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Gershom Gorenberg: Fundamentalism on Film
Benny Elon -- Israeli tourism minister and head of the far-right Moledet party -- has an excruciating sense of timing. In early February, Elon met a group of American missionaries and urged them to "bring the light" of Christianity to Muslims so that they�d recognize the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel. Elon put new passion into his romance with conservative Christians just as that community was enthusiastically gearing up for the premiere of Mel Gibson�s "The Passion of the Christ," a spectacular reminder of the potential for demonizing Jews among reactionary strands of Christianity.
No, I haven�t seen Gibson�s celluloid passion play. It hasn�t shown in Israel, and the U.S. advance screenings were intended for the claque, not for researchers of religious extremism. Even offered a free showing, I�d hesitate; I don�t have the stomach for the relentless violence that reviewers report in Gibson�s account of Jesus� last hours. It�s ironic that tickets for "The Passion" are selling by the bushel among some of the people most critical of the media�s moral degeneration. Ironic, but not hypocritical -- conservative media-bashers tend to focus their fury on scenes of lovemaking, not on bloodletting.
In any case, enough has been published about "The Passion" to point out deeper ironies. Post-9/11, "fundamentalism" and "religious extremism" have virtually become synonyms for Islam. The "conflict of civilizations" is often taken for granted; it supposedly pits the "Judeo-Christian" world against Muslims. That mood, along with the intifada, has fertilized an alliance twinning Israeli right-wingers and some U.S. Jewish leaders with conservative Christians. "The Passion" should sober people up.
Gibson claims to have based his script directly on the New Testament, and less discerning critics have bought that line. Those who did more homework point out that he has picked and chosen among the Gospels� contradictory accounts, supplementing them with visions of 19th-century nun Anne Catherine Emmerich, who labeled Jesus� death "the crime of the Jews," and with his own action-movie imagination.
This is a textbook example of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists -- of various faiths -- claim to read their sacred book literally, in order to find the original meaning. But sacred texts are full of metaphors and apparent contradictions. The "literal" reading is necessarily selective, necessarily shaped by later interpretation.
Despite its claim to be old-time religion, fundamentalism is a thoroughly modern rebellion against modernity. What frightens fundamentalists most about modernity is the recognition that each of us is responsible for his or her moral choices, including choices of how to read sacred texts. Hence the claim to read scripture "as it is," as if no choice were involved. And hence a preference for readings that offend moral sensibilities. Let God tell you to do or say something apparently immoral, and you "prove" that you listen to God, not your personal moral sense. In the early 21st century, there may be no more effective way to show you�ve rejected modern universalism than to return to ancient myths about Jewish evil.
The "literal" reading is also shaped by the modern culture that fundamentalists despise, and the message is spread by modern technology. As in a mass-market action movie packed with violence. As in a celluloid rejection of years of establishment Catholic efforts to excise the idea that Jews are guilty of deicide.
The movement known as "fundamentalism" was born not in Afghanistan or Egypt, but among American Protestants. Its strategy has been copied by reactionary Muslims, Hindus, Jews -- and Catholics like Gibson. His movie is one more sign that the most important religious battle lines today aren�t between "civilizations" but within each religion. Indeed, the reactionaries of different religious groups sometimes join forces. Conservative Protestant churches and organizations are promoting Gibson�s film. Websites devoted to the film carry plugs from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, among other Christian Right luminaries.
(One prominent pro-Israel Evangelical, Mike Evans, is campaigning to have Gibson deal with his Jewish problem. But Evans�s proposed fix -- a single sentence at the movie�s end acknowledging that the Romans crucified many other Jews -- suggests that he doesn�t understand the depth of the problem with the movie.)
By attacking "The Passion," Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League helped publicize it. I don�t think they had a better option. To ignore a film in which Pilate is a softy and the Jews cry for Jesus� blood would be equivalent to pleading "no contest" to the West�s oldest calumny.
But the "Passion" affair underlines the absurdity of the romance between Jewish groups (including the ADL) and the Christian Right. The theology behind conservative Evangelicals� hawkish views on Israel is the theology behind their attraction to Gibson�s film. Based on a "literal" reading of Christian scripture, it accuses Jews of error and stubbornness in rejecting Jesus, looks forward to their conversion or destruction -- and along the way, regards Israel as a vehicle to a Christian apocalypse. And yes, it proclaims love for Jews. Put an arm around people who love you like this, appear on the same dais as them, sign the same ads, and you have a harder time explaining what�s wrong with the way they present you.
Benny Elon has given Christian fundamentalists the warmest embrace. A note to Mr. Elon: Already, Muslim anti-Semites crib from the works of Christian reactionaries -- most notably, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zionism." In fact, the success of that book in Arabic is a sign of how deeply the Arab world is tied to the West. If conservative Protestant missionaries succeed in getting a part of their message across in our neighborhood, it�s not likely to be support for Israel.
Gibson�s "Passion" will teach many of its viewers exactly those lessons that more liberal Christians have courageously been trying to remove from their catechism since the Holocaust. For the rest of us, it provides lessons about fundamentalism, and the pitfalls of embracing anyone willing to sign on current Israeli policy. Given the potential impact of this movie, I�d rather have done without those lessons. But "The Passion" won�t do us the favor of disappearing, and we might as well learn what we can from it.
March 8, 2004
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