"Not peace but a sword" (Safire slams The Passion)

New York Times ^ | Mar 1 04 | William Safire

[DestroytheDemocrats]

"No, it's not your duty to like any particular piece of work. However, you objected to the fact Gibson had made the movie in your initial statement."

No I did not. I questioned why people are flocking to a movie. A very sensational movie. A movie that is more graphic, more violent and more shocking than the book (the gospels) I am just trying to insert something to think about. Because I am getting the impression that people have been so swept away by this movie that they would make it almost mandatory, one's Christian duty to see it and like it. It's not enough now to read the gospel, go to church and hear sermons.....no you have to see this movie and you have to like it or you just don't love the Lord. I feel sorry for the billions of Christians who were born before this movie came out. What a pale, simpering version of Christianity they were dealt.

[Richard Kimball]

For 2000 years scripture as written has been suffcient(sic) to convey the passion of the Christ. Now all of a sudden scripture is not enough and everybody has to flock to a sensational movie. Makes no sense.

This was your initial statement. My reaction is that you felt there was no need to make the movie, since the Scriptures were all that was necessary. However, your problem, if I understand your last post, is that people are going to see the movie. This makes less sense than your first statement. Your objections are still, it seems to me, an attempt to attack the movie without addressing the real issue for attacking it. If you have a problem with anything extra Biblical, then you must have a problem with hymns, Ben Hur, the Ten Commandments, and many other extra Biblical attempts to illustrate faith and bring the Gospel message to people who may not have heard it.

In your last post you stated that you're getting the impression that Christians want to make seeing the movie almost mandatory. Trying to chase your arguments around is getting a little too much like the dead parrot skit, so, I'll just accept that you're pinin' for the Fjords and leave you alone.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

I did NOT object to the fact that Gibson had made a movie. The key word in my statement was "sensational." For it seems to me that this movie is more graphic, violent and sensational than the scripture itself. I gather that because so many people, who must surely have read the bible accounts of the passion, have said they "never realised" what the passion of Christ was like until they saw this movie. It does beg the question as whether or not the biblical accounts alone are able to provoke sufficient realization of Christ's sacrifice. It would not make much sense if they were not sufficient. It would mean that millions of Chrisians who read the book but never saw this movie are at a serious disadvantage.

I agree with you that there are many ways to spread the gospel. A movie is one way. This a movie, a work of art, one man's personal vision. Because of that is it not mandatory that William Safire or anyone else likes it. And because of that people of good will can like it, dislike it, like parts of it, dislike parts of it, or ignore it.

[AnnaZ]

Is it my Christian duty to go see it? Is it my Christian duty to like it?

Oh, my, no. But adamance in refusing to see it would be odd.

 

I think people are eagerly encouraging others to see The Passion a) because it's great and b) because we should support the effort. But nobody's forcing anyone else... at least they shouldn't be.

 

Shalom!

[freebilly]

Troll somewhere else.

[freebilly]

On second thought I'll respond to your questions.

Do you then assert they are about a military struggle ?

No.

Do you think the centuries of religious wars between those who called themselves Christians were the fulfillment of those words ?

No.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

"I think people are eagerly encouraging others to see The Passion a) because it's great and b) because we should support the effort. But nobody's forcing anyone else... at least they shouldn't be."

Well right. Nobody is forcing anyone to see it, but I can't help but notice that whoever does not like it will be trashed unmercifully on these threads. I guess that is included with "supporting the effort"???? P> Anyway. I can't find anything wrong with Safire's review. I see nothing against Christ or Christians. He is only against Mel's presentation of the passion. Well I can relate to that. I don't like Jimmy Swaggart's presentation of scripture. All that screaming...yuck! But there are people that like him. That's fine. To each his own. There's no accounting for taste, even in matters religious.

[AnnaZ]

Anyway. I can't find anything wrong with Safire's review.

 

Please, then, allow me to help you.

 

— the bar against film violence has been radically lowered. Movie mayhem, long resisted by parents, has found its loophole; others in Hollywood will now find ways to top Gibson's blockbuster, to cater to voyeurs of violence and thereby to make bloodshed banal.

Gibson's blockbuster is such not due to the "mayhem", but to the subject matter (the bar has been lowered? LOL!). It's not like Hollywood hasn't tried, thus this statement is an embarrassment to its author.

 

And finally, outrage: who was responsible for this cruel humiliation? What villain deserves to be punished?

If that was his reaction, he's lost. (Unless they're just not reporting the marauding Jew-seeking street gangs.)

 

Not Pontius Pilate, the Roman in charge; he and his kindly wife are sympathetic characters.

Pilate's wife, yes. But if Mr. Safire finds sympathetic a man who chooses political expediency over an innocent man's life -- while claiming an inability to recognize "veritas" -- again, this is his personal character failing.

 

The "review" is a study in projection.

[junta]

Bill Safire the perfect living allegory of liberalism, old and senile.

[diotima]

Its all about a clever sophisticated new plan to further corrupt the youth of America by exposing them to excessive violence via Jesus Christ. Who knows the the breadth and scale of possible violent outbursts now that I have seen the Passion. Some one stop me before the violent message of the New Testament causes me to kill and maim.......

I know that Gibson's next move, will be to license special "The Passion of the Christ" torture implements, so that we can all participate in the new lesson we all learned from his movie.

[AnnaZ]

Some one stop me before the violent message of the New Testament causes me to kill and maim.......

Funny you should mention that, because someone shares the concern: NYC Police Watch Gibson Film for 'Hate'

[AnnaZ]

(Sorry it took so long to get back to you...)

