Feb

26

2004

The Agony and the Agony

Filed Under Entertainment and Sports, Religion | 2 Comments

I saw The Passion of the Christ yesterday afternoon.

Steve had suggested after the movie that I would be posting a response here soon. I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it when I got home. The movie left me physically drained and numb, and I ended up going to bed at the terribly early hour of 11:00 pm
(early for me, at least). Even though I’m supposed to be on my way to work right now, I had to sit down and write a few lines, especially since I’ve been thinking of little else.

I forced myself to read the worst of the reviews linked from the movie’s page at Yahoo! The breadth and depth of vapidity I found there was stunning. I’ve read a few of the better reviews, but there’s no point to it – you simply cannot get anything meaningful out of a review of this film, except from those who tell you they can’t tell you what to think about this film.

You may think, after all the massive hype, the charges and countercharges, the endless media nattering (mea culpa, by the way), that you already know what’s in store for you in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” which finally opens today.

You don’t. This is a movie so singular, so intense, so overwhelming that it simply has to be experienced. And nothing can prepare you for how brutal, how shocking, how awash in blood and pain Gibson has made his version of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

“The Passion” is so radically different from the normal moviegoing experience that people are going to have wildly varying reactions to it (the recent debate over anti-Semitism is just an inkling of the chasms of perception). A devout evangelical Christian, a Jew, an agnostic, a Muslim, a lukewarm believer may react so differently they might just as well have seen different movies.

There are a few things I would like to say, not in review, but in analysis.

First, to Peggy Noonan: Don’t fret about having your sources change their story. The pope really did say, “It is as it was.” I have no doubt.

Second, the one word that has been rolling through my head is: hideous. Some idiotic mother brought her three pre-teen children to the movie and sat them in front of me. (Thankfully, they were a few feet to one side, so I was not totally distracted throughout the film.) That woman should be arrested for child abuse. This may be something that people must experience, but they must be adults when they do. This message simply cannot be processed by less than a mature adult intellect (as many of the less-than-favorable reviews will attest).

Third: I won’t comment on the religious meaning except to say that the reviewers who can’t grasp the message don’t get the message. Another friend who saw the movie with me said as we stood up, “I didn’t think it would end there.” My response was: “I doesn’t.” This movie makes you take the leap of faith, by processing what you’ve seen and filling in the blanks yourself. It’s artistry is displayed by leaving most of the canvass blank for you to paint yourself.

Lastly…. I spent more than a little part of the film thinking of Charles Johnson, of all people. There is one scene in particular that evokes memories of the aftermath of many a bus bombing in Israel, as the two Marys dutifully carry out their responsibilities as good Jews. You can see anti-Semitism in this movie. I didn’t. I won’t.

So he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
– Luke 20, 25
We must forgive. But we must not forget.

UPDATE: My hopefulness for good feelings at LGF seems to have been misplaced. Meanwhile, the best of all commentaries about the film so far comes from: a Mormon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Someone has said what I’ve been waiting to see someone dare say:

If, having seen and endured the film, Christians are able in a fresh way to wonder at the vault of the Sistine Chapel, if they can humbly return to their churches to participate in the spoken and sacramentally enacted Word, then Gibson’s Passion will have proven to be something even better than what it certainly is: the best movie ever made about Jesus Christ.
As for the charges of anti-Semitism, the columnists at First Things provide a “why” to the confusing mass-contradiction of the various critical reviews:
But all of this makes Gibson’s Passion nearly the opposite of the arcane and politically fraught tradition of the passion play. Such performances were often staged to incite the audience to choose sides, to ’save’ the integrity and honor of Christ by constituting a kind of party against Judas, the Jews, and the mob in Pilate’s courtyard. Had Gibson used the power of film to give this twisted but all-too-human political stereotype a new lease on life, concerns about the film stirring up anti-Judaism or hostility against nonbelievers would be justified. To his credit, however, Gibson denies the audience any shred of political or religious triumph, or, for that matter, defeat. Even a viewer who already knows and religiously believes in the final outcome of the story must struggle to keep watching, which is humiliating in its own right. There might be reason for scholars and religious authorities to raise questions about Gibson’s synthesizing of distinct scriptural accounts of the passion, or about his use of extra-biblical iconography. But it is hard to imagine anyone coming out of Gibson’s movie with an appetite for a religiously politicized passion. If anything, this is the definitive post-passion-play passion.

Feb

25

2004

Would you rather be a Hawk or a Dove?

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

So you tell me… would you rather be a Hawk or a Dove?

