THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST: Is it REALLY offensive????
by Michelle Klein-Hass
(an open letter to the Fundamentalist Christian BBSer
community)
There has been a very big brouhaha over a film that hardly
anyone has seen, and which might wind up being the first
film pressured out of existance before its release.
The film is Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation Of
Christ".  Reverend Hymers, a self-proclaimed Fundamentalist
"Soldier for Christ" has gone so far as to say that "(this
movie) is a Jewish plot to undermine Christianity".  And all
because of a spurious "first draft" script, which is now
known for what it is...a hoax.  Apparently, the now-infamous
"God sleeps between your legs" line, and some of the other
more offensive scenes cited by the foes of this film were
not even part of this film in the first place.
But let's look at what is, I believe, REALLY bugging the
Christian Clergy about this movie.
1.) Jesus is shown as being as much human as divine.
2.) Jesus is shown as undergoing the same temptations that
everyone else goes through in their life.
First point: If you look at orthodox Christian theology from
its beginnings in the Early Church Fathers through to the
present day, there has been a few big issues that mark the
"sheep from the goats", as it were.  One is that Jesus was
both fully human, meaning that he was as much flesh and
blood as everyone else that walked the earth, suffering
similar limitations and enduring the same temptations as the
rest of humanity throughout history, as well as being fully
divine...God walking the earth, God sacrificed to God on the
cross of Golgotha.  And this dichotomy, of a being which is
at the same time both fully God and fully Man, has been the
classic position of orthodox Christian theology.  Where
movies like "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and the TV
miniseries "Jesus Of Nazareth" have been portraits of the
divine nature of Jesus, this movie is an attempt to portray
the human side, with all the suffering and temptation that
being FULLY HUMAN means. At least that's what I can see in
the "official" script I saw.
>>>Part Two next post <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


("The Last Temptation of Christ" considered:
An open letter to the Fundie BBSer community, part 2)

Second point: Hebrews 4:15..."For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;
but was IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED LIKE AS WE ARE, yet witout
sin."  That should say it all.  Again, to go by orthodox
Christian theology, Jesus was as much Man as God. How many
of you who espouse Christianity have been tempted with the
thought of "yeah, here's a pretty girl (handsome man), I
would love to have sex with her (him)"? I know in my time as
a Messianic Jew I had plenty of times when I had "bad
thoughts" of a sexual nature. But that's not the only way
one is tempted.  The temptation to cheat, to lie, to covet
the things that others have, to be selfish, the temptation
to seek after temporal power, that's all a part of the
script as well.  And think on this well: What is the more
serious sin to be tempted into--to have dominion over the
whole world for worshipping the Devil (Matthew 4:1-10), or
to want for yourself a wife, children, and to die in your
sleep an old man, rather than to die in agony on the cross
at the age of 33? This rather poignant latter scenario is
the one that remains in the film, the sequence that includes
a brief (very brief, from what I understand) scene of Jesus
making love to Mary Magdalene after they had married in full
Jewish rite, which is shown as a dream sequence while Jesus
hangs there on the cross, awaiting death. Is Jesus shown
actually ACTING on these temptations? From what I have read,
and from what I know, the answer is NO. Again, I refer you
to Hebrews 4:15. I don't know how it breaks down in Koine
Greek, but the gist of it is this: Everything a human being
could be tempted about, Jesus was tempted.  That includes
the other things that the Fundies had claimed of the script,
that Jesus was shown in an act of homosexuality, that he was
shown soliciting prostitutes, and other things. That is the
whole point of the book, the script I saw, and by all that,
the movie. He PREVAILED over these temptations.
So that's the reality of the situation.  The Christian
ministers who condemn the movie seem to be only condemning
it on the basis of a forged "first draft" script, and on the
basis that Jesus is shown as something other than a sterile,
non-human Godling that is aloof from all earthly concerns.
From my years in Born-again Christianity (Messianic Judaism)
I can only say that these images of Jesus were even more
offensive to me: the blond-haired, blue eyed, kingly,
detached Christ of "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and the
stoic sufferer of "Jesus Of Nazareth", and a host of other
religious pictures. And from what I know of the Bible (I
pretty much memorized a lot of it) that's not the Jesus the
Bible portrays.
>>>>>>Part 3 next post<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
("The Last Temptation of Christ" considered:
An open letter to the Fundie BBSer community, part 3)

And lastly there is the issue of censorship.  If a Christian
minister can get a motion picture studio to destroy the
master negative and all extant prints of a film, our
separation of Church and State, and our First-amendment
rights to free speech are usurped completely.  What if a
Wiccan High Priestess wanted to see a movie about witches
sacrificing babies not just pulled, but thoroughly
destroyed?  Or what if an elder of one of the great Native
American Nations, say, a Lakota Sioux, wanted a film
destroyed that showed Native Americans as duplicious, savage
monsters that deserved death?  They would be laughed out
onto the streets, because those kinds of films have existed
for years and years.  And what if some Black activist went
to all the film preservation societies that kept "Birth Of A
Nation" in their archives and demanded that their copies be
destroyed because the film glorifies the Ku Klux Klan?
Needless to say, the scenario is quite silly and downright
scary if looked at that way.
And suppose that MCA/Universal gives in to Hymers and his
rabid, Anti-Semitic, fascistic followers, and takes the
money that is being offered in exchange for the negatives
and prints.  What then?  Could the US Government ask to buy
the negatives and extant prints of a movie that it found
offensive, like, to give an example of one they had already
complained about, "Missing"?  Could the Catholic Church buy
the negatives to a movie about, for example, Margaret
Sanger, the turn-of-the-century Birth Control rights
advocate?  The mind boggles.
This is not an issue of Blasphemy. In fact, as I have
proven, the very concepts in the film that the Fundies
object to are integral parts of Christian doctrine.
**To wit: Jesus Christ was both wholly God and wholly Man,
therefore, was subject to the same temptations as Humankind
in general.  However, he did not once succumb to these
temptations, and lived a sinless life.**
I was shepherded very well in my days as a Born-again, and
remember much of what I learned of orthodox Christian
doctrine.
So if you love your religious freedom, and you love your
right to Freedom of Expression that the Constitution insures
for all of us, including those we disagree with, then you
should stand up to the demagogues that exist in the Body of
Christ.  If you do not, then go to Iran, where such things
as bookburnings and censorship of real or perceived
blasphemies are State affairs, and where perpetrators of
such blasphemies are sentenced to death.
Peace be with you,
Michelle Klein-Hass