[Dialogue] 7/13/17, Felton: A New Template for Religion: A Conversation with Michael Morwood: Part 1; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock via Dialogue
dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net
Thu Jul 13 04:13:45 PDT 2017
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<div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 class="aolmail_null" style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="color:#000000">A New Template for Religion:
A Conversation with Michael Morwood
Part 1</span></h2>
<h3 class="aolmail_null" style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 26px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">By Rev. David Felten</h3>
<p><img height="154" style="border: 0px;width: 125px;height: 154px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;float: left;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="125" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/117a0944-fe1a-42ac-a7d1-ca77e6c7b715.png">Most 21st century Christians have grown up indoctrinated by a conventional religious experience that offers the assurance of having all the answers tied up in a little bow, just for the believing. Many still find this to be comforting, but a growing number are antsy. On the verge of becoming what Bishop Spong calls “church alumni/ae,” they know too much. Archaeology, astrophysics, and any number of other scientific disciplines continue to make discoveries that compel us to re-evaluate our true place in the universe – and we are right to be feeling increasingly humble.
So, many are feeling stuck. Even as deeply religious questions of origins and purpose continue to persist, the Bible seems to be more of a hindrance than a help. Rational thinkers know that the Bible and much of what people consider to be “core doctrines” of Christianity reflect the fanciful notions of a pre-scientific mindset. Cosmologists have shown without a shadow-of-a-doubt that the ancient notion of a three-tiered earth-centric cosmos is just a quaint throw-back to the fertile imaginations of primitive thinkers.</p>
<p>The question is, can religion as a whole adapt to a new template? A new reality? A brush with mystery? Can religion reflect modern scientific discoveries, honor the mysteries of the universe, and dump the requirement of maintaining allegiance to primitive claims and beliefs?</p>
<p>As we face this latest decisive moment in our collective human experience, champions of just such a new model are emerging – and one of the most articulate is Australian author <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=3921dcd674&e=db34daa597">Michael Morwood</a>.</p>
<p>With over 40 years’ experience as a sought-after retreat leader and educator, Morwood is well known around the world. Bishop John Shelby Spong writes: <em>“Michael Morwood…is raising the right and obvious questions that all Christians must face. He provides fresh and perceptive possibilities for a modern and relevant faith.”</em> With <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=5e77b3b861&e=db34daa597">a dozen books to his name</a> (<a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=ba4763d9b0&e=db34daa597">two of which were banned</a> before he resigned from the Catholic priesthood), Morwood brings an extensive background in spirituality to what he sees as the urgent need to reshape Christian thinking for a new millennium.</p>
<p>What follows in interview form is the first of several columns inspired by a presentation Morwood offered at the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=731005ea90&e=db34daa597">Common Dreams Conference</a> in Brisbane, Queensland, in 2016. In it, he offers a re-visioning of who Jesus was, new perspectives on prayer and worship (from a non-theistic perspective), and thoughts on whether our conventional ideas of religion have any real value anymore.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>What are some of the new discoveries that fire your imagination in formulating a new template for religion? </em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> In February of 2016, Australian scientists, using a radio telescope at the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=e418687626&e=db34daa597">Parkes Observatory</a> in western New South Wales discovered <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=962c930d70&e=db34daa597">a cluster of over 800 hidden galaxies behind the Milky Way</a> – a third of which had never been seen before. The report noted that our galaxy is being drawn to this cluster at a speed of two million kilometers an hour. Two million kilometers an hour!! Hold that in mind for a moment.</p>
<p>Scientists estimate that most galaxies contain about 100 billion stars – and how
many galaxies in our universe? The current estimate is between 100 and 200
billion. That’s at least 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars all hurtling through space at unimaginable speeds.</p>
