Yale Ph.D. Dubs 'Passion of the Christ' 'Pagan'

Business wire/yahoo ^ | 4/6/04 | is a bloodthirsty God," says Dr. James Cook

[churchillbuff]

Yale Ph.D. Dubs 'Passion of the Christ' 'Pagan'

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-- No, he's not talking about the hefty box-office receipts, pewter nails, or excessive gore, though these are all symptoms. He's talking about the idea, blazoned on www.ThePassionoftheChrist.com, that "dying was Jesus' reason for living."

"The God of Gibson's film is a bloodthirsty God," says Dr. James Cook, 15-year religion professor at Oakland Community College in Farmington Hills, Michigan. "This supposedly loving heavenly father wants a human sacrifice to appease his wrath. That's not ethical monotheism. That's not the Jewish idea of sacrifice as token of repentance for sin. That's paganism."

When asked if Jesus being a blood sacrifice for sin wasn't what most Christians believe, Cook replied that that's exactly his point. "Gibson isn't making theology. He's reducing to absurdity a life-denying theology that stifled Jesus' real message almost immediately after he died."

And what was Jesus' real message?

"Love," answers Cook. "Not 'God loved us so much that he accepted his own son as a blood sacrifice in our place.' What kind of love is that?" Cook believes Jesus taught that we must love one another the way God loves us.

According to Cook, Jesus' followers corrupted his message. "You see it right there in the New Testament," he charges. "It goes from 'He who would be my disciple must take up his own cross and follow me' to 'Christ paid the penalty for sin' so we can go to heaven." The result, he avers, is an "anti- Christ Christianity obsessed with escaping this world instead of transforming it through love."

Like many Jewish leaders, Cook, who calls himself a Christian existentialist, sees Gibson's film as anti-Semitic and says its anti-Semitism is part and parcel of its paganism. "Paganism is about power and security. Ethical monotheism is about serving God in spirit and in truth. Judaism is the original ethical monotheism. It witnesses against the preoccupation with a never-never land in the sky. It's about God's kingdom coming to earth. Jesus didn't run away from life. He embraced it. He didn't live to die. He died to live. God didn't plan his death. We continue to crucify him as long as we don't live in love."

Cook expresses his views dramatically in his new novel, "The Judgment of Christ" (Publish America, Feb. 2004).

[Natural Law]

Let's get this straight, the Pope, Billy Graham, Robert Schiller and Pat Robertson all say it is as it was and is a true depiction of the Gospels, but this no talent ass clown disagrees? Go figure.....

[DoughtyOne]

I'd tell ya what I dub Yale PhDs, but Jim has a nice family forum here.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - HERESY and APOSTASY ALERT

[bobo1]

Many different ideas concerning the atonement that have been debated and scrutinized for centuries by scholars. They still all boil down to the fact that Christ died for our sin according to the scriptures.

Interesting that a professor of religion agrees with none of them. Methinks that he is the heathen. The Dr. doesn't believe God.

Blessings, Bobo

[GenXFreedomFighter]

Oh great, another guy that wants to portray Jesus as the hippy-dippy guy who only preached peace and love. That view ignores at least half of His message. And why does a lowly community college professor get worldwide press on Yahoo for saying this? (No offense to community college faculty who may read this. I went to community college myself.)

[I still care]

I am getting sick of these numbskulls. "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness".

If they don't like basic Christian doctrine, they should go out and start their own religion, and stop trying to make Jesus and the scriptures into a doctrinal pretzel.

Christianity doesn't agree with their personal philosophy, so everyone else and 2000 years of history must be pagans, right? What egotists.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I was unaware that Yale is conferring Ph.D's on rectums. Clymers, yes, but rectums?

[VietVet]

What a pity that this poor soul, even after 6 years of study and 15 years of teaching, still has not a clue as to the central message of the Christian faith.

VietVet

[DentsRun]

I don't know where Dr. Cook gets the idea that blood sacrifice wasn't part of the Judaism at the time. That's why there money changers in the temple--so pilgrims could buy animals and birds to sacrifice.