Killing for Cross and Crescent

Somehow or other (the vagaries of hypertext, I guess), I recently stumbled across a conservative blog, the purpose of which appeared to be to deny the reality of global warming and to slander Islam. Since I've said enough about the former topic, I thought I'd comment here on the latter.

Now, on one point I agreed with the blogger: anyone who says that Islam is a religion of peace is being, at best, disingenuous. From what I've read of the Koran, it's roughly equal parts touchy-feely, love-thy-neighbor stuff and scimitar-rattling, slay-the-infidels stuff. Pretty much like the Christian Bible, in fact. And to say it's a peaceful religion in some generic sense is to overlook the fact that religion exists not merely in the abstract but in the lived practice--in what followers of a particular religion say and do. Thus, if individuals commit acts of violence in the name of Islam, it's nonsense to say that Islam itself is peaceful.

Where I disagreed with the blogger was in his suggestion that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity. Jesus says a lot about love, but that didn't stop the Crusades, the Holocaust, the American slavery system, the Ku Klux Klan, assorted far-right hate groups, Jim Jones, the members of Heaven's Gate, and multifarious religiously-inspired mass murderers from committing unspeakable acts of violence against others and themselves.

Islam, being a somewhat younger religion than Christianity, may be a bit behind in acting out its most intense slay-the-infidels phase, but the reality is, all crusading, proselytizing religions generate a certain number of followers who are prone to violence. The Aztecs, the Romans, the Christians, the Muslims: all of them have had their world-conquering, infidel-slaying wings.

This is probably why Buddhists and Jews have a somewhat more clean track record: not aiming to conquer or convert anyone, they have less motivation to kill anyone.

So: let's call it what it is. Let's not go around saying that Islam is peaceful and that those who commit acts of violence in its name therefore aren't "really" Muslims, but let's not afford Christianity or any religion the same excuse. Let's critique religious violence as religious violence, violence justified by (though neither synonymous with nor necessary to) the religion practiced by the person who commits the violence. Let's accept it as something we ourselves have created, not some dark, monstrous aberration over which we have no control. Only in this way, I believe, can we understand and seek to eradicate it.

Faith in Fantasy

I saw the most recent Narnia film today with my daughter. (She's a big fan.) On the whole, I'd have to rate it a failure, certainly inferior to the first and best, and even a hair below the second. Though it had plenty of promising material--a high seas adventure in search of enchanted swords and missing lords, a boy who turns into a dragon, a pool that transforms all it touches to gold--for me, all of these elements fell flat. And the reason is simple: the film had no faith in its own fantasy.

That's the problem with allegory, and the Narnia films, though they've been softened somewhat from the overtly allegorical books, are nonetheless allegories. (At one point in the film Aslan tells Lucy, "I am known by a different name in your world, and you must come to know me there." Yawn.) Allegory, by its very nature, empties fantasy of its mystery and appeal and turns it into a mere facade or excuse for something else, something supposedly deeper and presumably more important. Allegory won't let fantasy simply be; it insists that fantasy has to mean, and what it means cancels out the very vessel that holds the meaning. So instead of a thrilling adventure, you get a dull lesson in temptation and sin. Instead of true imagination, you get a sermon. Instead of a talking lion, you get talking points about the Son of God.

I say all this, remember, having nothing against the Son of God. As Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaches, I think we would all do well to remember what the Son of God said, and try to live our lives, as King did, a bit more in his example.

But King was no allegory. Neither was Christ. They were living models of the spiritual life, and when they told us to follow them, they didn't need a talking lion to make their case.

So let's have both faith and fantasy, and keep the two separate. Let's allow life to be mysterious and unknowable for its own sake (that's fantasy) as well as mysterious and unknowable for some higher purpose (that's faith). Let's not demean faith by calling it a fantasy. But let's not demean fantasy either by insisting it has to be the handmaiden of faith.

Tron, Reloaded

I saw the remake of Tron a couple days ago with my son. He gave it a 9 out of 10 (but then, he never gives anything less than an 8 if it's got spaceships and laser beams). I gave it about a 2. It was just plain awful.

