Wave Your Flag

The fragile balance that exists here has been seesawing, the scales are tipping in favor of war. Simply more reasons for it than not.

But then comes the World Cup, and passions are diverted for a season.
Thank God for FIFA. 

Wave your flag.

Playing on Passion

Somewhere along the line Mel Gibson evolved from talented actor to serious artist. His career crawled out of the organic matter of blood and guts in the Mad Max series to action/comedy in Lethal Weapon I-IV, and in the last decade or so made the leap to a new level of thought provoking work, directing "The Passion of the Christ" (2004) and "Apocalypto" (2006).

 

Gibson gambled in both The Passion and Apocalypto, presenting historical drama in contemporary languages to subtitle-illiterate Americans, counting on raw violence and a fast pace to retain their attention. The Passion of the Christ is almost docudrama, following Jesus on his Via Dolorosa ("way of sorrow") in the last hours before his crucifixion. Apocalypto takes place in the doomed Mayan civilization literally moments before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.

 

The Passion of the Christ isn't officially censored in Israel, but in tacit consent between the local distributors and the Israeli audience it isn't marketed here. (I was only able to see it on Utube.) It's just a modern version of Medieval passion plays once produced by the catholic church, more often than not the spark igniting drunken riffraff only too willing to exact revenge on the local Jewish community. At least that is how it's seen here. And besides, a crucifixion isn't going to move an Israeli crowd – in Second Temple Judea it was almost death by natural causes.

Objectively speaking, the telling of Jesus' crucifixion is certainly legitimate, even essential for Christians. Gibson's version isn't blatantly anti-Semitic, but he slips a latent bias in between the lines. He washes Roman hands of guilt; a reluctant Pilate who issues the death warrant, and the ignorant bullies who drive in the nails – Gibson forgives them for they know not what they do. He places the Christ's murder squarely on the Jews; if it's sanctimonious priests scheming and manipulating others to do their dirty work, or a lynch mob screaming for blood. But to be honest, Gibson's portrayal of Jews is accurate. The first century Jewish leadership was never accused of being 'nice' by their contemporaries, and Judeans weren't a gentle bunch, as Roman legions would discover time and again. Saying that, let me remind any Christians latching on to the above "admission of guilt" in order to browbeat present day Jews 2000 years removed from the crime, according the gospels it was first and foremost Jesus orchestrating the events that lead to his crucifixion – otherwise he isn't who he says he is and he was simply the sad victim of a case of mistaken identity. And as for Jewish kneejerk defensiveness at any mention of Jesus, we won't erase anti-Semitism by repainting the past.

In Apocalypto, an idyllic indigenous village in the jungle is raided and its inhabitants force-marched to a city belonging to a more advanced Mayan civilization. The story focuses on the captive Jaguar Paw, following him from his abduction on through the frenzied Mayan crowd. After the women are auctioned off, the men are painted blue and led up to a temple where one by one their beating hearts are to be cut out to ensure the pleasure of the gods and a good harvest. Jaguar Paw's life is spared by a total eclipse of the sun (a sign of the god's favor) and he exploits the opportunity to make a break for the jungle. He is doubly fortunate, for just as his pursuers catch up with him on the beach, they meet a landing party of armored Spaniards and priests who appear to them as gods, to Jaguar Paw (and Mel Gibson) as saviors.

It's not hard to decipher Gibson's agenda from his work; it's apologetics for the traditional catholic church, with one hand pointed at Christ killers, and the other twisting a positive spin on the Spanish crimes of conquest (and subsequent forced catholic conversion) of the native population of Central America. But it is in the parallels and contrasts between the two films one can find the fallacy in Gibson's portrayal of Jesus' crucifixion.

In Apocalypto, men are made gods to be sacrificed to save the Mayans from famine; in The Passion it is God made flesh to save men. Both films pivot on celestial signs, the solar eclipse vis-à-vis God darkening midday to night. In both the spectators - the Mayan crowd or modern theater audiences - are riveted to the drama of human sacrifice. And there's the rub.

Human sacrifice plays on passion. By our very nature, we can't help but be moved when observing the ritual murder of another person. So I have to agree with the verdict of the Jewish audience on this one, even if not with their polemics. Gibson's Passion is fueled by the same raw emotion that turned the wheels of idolatry and Papal violence, reducing Jesus' crucifixion to no more than another version of paganism. The Passion of the Christ is only a modern rendition of an ancient universal genre, one that has tugged at human hearts, sometimes literally, since the dawn of time.

Gibson could have featured the gory crucifixion of any one of thousands of Jews 2000 years ago and would have generated the same emotion. The cross doesn't make Jesus the Messiah.













In the last 60 seconds of the Passion, Gibson takes us to a tomb. The stone rolls away and the camera pans over to an empty shroud. Jesus comes into focus, stands and the last we see of him is a nail-pierced hand. An empty grave doesn't play on emotion and it won't generate box office hits, but it makes all the difference between victim and Messiah.

A Bad Joke

A catholic priest, Protestant minister and a Rabbi walk into a restaurant. The priest asks for a glass of water. "May our Lord who turned water into wine turn this water into a bottle of fine Cabernet Sauvignon." The waiter gets the hint and brings the best of their selection. The minister orders a sardine and roll, and then blesses, "Let this sardine and roll be multiplied as the miracle of loaves and fishes." The waiter rushes off and comes back with smoked salmon and French bread.

