Book of Eli

2 Comments

Feeling that it is incumbent on a teacher of Bible to stay current with media presentations of my subject, I went to see Book of Eli yesterday. Not really a fan of violent movies, I was a bit concerned about being subjected to gratuitous carnage, but beyond the expected post-apocalyptic context and its attendant, constant menace, there was not too much to worry about on this score. For several years I have been researching the presentation of the Bible in movies. It is my hope to write this research up into a book one day if I ever land a job that allows such a luxury. Book of Eli will deserve a chapter of its own.

Apart from fundie self-praise fests, few movies present the Bible in such a heroic role as it plays in Book of Eli. Eli, like Jake and Elwood, is on a mission from God: to deliver a Bible to the last repository of education in the United States, namely a famous correctional institution. Along the way Road Warrior-style bandits harass him and Carnegie (a kind of deranged librarian with lofty political aspirations) covets Eli’s Bible, the last in existence. Carnegie wants the Bible because, “it is a weapon” of social control. (All quotes are approximate since I couldn’t take effective notes in the dark.) Eli must keep it because of his mission. Along the way Eli explains why the Bible is important to Solara, a young woman who is drawn to his sense of mission and devotion to the book. Explaining that since the last war, all Bibles have been routinely destroyed and that, “some say it [the Bible] is what caused the war,” Eli lovingly wraps the book in a cloth before secreting it in his ubiquitous backpack next to his machete. At this point I could feel the social commentary pressing hard upon me. The Religious Right would love nothing more than to force Armageddon on the planet so that they might go to their wonderful fantasy-land in the sky. Their misreading of the Bible has caused wars in the past and will likely cause them in the future.

As Eli loses the Bible to Carnegie and continues his mission empty-handed he explains to Solara, “I’ve been protecting it [the Bible] so long that I forgot to do what it says.” Again the social commentary was evident as news headlines continue to push hot-button conservative political issues where the heart has been cancerously eaten from the Religious Right and the Bible as idol becomes more important than what it actually says. When Eli brings his mission to its conclusion, however, the viewer is presented with an entirely positive view of the Bible. It is the symbol of civilization in a world of anarchy and Solara marches off as its acolyte into a hostile world as the sun sets in the west.

What is truly remarkable about this film is that it presents the Bible in a way that would make its study cool again (if it ever was). For those of us who’ve spent a lifetime shying away from telling others that we have spent our lives learning about the Bible, we might now walk into the glaring sunshine and have others step back in reverence for our selfless efforts to benefit the human race. Well, at least once the apocalypse is over.

Rushing in Where Angels Fear to Tread

1 Comment

As my daughter’s public school undertakes its humble efforts to raise funds for the devastated nation of Haiti, contributing the little that unemployed children can raise, Rush Limbaugh unapologetically proclaims that Americans shouldn’t contribute to the earthquake relief. The New Jersey Star-Ledger notes that on Wednesday Limbaugh declared that Americans already support Haiti through their tax dollars and shouldn’t feel the need to contribute anything beyond that to the poorest nation in our hemisphere. This is true Christianity, according to the Neo-Con gospel.

Rush Limbaugh basks in the limelight as the outspoken representative of the “Gott und Ich” school of religious politics. With an estimated annual salary around the $400 million mark, Limbaugh comfortably sits back and watches the world burn around him. Together with James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and others who support the new, compassionless version of Christianity (Christianity 2.0), they inveigh directly into the ears of high-ranking politicians with coarse voices declaring that God wills for them to be the sole arbiters of what is right. I only hope that Americans are really listening. Really listening.

Religion has always been a form of social control. From earliest times, those who claim to know the will of the gods tell others what they need to do to placate the angry deities that hover all around. Earthquakes are the work of such angry gods. What do they demand? Listen to your local priest. America has been beset with a plague of Religious Right voices that are well-funded and so parsimonious that seldom can the gentle voice of reason be heard. While Limbaugh enjoys his enormous wealth kids who have never known anything like basic comfort are dying in the thousands in a nation right next door. And the people say, “Amen.”

Theodicy Versus Idiocy

9 Comments

Among the leading reasons generally given for atheism in developed countries is the problem of theodicy. Theodicy is the act of justifying God, as implied by the roots of the word itself. In a world where many innocent suffer, as well as many guilty, the question of how a loving God and divine fairness fit into such a warped and corrupted system presents questions often left unanswerable. My class tonight will be reviewing Job, a book steeped in the issue of misfortune. The best that the narrator can offer is that Yahweh made a bet with the Satan and Job came out on the losing end. Not much hope for justice there.