The story made even less sense than the original: guy is somehow translated into his computer, where he has to fight programs in human form with spinning-laser-disk-frisbee-things and lightspeed motorcycles. One of the programs, a clone of the creator, wants to take over the world (he was designed to create perfection, and he's pissed when his creator suggests that perfection is unattainable). Another program, a really hot chick, turns out to be an angel of some sort. And yet another program, named Zeus (huh?), camps it up in possibly the most bizarre scene in the film, wherein he dances in white tailcoat and cane while the creator's son, who's also been zapped into the computer, gets his ass kicked.

We saw it in 2-D, thank God, because I don't think I could have taken all the blinking lights and neon laser thingies if I'd seen it in 3-D or, worse, Imax. But even in 2-D, it was barely watchable.

It was also, for what it's worth, yet another of the recent fantasy films that tries to insert a religious element into the mix. But its religion was so muddled and confused, it made me long for the simple allegory of Narnia and its ilk. The creator of the programs is kinda like Jehovah, see, except he's into a whole Zen Buddhist thing (except when he's kicking people's--er, programs'--asses), and the program that opposes him is kinda like Satan, I guess, and the cute girl is an angel, maybe, and the whole place is a utopian society, possibly, unless it's not, in which case it's something else. All they needed was a wise Native American elder to pronounce statements like, "The earth is our mother," and then they'd pretty much have covered everything.

I'd love to see a fantasy film that deals with religion in an intelligent way: not by bashing it (like Legion or your typical vampire film), reifying it into allegory (like Narnia et al.), or throwing every damn thing into the hopper and hoping it'll make sense somehow (like Tron). If you've got any suggestions, please, send them my way.

In the meantime, I think I'll go do a Zen Buddhist thing and kick somebody's ass.

Putting the "Christ" Back in . . . The Movies

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for the big blockbuster serial kiddie fantasies that have become Hollywood's mainstay since the dawn of the Star Wars era. I saw the first part of the seventh part of Harry Potter with my son and daughter, and I'll probably go see the latest Narnia installment with them as well; I might even check out the Tron remake (sequel?) for kicks.

But I'll tell you, I'm starting to get a bit annoyed by the way in which the studios, influenced by the likes of Walden Media, are inserting subliminal Christian messages into all these kids' films.

With Harry Potter--not a bad film, by the way, though it could have used a couple fewer scenes of Harry and gang looking scruffy and confused out in the British countryside--there's the whole Savior/Satan thing, with Harry being "The Chosen One" and Voldemort being, well, a snake. With the Narnia films, there's the C. S. Lewis Christian allegory (which was the main reason J. R. R. Tolkien, as stauch a Christian as his friend Lewis but a far better fantasist, hated the books). A while back, there was Bridge to Terabithia, with its really unsettling discussion of whether one of the main characters was going to hell or not because she didn't attend church regular; earlier this year there was the final Toy Story installment, with its title characters very nearly being consumed in a junkyard incinerator that was as vivid an image of hell as can be. So we're getting a good number of veiled Christian stories in our children's films, and I for one find this troubling.

Mind you, I'm not knocking Christianity. Nor am I arguing that there shouldn't be films with Christian themes. Christianity is a powerful and pervasive cultural force, and movies need to deal with it. What I object to is the use of children's fantasy films as a "wedge" to introduce Christianity into secular culture, much as Intelligent Design has been used as a wedge to insert creationism into the science curriculum and the Institute for Historical Review has used historical revisionism to insert Holocaust denial into the scholarly community. I don't have a problem with The Passion of the Christ (though personally, I couldn't watch it till the end; its depiction of torture was just too gruesome). I do have a problem with The Passion of Harry Potter.

If Christians want to disseminate their message, they are free to do so. I even encourage them to do so--if their message is to love one's neighbor, to do good, to forgive others their trespasses, to judge people by the content of their character not the color of their skin. But Christianity doesn't, or shouldn't, need to proselytize on the sly, through seduction or misrepresentation; if it's really as good as it claims to be, it should present itself openly, with no disguises, and let its audience judge for themselves. That was Christ's method, after all: he told it as he saw it, with no concessions and no prettying-up of the sacrifices entailed, and he let people choose for themselves.

A sermon should be a sermon. It shouldn't be a toy, wrapped like a Christmas present to tempt the young and unwary.