Scholarly Smackdown

[CoUrTnEy]

article from beliefnet.com:

A liberal professor and a conservative professor debate the movie, the Bible, theology and more.

By John Dominic Crossan and Ben Witherington III



To help us all sort through the increasingly emotional debates surrounding Mel Gibson's controversial "The Passion of the Christ," Beliefnet has invited prominent Bible scholars, John Dominic Crossan and Ben Witherington III to maintain an ongoing e-debate on the film itself and the theological questions it raises.

From: John Dominic Crossan
To: Ben Witherington III
Date: February 10, 2004

Dear Ben,

Almost a month ago, I registered for a three-day conference of the Global Pastors Network at Calvary Assembly in Orlando, Fla. My only purpose was to hear an interview with Mel Gibson and to see an advance screening of his upcoming film The Passion of the Christ.

The film will be released to the general public for Lent of 2004. But given the publicity it has already received, I'm giving nothing away to say that the violence of the film--and its exclusive focus on the events immediately surrounding the crucifixion--is sure to be a central debating point for audiences.

In a recent, exclusive interview, Raymond Arroyo, news director of the Roman Catholic Network Eternal Word Television (EWTN) asked Mel Gibson “why you decided to restrict yourself to the 12 hours before his death? Why not the ministry, why not the resurrection?” Gibson answered that, “for me that’s the most effective part of the sacrifice, the sacrificial aspect of Christ…. It’s the central theme of the faith of Christians.” But the problem is that sacrifice and suffering are not exactly synonymous. To suggest that they are is to suggest that the greatest sacrifice required the greatest suffering and, therefore, the greatest and most graphic violence in the portrayal of that suffering-sacrifice.

So the first question I would raise for our dialogue is: What is the appropriate link between sacrifice and suffering?

In the ancient world, most religions retained and restored union with God or the gods by animal sacrifice, a loop in which the animal was passed from earth to heaven and then returned to be eaten as divine food. Nobody ever made the (to me) obscene suggestion that the animal’s suffering was important and should be maximized to increase its sacrificial value. Nobody ever suggested that the animal should be punished or brutalized by torture as a vicarious substitute for what humans should themselves have suffered from divine retribution.

In the modern world, two firefighters rush into a burning home to save children trapped upstairs. They save them but lose their own lives. The chaplain assures their families that they never suffered but died instantly. But the next day’s headline reads: Firefighters Sacrifice Their Lives. Both statements are equally correct. If a live video was released showing them dying over 2 hours in slow agony, would that exalt their sacrifice? If a film re-enacted their last 2 hours exactly, would that be obscene? And above all else, would anyone ever suggest that God wanted somebody dead that day and, if it could not be those children, the firefighters would suffice vicariously?

(con't)

[CoUrTnEy]

(con't)

And the second question I would raise for our dialogue is: What is the appropriate separation between suffering and sadism? How do you depict and view actual torture without its sadism becoming pornographic? In the same EWTN interview, Mel Gibson admitted that “I don’t think it’s as brutal as it really was. I’ve stopped short of what I think probably really happened. However, it’s brutal, it is graphic.” Then comes this absolutely breath-taking and profoundly disturbing interchange. Raymond Arroyo: “There is a sense of beauty in the violence, and I don’t quite know if I’m expressing that correctly, do you sense that?” Mel Gibson: “Good, yes, I do, I mean that is a definite intent to do that. To make it lyrical, to make the violence lyrical. In a way, to find the beauty in it.” Despite those terrible formulations, the point is clear. Sacrifice equals suffering and so, to appreciate sacrifice, that suffering must be shown with exact and graphic violence.

Mel Gibson has insisted in writing and in that interview that the film is about the “love and forgiveness” of God. But his many other assertions point to a God of displaced retribution in which Jesus suffers vicariously the penalties due to us, they point to vicarious atonement in which Jesus must bear the punitive sufferings due to us. Which is his or our God? Ben, I do not consider that loving forgiveness and vicarious atonement are simply points on a divine continuum. I think of them as disjunctive options for my faith in God. My God is a God of loving forgiveness and merciful compassion, not a God of displaced punishment and vicarious atonement? Where do you stand, Ben, on that ultimate question of the character of our God?


--Dom


(con't)

[CoUrTnEy]

From: Ben Witherington III
To: John Dominic Crossan
Date: February 11, 2004

Dear Dom,
First, I should say that I share many of the concerns you express about Gibson's movie, which I have yet to see. There is indeed a difference between sacrifice and suffering, and to focus on the suffering rather than the sacrifice is in my view as well, a mistake. The recent Gospel of John movie did an excellent job in placing the focus where it should be--on the death of Jesus, not the preliminary agonies involved. If Jesus had not suffered all the indignities he went through before the crucifixion, but still died for our sins, our sins would still have been atoned for. It is, in short, the death of Christ--and not the degree or length of his suffering--that atones for sin. As someone who is a pacifist, I also agree with you that focusing on the violence done to Christ is putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, unless the real point is to stress our collective guilt for what happened to Jesus. The one who had done no violence, suffered much violence without protest.

But where we clearly part company is in your theology of the death of Jesus, and ultimately his theology of the character of God. Let's start with the latter. God, both in the Old and New Testaments, is depicted as holy and loving, or to put it another way, Holy Love. Another way of saying this is that he is both righteous and the one who sets right the sinner. He is just and also compassionate. It appears that you have a hard time holding these two seemingly incompatible attributes together, but you are not the first to do so. God does not check his righteousness or justice at the door when he acts in a loving and forgiving way. Indeed, the cross is that place where we see the harmonic convergence between the justice and the mercy of God, the holiness and the love of God, the righteousness and the compassion of God. To emphasize only one side of the divine equation is not to do justice to the character of God.


Let me put it more graphically. God sent Jesus to the cross to atone for the sins of the world, as a propitiatory and substitutionary atonement. Jesus himself understood what was going on, and says so in Mark 10.45: he came to give his life a ransom in the place of the many. There are many aspects to this, but I will list just three:
1) If Christ's death was not both the necessary and sufficient means for the atonement of human sin, then God who sent him to this death is in no sense a loving Father. Rather, God would be a sadist and be guilty of child abuse. But precisely because his death is such an atoning sacrifice, it becomes the most loving act that has ever happen on earth.

2) Atonement involves substitution. Great divine love is demonstrated in that Christ died in our place.

3) There is also the issue of propitiation, the satisfaction of God's just demands in regard to sins. The wrath of God against sin is assuaged or removed by the atoning death of Jesus. When I speak of God's wrath, I am not talking about an irrational passion or fit of rage. I am talking about God's proper righteous anger and indignation against evil, sin, wickedess--things that destroy the very creatures God loves and sent his Son to save. God's wrath is against sin, not against the sinner, whom he loves. Like a parent who loves a child but hates the cancer that is destroying the child, God resolved to act to rescue the child from its disease, and its self-destroying behavior as well.

Some people say, "Why couldn't God just forgive sin without this elaborate sacrifice?" But that is the equivalent of asking God to cease being just, fair, righteous, holy-- something God neither can nor will do. Forgiveness is not a matter of passing on justice or righteousness or holiness, it is a matter of finding another way to resolve the matter, a way in which both justice and mercy, both love and righteousness, both compassion and fairness are served. It involves a way in which the sinner is spared and redeemed but the price is still paid, and the ransom is still wrought. Frankly, I do not want to live in a world without a just as well as loving God. I do not want to live in a world in which wrongs will not ultimately be righted.

God is not like an infinitely indulgent parent who never holds anyone accountable for the sins and transgressions. Were God like that, then God would not be righteous, fair, or just. But since the dominant trait in the divine character is love, God has made a way where there seemed to be no way: he has provided his Son as the Lamb of God to take our place on the cross. Jn. 3.16 is not just a cliché-- it is a profound window on the divine character. God so loved that he gave his Son....even unto death on the cross.

Forgiveness does not mean there are no consequences to sin. It does mean that God no longer exacts the payment or penalty or consequences on us, for Jesus paid the price. Forgiveness is based on the sacrifice of Christ, and that sacrifice is the means by which God can be just and at the same time the justifier of sinful humanity.

In trying to understand the deep roots of what Mel Gibson is trying to get at in this movie, I suspect, though I do not know, that there is more entailed than just some sort of passion mysticism, or romanticizing of suffering, though that appears to be a part of what is driving this train. I suspect that Gibson wishes to get at the profound price that Jesus paid to atone for our sins. And what he is hoping to inculcate in the audience is the sort of awe and wonder and gratitude expressed for example in Isaac Watts' powerful hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." Two verses of this hymn say: "When I survey the wondrous cross/ On which the prince of glory died/ My richest gain I count but loss/ and pour contempt on all my pride. / Were the whole realm of nature mine/ that were an offering far too small/ Love so amazing, so divine/ demands my self, my life, my all."



--Ben

[1dell]

That last argument was beautifully explained