<p>Let’s also hold in mind that galaxies like the Milky Way probably have about 17 billion earth size planets.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>I’m feeling pretty humble.</em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> Well, in the grand schema of galaxies, stars and planets, planet Earth rates in comparison with it all as little more than what a speck of dust is to hundreds of millions of planets. A speck of dust.</p>
<p>If this speck of dust and everything on it were to disappear, the rest of the universe would not blink.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>That seems dark…</em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> Maybe not as dark as the fact that all the known matter in the universe – all those galaxies, stars and planets – make up less than 6% of the universe’s composition. “<a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=424c710cd2&e=db34daa597">Dark matter</a>” and “<a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=94e1564385&e=db34daa597">dark energy</a>” make up the other 94%. These realities are called “dark” because scientists can deduce that they exist, but they can’t detect them.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>So, here we are on this speck of dust surrounded by the mystery of indefinable “dark” matter and energy – where does that leave our ideas of “God”?</em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> Well, it’s not only any understanding of “God” that becomes problematic within this scientific data. Christians now have quite a list of topics that have become problematic against such a background: revelation, Jesus, salvation, worship, prayer, sacraments. At the very heart of the “Christ” religion now looms the problematic question– how can we justify elevating a Jewish prophet to becoming the Christian notion of “the Christ”, the triumphant cosmic figure way out in front of us, God-himself, leading creation to its glorious fulfillment? In the light of what we know today it seems too grandiose, too far ahead of ourselves in religious thinking to keep maintaining that the “Christ” is the be all and end all of the universe’s existence.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>What’s the likelihood that the institutional church will be able to adapt to these new realities?</em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> Unlikely. All institutional Christian understanding of these supposedly religious essentials were shaped in a worldview that was pre-scientific, ignorant, limited, and now extremely outdated. Religion based on that worldview is like trying to use a floppy disc in your new Mac.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>OK, then considering your background in adult faith formation, what hope can you offer those of us who are trying to upgrade our theological or spiritual Operating Systems? </em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> In any process of adult faith formation, I think there are three key questions that need to be raised and answered for each concept being considered:</p>
<p>1. What are you asking me to imagine?
2. Where did that image come from?
3. How does that image or picture of reality fit with what I know of reality today?</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>OK, Let’s start off with something easy. How about the idea of “God”? </em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> If you’re asking me to imagine “God,” I’d have to simply say that I don’t know what “God” is. No one does, really. I’m one of many people who don’t even like to use the word “God” anymore because it is so misleading and so tied to outdated ideas about the universe and earth’s place in the universe.</p>
<p>Our understandings from scripture, creeds, doctrine and liturgy is of a personal being essentially located “somewhere else.” The prayers we were taught and the prayers commonly used in Christian liturgy presume the notion of a heavenly deity who demands to be worshipped, who listens in, who sometimes responds, and who is in control of everything that happens. These ideas are not only cemented into our imaginations, but as a picture of reality, are really beyond questioning. But those floppy disc theologies just don’t fit with the operating system we have on hand today.</p>
<p>Our pointers to this greatest of mysteries need to be expanded beyond the biblical and doctrinal and liturgical and prayerful notions of a personal deity. Our
pointers may best be found in notions such as “ground of all being,” or “source
and sustainer of all that exists,” and in universal realities such as energy and
consciousness. In other words, we need to take seriously that this mystery is
indeed everywhere.</p>
<p>The mind-blowing, ever-expanding knowledge we have about the age and size of this universe compels us to have a mind-blowing and expansive notion of whatever we think “God” might be. At the very least we should acknowledge that we are not dealing with a reality that can disconnect from our tiny piece of the cosmos, intervene from somewhere above us, and play mind-games with the human species.</p>
<p><strong>Felten:</strong> <em>What kind of precedent do we have for this kind of “reboot” in our tradition? </em></p>
