More Passion, Less Reason
  by Dr. David Eller

Mel Gibson's new torture movie has provoked much debate. The two problems are that this was not its intention and that the "debate" is almost completely misguided. It is never the intention of religion to debate but to convert, to proselytize, to dominate.

Let us look at the so-called debate. What precisely is being discussed, and who is participating in the discussion? As far as I can see, there is only one major question on the table: who killed Jesus? And there are only two voices being heard: Christians and Jews. No other questions are asked and no other perspectives are heard. But what if they were?

What if a Muslim perspective were included in the argument? In Islam, Jesus is regarded as a prophet, not the son of God, because their scripture states clearly that God does not have offspring. At least some believe that Jesus was never actually crucified; instead, he escaped capture and lived his life out in hiding. So, no crucifixion, no death, no resurrection, no Christianity, and no Mel Gibson movie.

What if a Hindu, Buddhist, or other perspective were included? Their religion says nothing about any Jesus, and they are uninterested in any such person.

What if an atheist or secularist perspective were included? Now things would get really interesting. There is a substantial literature that suggests that Jesus was not even a historical person, let alone the son of God. There is no solid contemporary evidence that such a man ever lived or was killed by the Romans. Rome kept a good record of its criminal proceedings, but there is no reference to any Jesus. All we have are four partisan-and contradictory-supposed witness accounts, which we know were written decades after the alleged events.

Still worse, we know that the "divine son" and "dying god" motif was a common one in the ancient world. Kersey Graves' "The World's 16 Crucified Saviors" discusses several such god-men including Mithras, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Thammus, etc., all with essentially the same boilerplate "life story," from divine (often virgin) birth to miracles to torture and death to resurrection; often enough, December 25 is their birthday! For even more in-depth treatment of the Jesus story, Earl Doherty's "The Jesus Puzzle" shows conclusively that there was no such historical person.

But reason is not being pursued in the current circumstances, and reason is not being achieved. Indeed, one viewer of the movie in Dallas said, "I dare anybody not to believe after watching it." This is a clear-and really alarming-substitution of emotion for reason. So, the more violent a movie is, the more convincing? The more it makes you cry, the more it makes you believe? In other words, if I were to make a truly emotional film about the life of Muhammad, viewers ought to convert to Islam? A really stirring account of Siddhartha should change you into a Buddhist? No, the emotional power of a story does not make that story true; in fact, where there is great emotion, we should be most on guard that truth suffers.

A word to Protestants who are reveling in the moment: this movie is not for you. Mel has said that only Catholics will go to heaven. Everyone else, including his own wife, is going to hell.

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