This week’s horrific earthquake in Haiti has elicited high levels of sympathy and support as this poorest of western hemisphere nations struggles to find some kind of balance in a reeling world. The question of where God is amid all this tragedy, perhaps 100,000 dead, pensively teeters in minds sensitive to the human condition. Other minds, however, blare idiotic platitudes that only drive mourning theists closer to the other side. Pat Robertson, a major political player who has been a card-holding member of the Religious Right from its unholy inception, has declared that Haitians are paying the price for an ancient deal they made with the devil. In a theology that makes a mockery of even the Charlie Daniels band, Robertson stated, according to MCT News, that Haiti had made “a pact with the devil.” He said, “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it… They were under the heel of the French… and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story.”

This drivel, based on hearsay history and implicit racism, does not justify a loving, or even neutral, God. Instead, the Conservative deity is shown in his true colors: racist, supersessionist, arrogant, and uncaring. This is the deity behind the Religious Right. Some people castigate Pat Robertson for being outspoken and perhaps senile. I applaud him. He shows clearly what intellectual rubbish the Religious Right promotes. He simply has fewer inhibitions to admitting it.

In Job, there was a deal made with the Satan. The perpetrator of that deal was Yahweh. No answer is given as to why the innocent suffer. Job is a most profound book, wrapped in a childlike story of two supernatural beings trying to show each other up. If we look hard enough we can find the Religious Right in the book as well. Their voices are those of the “friends” that Yahweh ultimately condemns when he finally speaks from the whirlwind.

Hadad in Copenhagen

Leave a comment

Let us talk plainly about the weather. Global warming is a reality, and yet the issue is clouded by religious conservatism. To be precise, it is difficult to determine whether it is really greed or the religious right that stands so firmly behind free-market capitalism that is driving this chariot of the sun. The strange and unholy alliance between religious and political conservatism, however, has become a force daily striving against reality and its proponents want to be on the top of the pile when the whole thing collapses.

I can not speak to the political end of this continuum; I am not a political scientist or economist. As a “religionist,” however, I recognize a deeply disturbing trend that I have followed since my youth. Fundamentalists have consistently taught their young that the “Second Coming” is only minutes, possibly seconds, away. Undaunted by the two-millennium delay in wish-fulfillment, they suppose the words supposedly uttered by Jesus indicate a kind of divine “I’ll be right back” just before pushing off from the Mount of Olives. The signs of the times given in the Bible describe the then current condition, yet modern-day Fundamentalists wish to force the almighty hand, call the bluff of the Texas Hold-‘em expert above. If the general in the sky said wars would come, well, we’ll make wars. If the only way to get his attention is by destroying the planet around us, so be it. Deny global warming for the sake of the religious right, since their world is about to end.

Baal in Copenhagen?

The rest of us might want to stick around for a while. Ancient meteorologists believed that particular gods controlled the weather. At Ugarit Baal, or Hadad, took responsibility for drought and plenty. If there was a problem, they knew just to whom to offer a sacrifice. In our monotheistic western world, we’ve pared the gods down to a single man. Not everyone agrees on his mood or character, but some are convinced that he has his bead trained right on this planet and they want to help from here below. Others believe — o the heresy! — that natural processes control the weather and that we can do something to make our situation better. We might be in a better place if those who believe the gods control the weather were relegated to theology classes rather than political offices.

Dog-Headed Saints

4 Comments

Eastern Saint Christopher

In Stephen Asma’s recent book, On Monsters, he discusses the role of early Christianity in perpetuating or perhaps even inventing various monstrous creatures. As is clear from sources going all the way back to Sumerian times, ancient religions are the spawning beds for monsters. One of the monsters Asma mentioned that caught my attention was the familiar St. Christopher. According to sources as orthodox as St. Augustine, there lived races of dog-headed people in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. These Anubis-like cynocephali were barbarians in the extreme, eating human beings like the more familiar werewolf.