<p><strong>Morwood:</strong> There’s a long-established religious belief that mystery is everywhere. Today’s scientific discoveries are pointers that re-enforce ideas expressed as long ago as the 4th century. Gregory of Nyssa wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>“For when one considers the universe, can anyone be so simple-minded as not to believe that the Divine is present in everything, pervading,
embracing, and penetrating it?</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As you know, a significant feature in Christian tradition has been a sharp divide between the Mystics and what we’ll call “institutional” theologians. On the one hand you have the Mystics who, in keeping with the above quote, speak the language of presence, relationship and intimacy.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we’ve had the institutional theologians focusing on disconnection and the need for “someone” with whom we can reconnect. Turning that “someone” into a God and seeking forgiveness for whatever human fault caused the separation in the first place has become an obsession – and reconnection and renewed friendship with a heavenly God is the only achievement worth pursuing.</p>
<p>The time for such theological thinking is over. It makes no sense any more. It’s
time to state this publicly, clearly and unapologetically. It is time to stop
defending nonsensical images and to move on to the challenges that face us as
we wrestle with the pointers we have today – pointers to a template that reflect the greatest of all mysteries.</p>
<p>~ Rev. David Felten with Michael Morwood
Read online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=6c35f46b0c&e=db34daa597">here</a></p>
<p><strong>In the next installment of “A New Template for Religion,” Felten will ask Morwood to apply his three questions to the concepts of revelation, Jesus, and being human. </strong></p>
<p>Be sure to visit Michael Morwood’s website by clicking <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=7f52cca342&e=db34daa597">HERE</a>.</p>
<p>David Felten is a full-time pastor at <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=f9cad0b1f8&e=db34daa597">The Fountains</a>, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “<a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=0a80aa18db&e=db34daa597">Living the Questions</a>”.</p>
<p>A co-founder of the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=23898c1446&e=db34daa597">Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology</a> and also a founding member of <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=7582eba1f7&e=db34daa597">No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice</a>, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=74921f0c55&e=db34daa597">Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church</a> and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=9bb005fda2&e=db34daa597">Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet</a>.</p>
<p>David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children.</p>
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<p><span style="font-size:18px">An Italian Philosopher from Italy, writes:</span></p>
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Question:</h4>
<p>1. You are a theologian, and more precisely a scholar of spirituality who has reintroduced to Western audiences the major insights of Medieval mystics, insisting on their practicability today. Yet in this book you do not use the word “God” even once? Why?</p>
<p>and,</p>
<p>2. I was especially struck, in this book, by your deep yet free relation with the tradition, with the wisdom of the past. What are the difficulties that people have, in your opinion, for understanding this balance? How much do you think this vision is advancing in the world today?</p>
<h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer: <span style="font-size:20px">By Matthew Fox</span></h4>
<p>Dear Reader,<span style="color:#FFFFFF">...<img height="109" style="border: 0px;width: 115px;height: 109px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;float: left;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="115" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/1383a9f4-6b3a-4874-aa82-917666fd964b.jpeg"></span></p>
<p>These questions were put to me by an Italian philosopher on the<span style="color:#FFFFFF">.</span>occasion of the publication of my book on education, <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=6dcbfb952d&e=db34daa597"><em>The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human, into Italian</em></a>. I felt they were deserving of sharing with an American audience as well.</p>
<p>1. Well, not all medieval theologians were obsessed with God language either after all. Meister Eckhart said, “I pray God to rid me of God” and Thomas Aquinas says every creature in the universe is another name for God—and no creature is. And Francis of Assisi’s great poem on Brother Earth and Sister Moon never mentions God or Jesus' name once! The mystical path includes <em>not knowing</em> and <em>unknowing</em> and letting God be God in whatever form he/she is rising to present the Godself.</p>