The Rabbi observes this and orders something from the menu. When all have dined, they ask for the check. The priest refuses to pay up – all he had was a glass of water. The minister puts down a few coins for the roll and sardine. The rabbi tears the bill in half and says, "May the God who divided the Red Sea for the Children of Israel split this bill between this pair of fools."


A bad joke. Not really funny. But like any joke or story there is some truth in it, otherwise it doesn't make sense. True, there is interfaith tension. True, the Jewish stereotype is wily and greedy, not that there's any truth to the stereotype itself.
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There is a measure of truth to William Paul Young's "The Shack". His story is about Mackenzie who grieves his 6 yr. old daughter, who was kidnapped and probably murdered in a shack in the Wallowa Mountains by the 'Little Ladykiller', a perverted serial killer. 4 years on, Mack gets a mysterious message from 'Papa', family nickname for God, inviting him to return to the same shack his daughter was killed.

The story is Young's venue to outline his views on religion. Much of Young's theology is sketchy, but he's explicit at least on one pillar of Christianity: the trinity. Mack goes to the shack, and indeed meets God, who is:
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1. God the Father ("Papa") is a woman, black, fat and in the kitchen. So, there you have it ladies and gentlemen, God looks like this:

2. Jesus. He's not what Mack expected.

"Jesus?"
"Yes Mackenzie?"
"I am surprised by one thing about you."
"Really? What?"
"I guess I expected you to be more" – be careful here, Mack – "uh…well, humanly striking."
Jesus chuckled. "Humanly striking? You mean handsome." Now he was laughing.
"Well, I was trying to avoid that, but yes. Somehow, I thought you'd be the ideal man, you know, athletic and overwhelmingly good-looking."
"It's my nose, isn't it?"
Mack didn't know what to say.
Jesus laughed. "I am Jewish, you know. My grandfather on my mother's side had a big nose. In fact, most of the men on my mom's side had big noses."
"I just thought you'd be better looking."
(From "The Shack")

From this we learn 3 things:

a. All Jews have big noses.

b. People with big noses are ugly.

c. Therefore, Jews are ugly.

If Young researched his "Jewish" character of Jesus at all, he must have done it in a Reform Temple. He has Jesus frying up bacon and eggs on Saturday morning. The Sabbath may have been created for man, but pork wasn't created for Jews, and I think that even the real Jesus would have drawn the line at cooking on Shabbat.

3. The Holy Spirit is a mysterious, fidgety Asian woman.

All three claim to be One, but the story doesn't play that way, Mack having quality time with each of them at one time or another over the weekend. The closest to "oneness" are godhead family meals rustled up by Papa.

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God (namely, God the mother) is essentially the defendant. Why do bad things happen to good people? Or namely, why did God let Mack's blameless daughter experience such a brutal fate? Papa's answer is that instead of sparing her, Jesus was there for her, sharing her suffering, comforting her. The story about Jesus and the imaginary girl is heart warming, but what about real people that are terrified and alone and in pain?

Is it fair to stack the deck by creating man with a sinful nature, and then condemning sinners to hell? The solution is a role reversal exercise, no doubt brilliant to Young's mind. Mack is commanded to condemn 2 of his children to hell, which is unbearable. He begs to take their place. "You see?", says Papa. "That’s exactly what the cross was all about." There's nothing new about this, but we didn't ask how God solves the dilemma, but why does He let it exist in the first place.


There is a measure of truth to Young's arguments, but the bottom line is that he deals with hard questions by not really answering them. His story rings true and pleasant to the ear, but falls apart the minute it hits reality. The gospel according to Young is that mankind is undergoing an educational process, Jesus was an object lesson; if we can only understand God and his plan enough, all things are resolved. I'm just wondering if a god that can be understood by humans is really God. 

You will find many interesting ideas in The Shack. Some of them are true and by sifting them from Young's inventions, the reader can reexamine himself and build a stronger foundation for his/her faith.


It's hard to pin Young down on anything other than his concept of the trinity, which leans more three than one. At very least he has done a great service for detractors of Christianity who claim it's not a monotheistic religion. The Shack is exhibit A for the commandment forbidding making an image of God. Young has made God in the image/images of man/men/women, creating his gods from racial profiles I hoped had passed from this world 50 years ago (the Negro mammy, the inscrutable oriental and the ugly Jew). In the end, Young's gods are small, no larger than his imagination, and their images limited to ethnic stereotypes.


Mack walks into The Shack and meets God – an African-American woman, an Asian and a Jew. It sounds like a bad joke; if only it were.

kissing the mirror

I didn't set out originally to write a book. I had come to a point when I needed to unravel the loose ends in my life, and the stories started to flow.

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"Every time I finish a story, there is a little relief, a sense of release. In every story I give up something and in return I receive something.... With each story I am being healed and the scales fall from my eyes and the glass becomes clearer and I can see."
(from "Losing Control at a Very Basic Level")

I got the idea for the title from one of my stories. One of the girls I dated in high school told me she practiced kissing on the mirror. It struck me that it's a metaphor for those things we often do innocently, with the best of intentions, but in the end don't get us any where with God. And in a way, it's also like our human nature, sinful and self-centered. Until we realize the vanity of kissing the mirror, we will never experience the real thing with God.