In some Eastern Orthodox traditions, St. Christopher was said to be among the cynocephali. Converted to Christianity, the dog-headed saint was martyred and entered the great kennel in the sky. The message proclaimed by this strange story is the tolerance of the early Christian movement. While battles raged over Orthodox vs. heterodox vs. Gnostic vs. pagan, there was still room to allow dog-headed humans into the fold. (They could be quite useful in rounding up straying sheep as well, one supposes.)

One of the hallmarks of modern Christianity is its exclusiveness. Naturally, not all Christians fit this profile, but many of the current movements define themselves by those not permitted to enter. In the sordid history of the Religious Right there are many chapters demonstrating a stark mistrust of non-Anglo believers. Roman Catholicism maintains that it is the only historically correct version of the faith. Other religions also erect barriers to keep others out. If religions truly promoted tolerance we might see a few more dog-headed saints in the news today instead of those who earn headlines for their exclusive claims on the truth.

What Would Dinos Eat?

1 Comment

A recent edition of Science Illustrated ran an article about a potentially revolutionary understanding of mammalian evolution. Reponomamus robustus, a large mammal from the Cretaceous Era has been found with dinosaur bones in its stomach. The implication, of course, is that this early mammal may have eaten dinosaurs instead of the conventional reverse of the scenario. Science is open to such radical ideas, but my thoughts turned to the culture war being waged on automobile bumpers across the United States.

Several years ago the Jesus Fish or ichthus symbol began appearing on the backend of cars in what seemed at first to be a “baby on board” tactic with a don’t-ram-me-I’m-a-Christian subtext. Some drivers, however, associated the Jesus Fish with an evangelical power play, a showing of numbers that indicted all other drivers as “non-Christian,” and therefore, by implication, accident-worthy. The Darwin Fish showed up soon thereafter, a counter-symbol for those who seemed to be declaring that Christians could be evolutionists as well. Sensing a challenge — which always appears as a threat in neo-con eyes — the Jesus Fish or Truth Ichthus swallowing the Darwin Fish swam onto car posteriors. Then the dinosaur eating a Jesus Fish came out, and I am certain that I once saw a Jesus Fish eating a T-rex on some oversized vehicle hind-end.

A friend once asked me why I spent my time arguing with those who are so obviously wrong (the anti-evolutionists). The unfortunate answer showed up in the White House at the turn of the millennium and the radical restructuring of society encouraged by the “religious right” gains credibility from the sheer number of people willing to adorn their cars with Jesus Fish. The real victim in this volley of statements in chrome is a guy who said nothing about evolution and who, I’m sure, would be amazed at how misrepresented he is. As the love-hate relationship between Jesus and dinosaurs continues to wax and wane, I’m staying out of it, but I’m more frightened by the fish than by the dinosaur.

Sacraments and Sea Cucumbers

Leave a comment

Directly across the fold from each other on pages 4–5 of today’s New Jersey Star-Ledger are two articles that my brain comprehends as related by more than mere proximity. On page 4 the headline reads, “In sunless depths, marine life thrives.” In an Associated Press article bi-lined New Orleans (where many of my colleagues are currently enjoying the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting), scientists reported that over 17,000 deep-seas species have been found below the point where sunlight ends. What was thought to be a barren zone just decades ago, it turns out, is teeming with organisms adapted to living without light.

One page 5 the headline reads “Bishop admits barring Kennedy from sacrament.” In a ploy that has become distressingly frequent of late, the Roman Catholic bishop claims that Representative Kennedy’s political views on abortion effectively excommunicate him. I find it unconscionable that clergy feel that they have the right to direct public policy when they are not publicly elected officials. Any clergy attempting to coerce officials democratically elected are guilty of abusing their putatively divinely appointed trust. The millions of Catholic laity who privately support freedom of choice they may rhetorically chastise from the pulpit or by some papal bull but they do not deny them the sacrament. Let’s be honest here, this is about politics, not theology.

I have been reading Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah, perhaps the scariest book I’ve ever read. In it Blumenthal demonstrates how the Catholic Church got onto the pro-life bandwagon in the intricate political maneuverings of the “Religious Right.” They quickly learned techniques up to and including lying to get their agenda across. It should distress all members of a democracy that their leaders are being led by dishonest clerics of all stripes. Those who mix their religious views with politics seek to end the religious freedom that allowed them to be born in the first place. They practice late-term religious freedom abortion.

What does this have to do with the wondrous world of the great deeps? They represent, to my mind, two forms of life that thrive far from the enlightening rays of the sun.