<p>Furthermore I wrote this book with public school educators in mind and in the US God talk is not encouraged in our public schools. As a spiritual theologian I am more interested in our <em>experiences</em> of God than our invoking that name as such (didn’t Jesus say not all who invoke the words “lord, lord” will enter the kingdom?).</p>
<p>I think the experiences of living out the values inherent in the 10 C’s presented in this book constitute our experience of the Divine and our putting our spirituality into practice. (The 10 C’s that lie at the heart of my agenda for reinventing education are the following: Cosmology/Ecology; Contemplation; Chaos; Creativity; Community; Compassion; Critical Thinking; Character Development; Courage; Ceremony, Celebration, Ritual.)</p>
<p>And that is the point. To <em>do compassion</em> and <em>justice</em>, not to talk about them. The term “awe” summarizes nicely our deepest experiences of the Divine, as Rabbi Heschel taught. Awe is the door for Wisdom and Wisdom is one (of many) names for the Divine, isn’t it? And education needs to move beyond mere knowledge to wisdom if humans are to survive and the planet as we know it is to survive.</p>
<p>2. I think the biggest obstacle is ignorance. If for example people do not know that there is and has been a creation spirituality tradition that is rich and foundational in our Western consciousness, a tradition of Original Blessing as distinct from Original Sin and guilt, then we are set up for pessimism and lack of creativity. We fall into Patriarchy and what feminist poet Adrienne Rich calls its “fatalistic self-hatred.” If we don’t know this tradition we lack a hermeneutic for interpreting our greatest thinkers and artists. Education becomes education for a society based on a secular version of original sin which we now call consumer capitalism. In such a scenario competition and greed triumph rather than joy and truth-seeking. Beauty loses its rightful place as an inherited, original, blessing, into which we are all born.</p>
<p>I think the desperation of our times is calling forth wisdom from the young and from many who recognize that our current, modern way of looking at the world, our lack of a sense of the sacred, is not working and is not sustainable. Education needs a thorough reinventing.</p>
<p>~ Matthew Fox</p>
<p>Read and Share Online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=ee5c330f0a&e=db34daa597">Here</a>
<strong>About the Author</strong></p>
<p>Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=6074717dc9&e=db34daa597">Creation Spirituality </a>and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=7491493c7f&e=db34daa597"><em>Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the FleshTransforming Evil in Soul and Society</em></a>, <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=6325083ac7&e=db34daa597"><em>The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved</em>, </a><a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=9e0ee8d023&e=db34daa597"><em>Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest</em> and </a><a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=95aaa5a06f&e=db34daa597"><em>The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human</em></a>
A new school, adopting the pedagogy Fox created and practiced for over 35 years, is opening in Boulder, Colorado this September. Called the Fox Institute for Creation Spirituality it is being run by graduates of his doctoral program and will offer MA, D Min and Doctor of Spirituality degrees. See <a id="aolmail_m_-1629594797181833715yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499788556168_140971" rel="noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=cadc5cf67b&e=db34daa597">www.foxinstitute-cs.org</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">____________________________________________________</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>"The Passion of the Christ"
Mel Gibson's Film and Biblical Scholarship – Part I</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p><img height="121" style="border: 0px;width: 115px;height: 121px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;float: left;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="115" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/84fbd945-363f-48e0-97f1-129010755fed.jpg">Mel Gibson’s motion picture, “The Passion of the Christ,” goes public on Ash Wednesday, February 25, the day this column comes out. Then people can see for themselves a film that has been hyped by advance showings to evangelical clergy and conservative Catholics, including Pope John Paul II. It has been praised by Protestant fundamentalists, who count on it to bring Christian renewal to the people of the United States and who see it as inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is, they say, “the tool of conversion,” that follows “faithfully the texts of the gospels.” One evangelical church in Kansas has even erected tents, across from the theater, staffing them with “counselors,” to bring about the full conversion of viewers following the showing of this film.