Isn’t this story incredibly analogous? Hawks are more rare than doves (pigeons); the aggressive use of force trumps passivity every time, and doves (pigeons) will fly as far away from the hawk as possible – as quickly as possible – even to the point of abandoning their homes. Do you think that hawk would have even dared enter the building if it was inhabited by… let say… owls or eagles? Nature would have told that hawk to respect the strength of such opponents and stay away. Doves and pigeons, on the other hand,

Feb

21

2004

Yet another ‘gay marriage’ rant

Filed Under Law and Ethics, Race and Prejudice, Religion | 4 Comments

I’m sorry, but the illogic of this issue just toasts my cookies.

[I'd posted the following in response to a thread at Note-It Posts and figured it might just be the best I've put it yet. (With a tip o' the hat to Neal Boortz and a caller to his radio show who inspired several of my thoughts.) - Chris]

No one’s rights are being violated by marriage laws. Once the antimiscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional, it became legal for any unmarried man to marry any unmarried woman and any unmarried woman to marry any unmarried man.

Cambridge: ‘A legally accepted relationship between a woman and a man in which they live as husband and wife, or the official ceremony which results in this.’

I can no more ‘marry’ another man than I can marry my dog (for which I’m sure my dog is eternally grateful ;-) ). That homosexuals find this ‘discriminatory’ is a mockery of the concept of equal protection. Race, color, and sex are all states of being – you are easily categorized as being a member of a specific group by visible inspection and without your consent. When homosexuals are ‘discriminated against’ by society they are categorizing themselves, and they do so by admitting that they engage in a certain activity. Once you’ve engaged in an activity it’s no longer prejudice. There’s no ‘preconceived judgment or opinion’ because you really have done something (as opposed to being someone of a particular race, color or sex that you have no control over).

And for those who would say that homosexuals have no more control over their situation than a person of a particular race, color or sex, the same can be said of the psychopath. But once the psychopath kills someone, he’s still called ‘a murderer’ and we bring down all the power of law upon him – even if an equally psychopathic victim asks him to do it.

And if you absolutely, positively, can’t agree with this (which means you probably disagree with the state’s right to proscribe anything), you still can’t make the leap that such a tangled mess of social engineering must be imposed on a population without their consent. Regardless of 24-hour news and the Internet, we’re still a federal republic. Let California, Massachusetts, and whomever else do what they will, but leave the rest of us alone to set our own standards of decency in our states.

Feb

20

2004

And The Band Plays On…

Filed Under War and Terrorism | Comments Off

The American Conservative is a magazine from conservatism’s dark side. It peddles crackpot theories, nativism, and bigotry on a regular basis. But occasionally its founder and editor, Pat Buchanan, makes a modicum of sense.

On the dust jacket of his book, Richard Perle appends a Washington Post depiction of himself as the “intellectual guru of the hard-line neoconservative movement in foreign policy.”

The guru

Feb

18

2004

Now that we are alone…

Filed Under Politics, Race and Prejudice | Comments Off

When at first I spotted Jonathan Tilove’s article, Blacks Line Up Behind “Electable” Kerry Because “We’ve Got to Get Rid of Bush”, I thought “predictable”. Predictable in the sense that those in search of anybody but Bush would find a way to position the Black vote as in favor of their man, whoever he may be. But, I took a look anyway, and after wading through the usual assumptions that Bush is bad, (no reasons given), and the claptrap of how their guy will be better, (even though they haven’t shown him how to appear to be their friend yet); huzza, I found this telling paragraph.

In fact, after his last patron leaves, Ulysses Blakely, a barber on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Belle Glade, allows that he plans to vote Republican for the first time in his life. Bush is a leader, and more true to the Bible, said Blakely, who when he is through says he is grateful for the opportunity to get that out. “That felt great,” said Blakely, for whom Kerry, at this point, is pretty much a cipher.
Hmmmmm…. Very interesting.

Feb

17

2004

The One

Filed Under War and Terrorism | Comments Off

More than anyone else I’ve read recently, Brendan Miniter “gets it”.