 

 

 

I'm differentiating between Catholicism and the other, sometimes eponymous, sects of Christianity because one critical difference between the faith of Mel Gibson and the faith of some self-styled Christians is that Gibson is expressly forbidden from condemning anyone -- or perceiving them as condemned -- simply for their failure to recognize the Christ or accept the mystery of redemption.

This isn't a conversation you want to have with me. Let's base spiritual philosophy on an individual basis or not at all. I follow the Bible to the best of my abilities, and consider the only infallible Man to have been Jesus. I lack appreciation for religious diktat.

 

 

forgive the signature logorrhea . =)

It's part of your charm.

 

logorrhea

If you haven't yet seen (the brilliant documentary) Spellbound... run, don't walk, to the video store.

 

xo

[MississippiMan]

Matthew in 10:34 quotes Jesus uncharacteristically telling his apostles: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." You don't see that on Christmas cards and it's not in this film, but those words can be reinterpreted -- read today to mean that inner peace comes only after moral struggle.

That's not my core interpretation of the line at all. I think He was letting us know that He would be divisive when His full message is told. That's certainly how it is. Mention some vague notion of "God," and no one objects. Say the name "Jesus," and watch the reaction. And among some "Christians," it's fine as long as you stick to the Jesus-is-love tact, but point out that He also has a warrior persona, and watch the fireworks begin.

IMMHO, this divisiveness is the core element of what Jesus was foretelling in that verse.

MM

[raloxk]

Seems that this Passion controversey isnt developing along conservative-liberal lines as much as it is elitists versus people outside the Boston-NY-WAS corridor.

Safire cant say anything good about The Passion, because he'll lose all his liberal beltway cocktail party friends.

Meanwhile some liberals from outside the beltway like Ebert liked it.

[nmh]

Beginning to see who is who out there. I didn't expect this from Safire. Usually he is clear headed EXCEPT on moral issues.

[Zack Nguyen]

I agree. Safire doesn't understand the movie at all. JEws tried to stand for Jesus at the trial and were thrown out. By far the most sympathetic characters of the movie, along with Christ, are the faithful Jewish women - Mary, MAry Magdalene, and the unidentified woman who gives Christ a cloth to wipe his face.

[Askel5]

Again ... I'm really sorry about the sloppy post.



=== This isn't a conversation you want to have with me.

Well, you might be (pleasantly) surprised, actually. I'm a sucker for just these sorts of conversations and suspect you'd be a lot more thought-provoking than some of the Usual Suspects of Freeper lore with whom I still have the occasional "conversation" until they toss the gameboard and stomp off, anyway.



=== Let's base spiritual philosophy on an individual basis or not at all. I follow the Bible to the best of my abilities, and consider the only infallible Man to have been Jesus.

Assuming "spiritual philosophy" is something like theology, I think you're just restating what I said was the Catholic position. Any man who truly strives for obedience to the truth he knows and loves has done all that can be asked of him. Thanks to proximity in time or place -- not to mentioned consciences wholly deformed by circumstance or conditioning -- not all men are in a position to receive, even, much less recognize and/or adhere to "self-evident" truth.

It's not for us to condemn them, that's all. This sort of judgment is reserved for the man's maker -- the only who truly knows the man's heart -- and is expressly forbidden to Catholics. That's all I was saying. It's just one reason it's so absurd anyone would think a Catholic film -- particularly one made by a "trad" like Gibson -- could possibly be conveying a message of condemnation or blame.

(Other than we all share but which is up to us to assign ... )




=== I lack appreciation for religious diktat.

Religion -- re ligare -- means to return to and bind or connect. Connecting man, returning him to his source and, in the process, connecting men as equally endowed with human dignity, purpose and -- in general -- being willed into being and sourced by that Creator.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss "religious diktat" when it's exactly that (as embodied in the Declaration's discussion of self-evident truths, for example) which affords us some objective truths by which to reconcile differing opinions or rightly interpret "rights" and other constitutional precepts.

As the current hub-bub over the word "marriage" is evidencing (long after the institution was basically defunct), I'm not sure we really want to cede to the Individual always the last word on what Is.

As Clinton would say, depends on your meaning of Is.

Chesterton speak of a "democracy of the dead" whereby the validity of tradition, faith and Common Sense are confirmed. C. S. Lewis in his "Abolition of Man" talks at length about how leftists generally exacerbate and exagerrate the differences among men when any survey of the Human Tao -- despite proximity in place or time -- reveals we have the essential in common always.

Sure, there are some decided "diktats" in Catholicism. We take Christ's use of "is" quite literally where the Last Supper is concerned. But we also make a point of recognizing those essentials we share with other faiths and pagans, even. And it's only in keeping those truths in mind always and reconciling all to those "self-evident" truths that real progress is made without any of the adulteration or amelioration of truth that generally accompanies most "progressive" or strictly personal takes on reality, both of which can be riddled with error but have no internal mechanism for righting same.

Much like our current legal system which -- in seeking to lower the bar always to accomodate whatever Lowest Common Denominator of personal opinion exists -- is suffocating us in some slapdash egalitarian nightmare of laws compounding laws compounding laws all of which are utterly devoid of anything like objective truth and cater always to the subjective.

As you probably already knew, I feel pretty strongly about this. So please forgive my sorta having the conversation you didn't want to have ... =) ... and don't worry about replying, particularly if you've better things to do.

(Which I know you have! I had so much fun after Mass yesterday whooping it up with three young brothers and falling in love with the Cheshire grin and brilliant blue eyes of their yet bald little seven-month-old baby sister. What larks! That girl's got it made. =)

You take care, Miss Anna.