It has been praised by Protestant fundamentalists, who count on it to bring Christian renewal to the people of the United States and who see it as inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is, they say, "the tool of conversion," that follows "faithfully the texts of the gospels." One evangelical church in Kansas has even erected tents, across from the theater, staffing them with "counselors," to bring about the full conversion of viewers following the showing of this film.</p>
<p>At the same time, "The Passion of the Christ" has been condemned by Christian scholars and Jewish leaders as anti-Semitic in nature and, therefore, a threat to reignite the flames of prejudice and persecution that marked the darkest days in Jewish-Christian relations. A writer in the Jerusalem Post, Shmuley Boteach, has gone so far as to refer to Gibson as a "kooky fundamentalist, who seems intent on reversing the reforms of Vatican II, which officially absolved the Jews of deicide, and convincing the world that, indeed, the Jews did it." Boteach identifies Gibson as a conservative Catholic, who has never disavowed his father's statement that "The Second Vatican Council was a plot, put out by the Jews" and that the Holocaust could not have happened because, "there weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe." This film will create an enormous debate, thus insuring its financial success.</p>
<p>I seek to raise two primary questions: 1. How accurately does this film follow the biblical text in telling the story of the crucifixion? 2. What historicity can we ascribe to the gospels themselves in regard to the crucifixion? This second question Gibson never faces since his brand of conservative Catholicism has never raised the issue. Scholars have, however, and it is time to address it publicly. Only then can we assess the claim made to defend this film against the charge of anti-Semitism. Simply following the biblical narrative may not be enough for exoneration.</p>
<p>I begin by noting the fact that Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" includes a number of details that are not in the biblical narrative. They derive rather from a centuries-old Catholic piety. There is nothing wrong with using material out of an ancient worship tradition but one should not claim biblical authority for this material. For example, Jesus is portrayed in this film as stumbling three times on his way to Golgotha. There is no evidence to support this in the gospels but it is a well-known part of the traditional Catholic liturgy called "The Stations of the Cross." This film also introduces a fictitious character named St. Veronica who is said, at Station Number Six, to have wiped Jesus' bloodied face with her handkerchief. Veronica, a creation of later piety, never appears in any biblical narrative.</p>
<p>Next, the Mother of Jesus is highly visible and quite central to Gibson's portrayal of the crucifixion. That is not true to the gospels and expresses a confusion born out of later developing Catholic devotional practices. The only time Mary is present in any biblical account of the crucifixion comes in John, the last gospel to be written, where she makes only a cameo appearance at the cross. Even John does not then include her in his resurrection narrative. Yet, in this film, Mel Gibson has Mary say to the dying Jesus, "Let me die with you," and then she cradles Jesus' deceased body. That is a famous portrait in Catholic art, painted many times and called the Pieta, but there is not a shred of biblical evidence to support it.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact Mary, the mother of Jesus, hardly appears in the gospel tradition outside the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. She is never referred to or mentioned in the writings of Paul (50-64 CE). She makes only two appearances in Mark, the first Gospel to be written (70-75 CE) and both of them are pejorative. In Mark 3:31-35, Jesus' mother and his brothers, none of whom are named, come to where Jesus is and call for him to come out to them. An earlier verse in Mark (3:21) tells us why. When his family heard about his activities, "they went out to seize him, for the people were saying, 'he is beside himself.'" "Beside himself" is an ancient way of saying "He is out of his mind." Jesus had become a family embarrassment. The scribes, according the next verse in Mark (3:22) were saying that he "is possessed by Beelzebul," who was called 'the Prince of demons." Jesus responds to his family, according to this Marcan reference, by denying his relationship with his mother and his brothers, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Then, answering his own question, he looks around at those seated near him and says, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God, is my mother and sister and brother."</p>
<p>In the second Markan reference (6:1-6), Jesus returns to Nazareth and begins to teach in the synagogue to the astonishment of the townspeople. They respond derisively as if to say, "Who does this man think he is?" Then they go on to identify him with these words, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" and they took offense at him.</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that Mark, in this passage, has this critical crowd identify Jesus as "the son of Mary," as well as describing him as "the carpenter." Both of these references are quite negative. To call a Jewish man the son of a particular woman was an insult since it cast public doubts upon his paternity. To call him a carpenter identified him as a lower class laborer.</p>
