalf of the invasion of Iraq along the lines of we’ve got to “do something, anything.”

In such moments of desperation, it’s particularly helpful to have some emergency preparedness training: stop, drop and think.

Because, ideas matter and ideas can hurt you if you don’t take the time to handle them properly.

There were many people who advocated against the president’s plan of attack. But a grieving and manipulated public and an unprofessional media wouldn’t engage those questions.

As a result, our team successfully penetrated the enemy’s defenses and advanced the ball… into the wrong end zone.

This November, America will likely fire rehire the losing coach. But there’s a more important lesson to be drawn from this catastrophic fiasco: if you don’t understand the playbook, put down the ball, get off the field and start asking questions.

To stretch this tortured metaphor even further: in America, every citizen is the quarterback. Even soldiers, acting selflessly as an extension of our Commander-in-Chief, are bound to their duties not out of a filial or tribal allegiance but in deference to the Constitution of the U.S.A.

We pledge allegiance to a system of ideas, not a man of charisma. We honor a set of rules, not a ruler.

And though there is not a single question mark in our most supreme document, it is nonetheless filled with interrogatives; beginning with the acknowledgement that we come together not as a perfect union, but, rather, to form a more perfect union.

The unfinished business that is the American civilization differs from its predecessors and peers precisely because it does not claim to have all the answers (as do dictatorships, monarchies and religions) but, simply, a better process for asking questions.

For what is freedom if not a question?

There are those who would counter: “But time was running out!” To them I say: Time is always running out for those who fail to plan. We tried it fast and loose and failed miserably. Now we will try it again, slowly, and make sure we get it right.

If democracy is worth doing in the Middle East, it’s worth doing right. In this case, right now, doing it right means working slowly and methodically — not against arbitrary deadlines like June 30th.

A show of sovereignty that leads to the declaration of martial law in Iraq will hurt President Bush’s credibility far more than he realizes — and at great cost to the lives of many reformers in the Middle East. In fact, if the real call to arms of our time, if our best defense against terrorism, is protecting and abetting democracy in that region, we would do well to consider the dilemma of Afghanistan…and Israel.

The current demographic patterns in Israel and the territories it has occupied in the Palestinan lands suggest that the Jewish state will soon have to decide whether it wants to really be a modern, multicultural democracy like the U.S. or if it wants to be engulfed by non-citizen Arabs and Muslims it employs but will not enfranchise. Even Ariel Sharon has come to recognize the inevitability of a Palestinian state.

If this sounds like a tall order for Israel — there is also a great precedent for overcoming similar, bitter divisions. The U.S., a long and steadfast ally of Israel — could teach that young state a thing or two about civil wars and civil rights. I’m sure Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice could add a few words to that lesson in a most compelling manner.

Furthermore, the efforts of many Palestinians to throw off the yoke of the corrupt Palestinian Authority should be encouraged, even if it means revising the U.S. State Department’s floating distinction between “freedom fighter” and “terrorist” group.

The Sinn Féin party of Ireland was only recently an outlawed protagonist in that country’s bloody, fitful lurch towards independence. Surely, there are more sides to Hamas than murderous terrorist group (though, they are certainly that, as well). Are there not many sides to Ariel Sharon’s role in the 1982 massacre in Beirut? Or, is it only white men who benefit from being complex, three-dimensional beings?