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Odd Sensations

2.26.04 @ 12:01AM

CERTAIN CONCERNS
Re: Jeremy Lott's The Passion and the Fury:

I wonder if conservatives are having a defensive, circle-the-wagons reaction to criticism of this film. I haven't seen it and am not planning to, because I can't stomach that kind of violence. But according to descriptions, the film does show "the Jews" in a particularly bad light while going much softer on Pilate. I don't think horrible violence is at the core of Christianity, but this film puts it there -- for millions of viewers. Conservatives rightly decry "sensationalist" media; is that a concern here, too? Will this film have a healthy effect on viewers, especially young, impressionable ones? Is a spiritual message compatible with so much gore?
-- P. David Hornik
Jerusalem

In reference to Mr. Lott's "The Passion and the Fury," I must make a small, but key, correction.

Mr. Lott states that Mel Gibson practices a schismatic "pre-Vatican II Catholicism." Interesting word, schism. When used in relation to the Catholic Church, it refers specifically to those who deny the Pope as Heir to the Chair of St. Peter, to those who deny the Bishop of Rome is the theological leader of the Church. By definition, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., are guilty of schism.

Yet, since we all, in an ecumenical spirit, are trying to get along, Lutherans and Anglicans and everyone else, including those deemed doctrinally to be pagan, i.e. Buddhists and Hindu, smile alongside the current Catholic leadership and are called friends, while those Catholics who look upon the pastoral, non-dogmatically binding council called Vatican II as a significant error and refuse to alter the Faith as it was practiced for 1900+ years are called schismatic.

Based on the above, which is all easily verifiable with open source information, you can deduce that pre-Vatican II Catholics are not schismatic. The use of the word "schism" is one that ignorant (literal sense, not pejorative) reporters and many current Catholic leaders (among whom are many who have so demonstrated their fitness for their positions with various felony acts, including the protection of child-abusing clergy and vehicular manslaughter (ex-Bishop of Phoenix)) use to discredit traditional Catholics. Much in the same way that established Jewish religious leaders and Roman officials had to discredit that rebellious carpenter's son, so do current Catholic leaders need to find ways to hold on to their positions, for both religious and political reasons. Now, Gibson is certainly not Jesus, but the situation bears similarity.

A learned man once stated, "The floor of hell is littered with the skulls of bishops." As they, the bishops, were human, that is likely true. In their humanity, their pride and wrath led past clergy, as it does the current incumbency, to protect their positions by debasing critics. Harsher treatment is generally leveled at those critics whose critique cuts deepest, cutting deepest for the reason that the critique is correct.

Today, Gibson is a critic, a believing critic. But our definitions are clear: he is not schismatic.

Thank you for your time.
-- M.C. Tritle

Jeremy Lott's piece depicting the Passion controversy as a conflict between elitists and secularists vs. religious ordinary folk is belied by his inclusion of concerns emanating from Abe Foxman and the ADL. Lott states:

"Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League isn't going to care that the line in which some members of the rabble accept collective responsibility for the death of Jesus of Nazareth (the passages in the synoptic Gospels which draw charges of blatant anti-Semitism) was removed from the subtitles, or that Gibson publicly disavows Jew hatred, or that this is a work of art, for God's sake. Gibson practices a schismatic 'pre-Vatican II Catholicism,' and he's made a movie about the death of Christ, so it must be anti-Semitic, QED."

First of all, Foxman is hardly secularist and the ADL over the past several years has been anything but leftist in its politics. Foxman himself is a Holocaust survivor, sheltered by Christians, who regained his Jewish identity later in life and remains an observant, deeply religious Jew. His fears regarding a movie such as Gibson's are not born of secular disconnect from religious America, but from his own historically based and morally driven fears of anti-Semitism as a Jew who survived Hitler's attempt at annihilation of his people. Foxman's position is all the more understandable given the current resurgent anti-Semitism world-wide.

Second, Foxman and the ADL have made great strides in recent years in building bridges with the conservative/evangelical Christian community. Notably, Foxman appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes talking about his increasingly close relationship with Gary Bauer, and Ralph Reed recently spoke at national ADL convention on that growing partnership. Indeed, the ADL, like other Jewish organizations, has welcomed and nurtured closer ties with the Christian community on a number of issues, perhaps most prominently support for the State of Israel, but others as well (for example, the ADL has taken a measured view of affirmative action and has been supportive, along with conservative Christians, of both a tough foreign policy and strong national security domestic policy with respect to fighting terror).

Third, Foxman doesn't extrapolate Gibson's "pre-Vatican II Catholicism" as the centerpiece of his criticism, but focuses instead on the movie itself. The movie portrays an ominously seductive figure, presumably Satan, standing among Jewish priests. It also illustrates the priests as petty, vengeful and vicious, and the Jewish population as supportive of those priests. Pilate and some of the Roman centurions are contrastingly shown as tormented and sensitive. These are touches born of Gibson's artistic options, not out of faithfulness to history or the gospels. They are justifiable areas for criticism from those who have legitimate concerns that the film might fuel anti-Semitic sentiments and even those who question Gibson's motives, which by the way, Foxman and the ADL do not.

Jeremy Lott is not alone is transforming the debate over The Passion into a right vs. left political debate. Conservatives Peggy Noonan, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Medved and others have sounded the religious vs. secular trumpet, while dismissing as leftist politics any possibility of anti-Semitic effect, if not intent. Foxman, in my view, has taken the more honest approach, and has put his considerable moral capital on the line to fight against potential bigotry, not religion. To say that he represents "secularist" or "elitist" views diminishes his lifetime of fighting against the cancer of anti-Semitism and too casually dismisses the potential for "art" to impact the minds of its consumers. Perhaps the Passion will not in fact create the problems that concern Foxman and the ADL. I am certain that they, as the rest of us, including those who support Gibson, would be most relieved if this were the case, but to dismiss Foxman's concerns out of hand is too easy, and is not an honest appraisal of either his motives or the legitimacy of his concerns.
-- Jeffrey Stillman

Letter to the Editor

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