<p>Some ten to fifteen years later, when Matthew wrote his gospel (80-85), he copied almost 90 per cent of Mark into his story. It is interesting to note how Matthew changed Mark's negative wording (compare Mt. 12:46-50 and 13:53-58 with Mk. 3:31-35 and 6:1-6). Mark's words were so clearly embarrassing, that in Matthew's version, the slander is removed when Joseph, Jesus father, becomes the carpenter, not Jesus, and the crowd calls him not "the son of Mary," but simply recalls that his mother was named Mary. Those are the only references to the mother of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel other than those in the birth narratives. The Virgin Mother of Jesus is far more a creation of Christian history than a character in the gospels.</p>
<p>In Luke it is no different. Outside the birth narratives (Lk. 1,2), and Luke's shortened retelling of Mark's episode of Jesus' mother and brothers coming to take him away (see Lk. 8:19-22), the mother of Jesus does not appear in this third gospel at all.</p>
<p>Only in John (95-100 C.E.) does the mother of Jesus receive any attention but still it is not close to what Gibson portrays. She presides over a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee in chapter 2 (vs.1-11). In that story she is portrayed as requesting that Jesus meet the social crisis brought about by a shortage of wine. Jesus rebukes her, rather sternly, with the words, "Woman what have you to do with me? My hour is not yet come." In John 6, as part of that gospel's version of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus is portrayed as saying, "I am the bread which came down from heaven (vs.42)." To this the crowd responds incredulously saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he claim to have come down from heaven?" Once again, it is not a particularly flattering reference to Mary. Finally, John portrays the mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross. That is absolutely all there is in the gospels about the mother of Jesus. The Virgin tradition has been built on very scanty material.</p>
<p>I go through this in such detail because, to a degree far greater than we imagine, Mel Gibson in "The Passion of the Christ" has read the later development of pious tradition about the Virgin Mary back into the gospel narratives. Since he has so obviously heightened the crucifixion portrait, about the role of Mary, in contradistinction to the biblical narrative itself, then his assertion that he has followed the biblical texts accurately is severely compromised.</p>
<p>This lack of biblical accuracy does not stop with his portrayal of the mother of Jesus. Gibson clearly hypes the biblical accounts of the abuse that Jesus endured. There is no doubt that crucifixion was a horrible and inhumane way to die, yet the physical suffering of Jesus is, if anything, understated in the gospels while in Gibson's movie it is the riveting center of the story itself.</p>
<p>Look at the scourging scene in Gibson's film. It is long, protracted and grotesque. The cameras linger on the lash; the stripes, the welts and the blood, but the biblical texts about the scourging are almost matter of fact. They do not focus on the pain. Mark says simply "Pilate, having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified (15:15)." Matthew uses almost identical words (27:26). Luke has Pilate offer "to chastise" Jesus instead of executing him (23;17). When the crowd, not satisfied with that, demands crucifixion instead, Pilate acquiesces and delivers Jesus to be crucified without scourging. John says quite simply, "Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him (Jn. 19:1). I do not mean to minimize this scourging but no blood is mentioned or even described in the gospels. Following this scourging, it is interesting to note that Jesus is portrayed in John's Gospel as having a rather long conversation with Pilate (19:12-16) and in the earlier gospels as conversing with the soldiers, the crowd and the thieves who shared the cross with him. Whatever was done to him did not render him incompetent to function immediately thereafter. The "Crown of Thorns" is mentioned with no reference to blood in Mark (15:17), Matthew 27:29) and John (19:2). It is omitted in Luke.</p>
<p>Once again, Gibson is reading the gospels through the lens of medieval piety. In the early church, especially in the writings of Paul, the death of Jesus was likened to the believer's act of being baptized. The believer in baptism was united with Christ in his death so that he or she could live with Christ in his resurrection (see Romans 6:1-11 and Col. 2:12). But Gibson turns this into a sadomasochistic scene of pain inflicted and suffering endured. It is so long and violent that it qualifies this film for an "R" rating, "for adults only."</p>
<p>The earliest Christians knew that crucifixion was not unique to Jesus. Thousands of people had died this way at the hands of the Romans. To the Jews crucifixion was particularly associated with shame and embarrassment, since the Torah said that one who was hung upon a tree was "accursed" (Deut. 21:22, 23). The fetish about the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus was again a pious devotional technique that ultimately attributed a sacred meaning to suffering and made cruelty an attribute of God, both of which are strange, even unhealthy theological concepts. Yet Gibson has developed these ideas to a fine art. His interpretive work may engender a guilt-laden piety but we need to recognize that it is not biblically accurate.</p>
<p>There are many more things that need to be said about Gibson's motion picture so I will return to this topic next week, by which time many of my readers will have seen the film. I will begin there to address my second and far more troubling question about whether the gospel narratives themselves are trustworthy as history, so stay tuned.</p>
<p>~ John Shelby Spong
Originally published February 25, 2004</p>
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