Wednesday, February 25, 2004
In the Movies: The Passion of the Christ opens today, and one can only hope now that people can actually see it for themselves, they will, instead of endlessly debating the merits of the idea. In this article, Paul Greenberg discusses the latest trend in castigating Mel Gibson's character for a movie no one has seen and appears to, more or less, stick to a factual, documented story that we should all know by now. Anyone can read about the crucifixion of Jesus, day or night, all across the world by picking up a Bible or looking it up on the web. Mel Gibson didn't write it when he wrote the script.
It seems as though journalistic standards have taken a tailspin in the last few years, and are tending towards the popular "majority rules" of the facts whether than what the facts actually are. When I earned my degree in journalism, we were taught to divorce ourselves from the topic, check our facts, and know the background. Now it seems like we're taking a vote on "Who killed Jesus?" or "Why is the crucifixion so violent?" The popular culture seems to imply that our answers say something about whether or not we "get" what's acceptable, whether or not we "judge" other people for their liberal nature, as though one can change the facts to fit the social climate. Instead of truly embracing all proven truths, it sounds like those ideas with the most fact and most history behind them are the least acceptable, because they are constraining.
I would be embarassed to call myself a journalist and ask the questions being asked about the crucifixion in the news today. But as America negotiates its adolescence, it has begun rebelling against history, reminders of tradition, religion, and standards, through character assassination of all but the most modern ideas. The Founding Fathers have already fallen over the last couple of years, and now it's the Bible under the lens, or at least the most important story in it. For starters.
Perhaps the apostles, in writing their account, were not entirely accurate in keeping a minute-by-minute record. Perhaps they did include their feelings amongst the words of history. But how many events, having been documented by multiple people from different vantage points, are still disbelieved? How many events recorded by the ancients are doubted because of their very nature?
Today I read a "movie review" in our local entertainment paper, which is geared towards people in their 20s and 30s and generally on a liberal slant. Even still, I never expected a review written of a movie the writer hadn't seen, in which they listed how controversial it was (which is normally a good thing to them), how churches in town were buying tickets in bulk (included as fact in order to later prove that no "real" people actually saw it), and how the "faithful" would be "duped" into a "hollow religious experience" by seeing it as anything other than one man's idea of what happened. Sounds like paranoia rather than journalism.
Eventually, when the fervor dies down, and in coming years the pendulum swings back towards a search for the meaning, genuineness, and authenticity that they so eagerly reject in their attempt to dismantle the facts in haze of suspicion, the facts will remain. And history will have the last laugh. Because it is written in stone.
It seems as though journalistic standards have taken a tailspin in the last few years, and are tending towards the popular "majority rules" of the facts whether than what the facts actually are. When I earned my degree in journalism, we were taught to divorce ourselves from the topic, check our facts, and know the background. Now it seems like we're taking a vote on "Who killed Jesus?" or "Why is the crucifixion so violent?" The popular culture seems to imply that our answers say something about whether or not we "get" what's acceptable, whether or not we "judge" other people for their liberal nature, as though one can change the facts to fit the social climate. Instead of truly embracing all proven truths, it sounds like those ideas with the most fact and most history behind them are the least acceptable, because they are constraining.
I would be embarassed to call myself a journalist and ask the questions being asked about the crucifixion in the news today. But as America negotiates its adolescence, it has begun rebelling against history, reminders of tradition, religion, and standards, through character assassination of all but the most modern ideas. The Founding Fathers have already fallen over the last couple of years, and now it's the Bible under the lens, or at least the most important story in it. For starters.
Perhaps the apostles, in writing their account, were not entirely accurate in keeping a minute-by-minute record. Perhaps they did include their feelings amongst the words of history. But how many events, having been documented by multiple people from different vantage points, are still disbelieved? How many events recorded by the ancients are doubted because of their very nature?
Today I read a "movie review" in our local entertainment paper, which is geared towards people in their 20s and 30s and generally on a liberal slant. Even still, I never expected a review written of a movie the writer hadn't seen, in which they listed how controversial it was (which is normally a good thing to them), how churches in town were buying tickets in bulk (included as fact in order to later prove that no "real" people actually saw it), and how the "faithful" would be "duped" into a "hollow religious experience" by seeing it as anything other than one man's idea of what happened. Sounds like paranoia rather than journalism.
Eventually, when the fervor dies down, and in coming years the pendulum swings back towards a search for the meaning, genuineness, and authenticity that they so eagerly reject in their attempt to dismantle the facts in haze of suspicion, the facts will remain. And history will have the last laugh. Because it is written in stone.
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