Terrorism is, of course, the big issue now facing America. That’s not to say George W. Bush is of the stature of a Lincoln or even that the war on terror is as serious of an issue as the dissolution of the union. Today’s war isn’t even as divisive as the Vietnam War had become by the late 1960s. Fighting terrorism, however, is increasingly dividing this country–and not always along party lines. There are two distinctive camps developing. One comprised of Americans who don’t think the war is something that should touch their everyday lives. And another that sees combating terrorism as a fundamental struggle not just between good and evil but also over the soul of this nation–a struggle over who we are, as a people, and what we will tolerate on the world stage.
On the flip side, I saw this during my once-a-quarter trip through The Fourth Turning:
But in recent months, the GOP and the Bush White House have suddenly faced a new, increasingly chilly reception from men and women in uniform. There are the growing ranks of retired generals who have turned Bush critics, like Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command and a special envoy to the Middle East. Zinni endorsed Bush in 2000, but recently during a particularly scathing public critique compared Iraq war strategy to a “brain fart” emitted from a Bush “policy wonk.”

But perhaps more troubling for Bush is the increasing frustration and anger being voiced by officers and enlisted personnel alike. It’s a frustration fueled not only by the unexpectedly difficult military situation in Iraq and the absence of a clear exit strategy, but by broken promises over veterans issues. Could 2004 be the year when the military vote swings to the Democrats? That might seem too farfetched a hope for Democrats, who have watched the military become a solidly Republican bloc over the past 30 years, to the point where a recent study found Republicans outnumber Democrats 8-to-1 among today’s officers. But that trend, at least, could very well come to an end — and the entry of four-star Gen. Wesley Clark into the presidential race as a Democrat and powerful Bush critic surely helps.

This was written back on October 2, so Eric Boehlert’s prescience is obviously more than lacking. But I found it an interesting how disconnected two opinions can be of the same events. Mr. Boehlert’s heavy reliance on David Hackworth is telling, since I’ve seen Col. Hackworth (a fierce opponent of Mr. Rumsfeld’s modernization strategy) turn into a shrill naysayer since immediately after the start of the Iraq war. If he really does get tons of mail from military folk opposing this Administration, it must be a moths-to-the-flame kind of thing, where he’s only hearing from people who agree with him. I’ll admit I don’t talk to a lot of military men lately, but those I have don’t talk like this.

I think John Edwards may be right – there are two Americas – but they aren’t Rich America and Poor America. They are the two America’s Mr. Miniter describes, that Charles Johnson would parse as Idiotarian and Anti-Idiotarian. Apparently Boehlert, Hackworth, and the rest of the nuts at ThinkingPeace.com (check out some of their other stuff) are on the other side of that fence from me, which is why I don’t see what they see.

Feb

13

2004

Under the Skin

Filed Under Race and Prejudice | 1 Comment

I was glancing at the FoxNews website and found this – Under the Skin, by Joanne Jacobs.

Feb

11

2004

The Man Who Would Be President

Filed Under Politics, War and Terrorism | 2 Comments

Hat tip: Sgt Grit via Cox & Forkum

This morning on Fox & Friends, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tennessee) suggested that the Republican Party might be able to buy a pass on Lieutenant George Bush’s National Guard record if the Democrats don’t have to answer questions about John Kerry’s national security voting record. I’ve got a better idea.

If you want to compare records, let’s “Bring it on!” as the good Senator from Massachusetts is lately fond of saying. The Democrats can complain that George Bush is a deserter (which we have records to disprove), while we can suggest John Kerry’s record as a “war hero” is diminished slightly by this:

Do you still want to “Bring it on!”, Mr. Kerry? Is this the “band of brothers” you’ve been talking about? Do you think World War II and Korean War veterans – not to mention honorable veterans of the Vietnam War and our military actions since – would think you use that term without disgrace? Are these the same type of men as those depicted in the miniseries of the same name?

Feb

10

2004

Tearing down Tara

Filed Under Race and Prejudice | Comments Off

There is a ray of daylight coming from the Baltimore Sun, and it’s name is Star Parker.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced affirmative action. Hand-wringing liberals and ambitious black politicians joined hands, laying the foundation of a new political plantation that displaced the pillars of values, faith, family and personal responsibility with the catechism of victimization and dependency. The result is what we see today.

The success of welfare reform in 1996 hints at what we can expect if we allow blacks the dignity of freedom and choice. Despite predictions by liberals of impending doom if we started to dismantle the welfare bureaucracy, today there are 37 percent fewer mothers with custody living in poverty and 47 percent fewer children reported by the Agriculture Department as being hungry, compared with before welfare reform.

Let our black history lesson for 2004 be to recall that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s victories were achievements of courage and character. He succeeded despite racism, with little physical or political power.

Blacks today, particularly black youths, want real freedom.

She did everything but beg blacks outright to vote Republican. I’m skeptical that there will be much of a movement in that direction, but then again John Kerry is no Bill Clinton.

  • Featured Sponsor

  • Recent Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories