God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens
A cranky crack at religious crazies (and others)
Despite Christopher Hitchens' reputation as an irascible critic of religion (and everything else), perhaps because of it, I thought I would give his anti-religion book, 'god is not great" a try. As a liberal Catholic who is a great fan of science, what harm could it do? At worst, he would provide a devastating attack on a cherished assumption, and my faith would go down in flames. But if what I called "faith" was based on nonsense, I'd be better off without it.
Sadly for Mr. Hitchens my faith continues intact, but my appreciation for his intellectual depth has suffered. "god is not great" (if he won't capitalize the word for the deity then I won't capitalize the rest of his title) is basically a long, unsupported rant against religion and religiosity. Surprisingly, Hitchens makes numerous unsupported categorical statements and sweeping condemnations, of the sort he despises in his enemies. Perhaps because of his broad-brush style, Hitchens has a tendency to select the least nuanced interpretation of an event and present it as fact. His chapter of the history of the Old Testament provided some of the most egregious examples. On page 102, he denies wholesale the events of the Exodus story: "It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events in Exodus ever took place." Now, one may suggest that the Exodus story is an amplified version of a real (albeit minor) event. One may even state the undeniable fact that there is no official Egyptian record of the event (though it's obvious why the pharaohs chose not to immortalize one of their failures by having it chiseled in stone). But to suggest that the Exodus never happened goes far beyond evidence and plausibility and begins to be rival the fantastic story recorded in the Bible. This is not to say that everything in the Bible is historically and scientifically true and that the excavators can now stop digging. For instance, the serious biblical student must pause at the lack of archaeological evidence for a Joshua-style conquest of the Holy Land. But biblical scholars are way ahead of Hitchens. The Bible provides its own ample evidence -- courtesy of the contradictions between the conquest narrative in Joshua and the more protracted struggle described in Judges -- that the "conquest" took a long time and had much of the character of assimilation. To the unsubtle Hitchens, this contradiction proves the Bible is entirely false. To the more careful student of biblical history, the contradiction suggests other possibilities, such as a weak group's propagandistic need to impress neighboring and warlike tribes.
When it comes to the New Testament, Hitchens is equally addled. He makes much of the work of Bart Ehrman, a modern biblical scholar, who states that the Resurrection narrative of Mark is a later historical addition. Duh, Chris! That is common knowledge among biblical scholars and hardly original with Ehrman. Hitchens defies logic (one of his cardinal sins) by concluding that adding a resurrection to Mark disproves the Resurrection itself. Would not the first impulse of the early church been to proclaim the resurrection, not to write it down? Hitchens intends to amaze the reader with bald statements about the lack of concurrence between the nativity stories (true) and the resurrection stories, though these latter tales differ only in insignificant details. But in Hitchens' world, if two people have different opinions about you it is proof that you do not exist.
But Hitchens makes valuable points. To its everlasting shame, religion has much blood on its hands. It has taken the side of ignorance and tyranny, often in opposition to its own "sacred" teachings. To the smarmy religious commentator who asked whether Hitchens would feel safe in a strange town at nightfall if he knew that the large group of men approaching him were coming from a prayer meeting, Hitchens gave the devastating reply (p 18), "Just to stay within the letter 'B,' I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem and Baghdad." He goes on on describe frightful experiences with people whose religious world view led them to violence murder and mayhem. Hitchens is also right on when he attacks the idiocy that uses religious precepts to determine health policy. Be it female genital mutilation in Africa, Catholic edicts against condom use in AIDS ravaged nations, evangelical abstinence-only campaigns or the Muslim claim that oral vaccines cause impotence, religion has often done the devil's work, self-servingly depriving humans of effective medical care and dooming them to lives of sickness and degradation.
Most devastating to religionists, Hitchens makes the completely valid and observable point that one needn't be theist to be moral. Aside from the truth the religion has often fostered hatred and has been the excuse for much sickening barbarity, many non-religious people are loving, cooperative, productive, calm and reasonable. The religious fanatic has much to learn from the heathen.
We religious people must take note of Hitchens' criticisms. We must balance the world as it appears to our senses with the world as our scriptures tell us it ought to be. We must come to grips with a world that is billions of years old. We must wonder at a Deity who can tolerate countless eons during which his creation lives by feeding on itself. We must wrestle with the notion of a beneficent, all-powerful being who doesn't intervene often to save his children, and who is pleased to wait millennia as they develop vaccines, food crops and other life-saving techniques to sustain themselves in the dignity and joy that are His supposed grant to humanity.
We must even thank cranks like Christopher Hitchens for keeping us honest, and for attacking the mental dodges that help us justify appalling behavior, pretending that illogic pleases the Creator. But let's not pretend that "god is not great" amounts to anything more than venting of the inexhaustible Hitchens spleen. For all of his bluster and chest-pounding, Hitchens is no clear-thinking critic. He is often so committed to his vituperative diatribes that he falls into same logical fallacies as the most nimwitted of his opponents. Though he rightly excoriates the Church for its violence, the best one can say about his own violent temperament is that it's good he is not a churchman, else we would have another Khomeini/bin Laden/Torquemada on our hands.
For all of its unintentional value to theists, Hitchens' book does not (and can not) disprove the existence of God. Neither is the book a nuanced and reasoned exposition of the state of biblical scholarship or archeology. Hitchens has equated foolish religious ideas with religion itself. In this he is wrong, a fact that his bitter screeching will not alter.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Movie Review: Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp
DVD ~ Mike Papantonio
Creepy but not terrifying
While much of "Jesus Camp" is set in a North Dakota camp for evangelical kids, the film also depicts the family background of those who would send their kids to such a place. Much of the film focuses on Levi and Racael, two home-schooled kids who have imbibed deeply of their parents' piety and politics. While these kids are hardly robotic or brainwashed, their unkidlike commitment to their religious principles is sometimes scary to watch. Not surprisingly, these kids are insulated from the real world. Rachael prays over her bowling ball before rolling it, then wanders the alley distributing religious tracts to other bowlers. The mulleted Levi and his family recite their pledge to the "Christian flag" and to the Bible before their lessons begin.
The camp itself is run by Backy Fischer, at the ironically-named Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Camp is a combination religious revival and political indoctrination. The kids tearfully (and seemingly quite spontaneously) confess their shortcomings, their already-unbearable load of youthful guilt prompting them to uncontrolled weeping. They sing enthusiastic songs about Jesus, support Geroge W. Bush and pray to end abortion. Back home, they visit pre-scandal Ted Haggard's church in Colorado Springs. Levi, especially, clearly hero-worships Haggard, and can be seen pacing the sanctuary, imagining himself as a world-class evangelist. The film follows the kids to a small Washington DC anti-abortion rally where they stand in protest before the Supreme Court building with "Life" stickers closing their mouths. Afterwards, they encounter the real world -- which is neither as fascinated by them or as impious as they believe.
I had expected to be appalled by the behavior of the parents, but wound up terrified by and concerned for the kids, who are being raised to be narrow-minded, ignorant and self-righteous. Racheal's insistence that God does not listen to the prayers of those whose worship style is sedate has the makings, under the right circumstances, of religious persecution. The film is bracketed by scenes of the bleak midwestern lanscape punctuated by radio snippets about the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, a darling of the religious right. Air America's Mike Papantonio appears occasionally while taping his radio show and serves as a counterpoint from the left. His comments are heartfelt, but ineffective, a sad commentary on the left's until-now inability to counter the simplistic notions, unwillingness to engage science and narrow view of the true believers.
"Jesus Camp" is fascinating and frightening, a glimpse inside the world of the kind of Americans who reflexively support anything marketed as Christian, including the war in Iraq and the far-right agenda of the Bush II administration. I don't believe that we should fear people like those shown in the film, as they must someday engage the real world and perhaps moderate their more extreme views. But the film does a wonderful job at acquainting us with people whose world view and aspirations are at odds with science, reason and the notions of a secular form of representative government.
DVD ~ Mike Papantonio
Creepy but not terrifying
While much of "Jesus Camp" is set in a North Dakota camp for evangelical kids, the film also depicts the family background of those who would send their kids to such a place. Much of the film focuses on Levi and Racael, two home-schooled kids who have imbibed deeply of their parents' piety and politics. While these kids are hardly robotic or brainwashed, their unkidlike commitment to their religious principles is sometimes scary to watch. Not surprisingly, these kids are insulated from the real world. Rachael prays over her bowling ball before rolling it, then wanders the alley distributing religious tracts to other bowlers. The mulleted Levi and his family recite their pledge to the "Christian flag" and to the Bible before their lessons begin.
The camp itself is run by Backy Fischer, at the ironically-named Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Camp is a combination religious revival and political indoctrination. The kids tearfully (and seemingly quite spontaneously) confess their shortcomings, their already-unbearable load of youthful guilt prompting them to uncontrolled weeping. They sing enthusiastic songs about Jesus, support Geroge W. Bush and pray to end abortion. Back home, they visit pre-scandal Ted Haggard's church in Colorado Springs. Levi, especially, clearly hero-worships Haggard, and can be seen pacing the sanctuary, imagining himself as a world-class evangelist. The film follows the kids to a small Washington DC anti-abortion rally where they stand in protest before the Supreme Court building with "Life" stickers closing their mouths. Afterwards, they encounter the real world -- which is neither as fascinated by them or as impious as they believe.
I had expected to be appalled by the behavior of the parents, but wound up terrified by and concerned for the kids, who are being raised to be narrow-minded, ignorant and self-righteous. Racheal's insistence that God does not listen to the prayers of those whose worship style is sedate has the makings, under the right circumstances, of religious persecution. The film is bracketed by scenes of the bleak midwestern lanscape punctuated by radio snippets about the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, a darling of the religious right. Air America's Mike Papantonio appears occasionally while taping his radio show and serves as a counterpoint from the left. His comments are heartfelt, but ineffective, a sad commentary on the left's until-now inability to counter the simplistic notions, unwillingness to engage science and narrow view of the true believers.
"Jesus Camp" is fascinating and frightening, a glimpse inside the world of the kind of Americans who reflexively support anything marketed as Christian, including the war in Iraq and the far-right agenda of the Bush II administration. I don't believe that we should fear people like those shown in the film, as they must someday engage the real world and perhaps moderate their more extreme views. But the film does a wonderful job at acquainting us with people whose world view and aspirations are at odds with science, reason and the notions of a secular form of representative government.
Book Revew: Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job)
Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job)
by Oliver Thomas
A pipe dream of a more tolerant Christianity
Oliver Thomas, a Baptist minister and writer for USA Today has written a breezy little volume that he hopes will make American Christianity nicer and (he thinks) more in line with the teachings of its Founder. The book is organized into ten areas ("How it All Began," "Why Are We Here," etc.) that allow Thomas to examine issues of creationism, prayer, miracles, the end of time, the nature of the afterlife and many others. His views are what some call "liberal," which to me is an irritating misnomer, as many of his ideas are condensations of wisdom taught in most mainline seminaries and divinity programs. For instance, Thomas writes in support of a non-literal reading of Scripture, asking that readers keep in mind the historical context in which it was written. He points out that Jesus was a friend of women and that Paul's opposition to homosexuality is misunderstood. Thomas is also willing to be agnostic about the details of the afterlife and the end of the world. He is definitely no fan of the "Left Behind" books, or of the hateful rhetoric that often substitutes for religious thought in this country.
All well and good.
Thomas's theological points are often in line with the way many people think, here in the post-modern era. Where we are less certain to subscribe, for instance, to the golden images of heaven accepted by our forebears, Thomas points out that even in the Bible, the afterlife has been imagined in many ways. And Hell? Thomas (surprisingly) dilutes Hell by noting correctly that it is a mistranslation of "Sheol," a shadowy place of the dead, or "Gehenna," Jerusalem's garbage dump. Here, I think Thomas is off base, taking literally a word that Jesus may have meant figuratively. One would have to work quite hard to insist that every reference to "the outer darkness" or "the fiery furnace" where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is simply a cute, figurative description of having one's life be considered worthless, rather than damnable. Now I am no fan of Hell, and I see an immense inconsistency in a loving Father who tortures his wayward children for eternity. One does not have to believe in a literal, physical Hell of fire to imagine an undesirable spiritual consequence for bad behavior. But Thomas is rather blithe in dismissing the dark side of the gospels. Are there solutions to this problem other than jettisoning the parts of the gospels that one doesn't like?
Thomas does score points. His examples of the inconsistencies in Scripture (contradictory creation accounts, etc.) should be enough to send any open-minded fundamentalist back to the drawing board. And he makes a valid point that the Bible's proscription of homosexuality loses a great deal of its meaning when put into context of the many other strictures of the book of Leviticus (shell food consumption, tolerance for Sabbath breakers, beard trimming, etc.) that we break as a matter of course. And speaking of gays, Thomas is probably right that Paul was not acquainted with men and women living in committed gay relationships. These are solid pieces of evidence that we need to be careful about the way we apply ancient moral wisdom to our own era.
But the length of Thomas's book works against him. His more controversial contentions -- such as that what Paul condemned as homosexuality was actually pederasty -- need much more discussion than Thomas provides. The book's title -- with its implication that ministers believe what Thomas writes -- is problematic. Perhaps this is true of Thomas and a few of his like-minded minister friends. But there are plenty of ministers -- from many faith communities -- who seem quite satisfied to disagree with Thomas. In my own Roman Catholic community, where there is virtually no chance of a priest losing his job, there are more than a few who gladly espouse much of what Thomas rejects. These people could actually stand to be afraid of what their congregations think!
As one who has struggled for a lifetime to find value in religious observance, who prays but wonders why, and who grieves for a world in which birth, death, and marriage have little value beyond themselves, I appreciate encountering a man of the cloth who struggles with the same issues. That the man is a Baptist, not a group know for its fuzzy-headed liberalism or lack of absolute certainty, is extraordinary. I would very much like it if the Bible could be used to support unambiguously the tolerant and positive theology that Thomas subscribes to. But wishing for it will not make it so.
If you can't quite imagine a Christianity that is less arrogant, more accepting of other faiths, and that welcomes gays, women and minorities, you may find a template for your new thinking here. Will anyone change their minds after reading Thomas's "10 Things"? Believers are notoriously hard to rock, especially if they are convinced that their opinions are scriptural. Neither will the non-believers be moved; it's unlikely that the vast mass of the apathetic will join a Church, even one of Thomas's more tolerant sort, based on this book.
The only question is whether enough of us still have a burning need to wrestle with life's ultimate questions, or whether a shrug, a "whatever" and a channel change are enough to keep the existential bogeyman at bay.
by Oliver Thomas
A pipe dream of a more tolerant Christianity
Oliver Thomas, a Baptist minister and writer for USA Today has written a breezy little volume that he hopes will make American Christianity nicer and (he thinks) more in line with the teachings of its Founder. The book is organized into ten areas ("How it All Began," "Why Are We Here," etc.) that allow Thomas to examine issues of creationism, prayer, miracles, the end of time, the nature of the afterlife and many others. His views are what some call "liberal," which to me is an irritating misnomer, as many of his ideas are condensations of wisdom taught in most mainline seminaries and divinity programs. For instance, Thomas writes in support of a non-literal reading of Scripture, asking that readers keep in mind the historical context in which it was written. He points out that Jesus was a friend of women and that Paul's opposition to homosexuality is misunderstood. Thomas is also willing to be agnostic about the details of the afterlife and the end of the world. He is definitely no fan of the "Left Behind" books, or of the hateful rhetoric that often substitutes for religious thought in this country.
All well and good.
Thomas's theological points are often in line with the way many people think, here in the post-modern era. Where we are less certain to subscribe, for instance, to the golden images of heaven accepted by our forebears, Thomas points out that even in the Bible, the afterlife has been imagined in many ways. And Hell? Thomas (surprisingly) dilutes Hell by noting correctly that it is a mistranslation of "Sheol," a shadowy place of the dead, or "Gehenna," Jerusalem's garbage dump. Here, I think Thomas is off base, taking literally a word that Jesus may have meant figuratively. One would have to work quite hard to insist that every reference to "the outer darkness" or "the fiery furnace" where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is simply a cute, figurative description of having one's life be considered worthless, rather than damnable. Now I am no fan of Hell, and I see an immense inconsistency in a loving Father who tortures his wayward children for eternity. One does not have to believe in a literal, physical Hell of fire to imagine an undesirable spiritual consequence for bad behavior. But Thomas is rather blithe in dismissing the dark side of the gospels. Are there solutions to this problem other than jettisoning the parts of the gospels that one doesn't like?
Thomas does score points. His examples of the inconsistencies in Scripture (contradictory creation accounts, etc.) should be enough to send any open-minded fundamentalist back to the drawing board. And he makes a valid point that the Bible's proscription of homosexuality loses a great deal of its meaning when put into context of the many other strictures of the book of Leviticus (shell food consumption, tolerance for Sabbath breakers, beard trimming, etc.) that we break as a matter of course. And speaking of gays, Thomas is probably right that Paul was not acquainted with men and women living in committed gay relationships. These are solid pieces of evidence that we need to be careful about the way we apply ancient moral wisdom to our own era.
But the length of Thomas's book works against him. His more controversial contentions -- such as that what Paul condemned as homosexuality was actually pederasty -- need much more discussion than Thomas provides. The book's title -- with its implication that ministers believe what Thomas writes -- is problematic. Perhaps this is true of Thomas and a few of his like-minded minister friends. But there are plenty of ministers -- from many faith communities -- who seem quite satisfied to disagree with Thomas. In my own Roman Catholic community, where there is virtually no chance of a priest losing his job, there are more than a few who gladly espouse much of what Thomas rejects. These people could actually stand to be afraid of what their congregations think!
As one who has struggled for a lifetime to find value in religious observance, who prays but wonders why, and who grieves for a world in which birth, death, and marriage have little value beyond themselves, I appreciate encountering a man of the cloth who struggles with the same issues. That the man is a Baptist, not a group know for its fuzzy-headed liberalism or lack of absolute certainty, is extraordinary. I would very much like it if the Bible could be used to support unambiguously the tolerant and positive theology that Thomas subscribes to. But wishing for it will not make it so.
If you can't quite imagine a Christianity that is less arrogant, more accepting of other faiths, and that welcomes gays, women and minorities, you may find a template for your new thinking here. Will anyone change their minds after reading Thomas's "10 Things"? Believers are notoriously hard to rock, especially if they are convinced that their opinions are scriptural. Neither will the non-believers be moved; it's unlikely that the vast mass of the apathetic will join a Church, even one of Thomas's more tolerant sort, based on this book.
The only question is whether enough of us still have a burning need to wrestle with life's ultimate questions, or whether a shrug, a "whatever" and a channel change are enough to keep the existential bogeyman at bay.
Book Review: Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play
Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play
by James Shapiro
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been in near-contintual production sine 1643 when (as legend has it) terrified townsfolk promised it in return for divine protection from a plague. This hoary drama seems innocent and pious enough on its surface. But after the Holocaust, as many sought the roots of the slaughter of millions of innocents, the people and traditions of Oberammergau came in for their share of scrutiny. This scrutiny topok on special urgency when the Catholic Church officially changed its position in 1965, in the landmark document "Nostra Asetate," in regard to the charge of deicide against the Jews. This book focuses on the seesaw attempts in the last 40 years to rid the play of its antisemitic elements and bring it into line with official Church teaching.
Author James Shapiro makes no secret of his Jewishness, and has produced a remarkably even-handed account of the play's history and theology as well as attempts to expunge strands of anti-Semitism and Christian triumphalism. Shapiro follows the effort of Oberammergau natives Otto Huber and Christian Struckel to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus while making a work that traditionalists would tolerate, the public would pay to see and Jewish organizations could live with. They attempt to deal with aspects of the play that show Christianity as prefigured in Old Testament writings. This idea is odious to Jews, who bridle that this "typology" reduces their faith to a preview of coming attractions. But it remains an aspect of Christianity that is difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge.
The struggle within the Oberammergau community is the struggle of Christians everywhere. It may even be the divine mandate for our time--to use the analytical tools of our age to strip away layers of hatred varnished over gospels accounts that themselves are antagonistic toward Jews. To uproot hatred of Jesus's neighbors and family while retaining the Jesus of faith is no small undertaking. No wonder that less committed people have chosen one of two easy ways: to blame only the Jews for Jesus's death or to call all religion irrelevant. The book also details the self-serving myths surrounding the Oberammergau play's origins and the piety of the "simple peasant folk" who lived there. Oberammergau residents have not been above selling outsiders on the myth that they so inhabit their roles that they are hyper pious even out of play season. Indeed, Shapiro shows how this myth cuts both ways--ensuring the play's popularity, but trapping its actors in an impoverishing economic rigidity between cycles.
The book neither swells on nor shies away from the dark side of Oberammergau. The community, like others in Germany, tends to whitewash its Nazi past and is surprisingly blind to its deeply-seated and axiomatic anti-Semitism. One "Jesus," Nazi party member Alois Lang, played the lead role even after the war. During the war, a jet engine plant was situated just outside of town. And the notorious Dachau concentration camp was a mere 75 miles away. Some Oberammergau residents seem genuinely baffled that a play that casts Pilate as a hero and Jews as money-hungry could be seen as anti-Semitic. Even the younger residents come perilously close to reverting back to old attitudes when encountering pressure and bad press from the Jewish organizations they are courting. And in spite of the wish for residents to keep the world at bay, modernity rears its head -- Oberammergau youth are no different than other in having abandoned devotions; and married women clamor to be allowed into the play.
"Oberammergau" does wonderful job of depicting the contradictory threads that run through producing a gospel drama in an age when the old certainties--the virtue and inevitable triumph of Christianity, the eternal guilt of the Jews, the historicity of the gospels--have been called into question. In many important ways, the drama replays themes of great and global import--the rehabilitation of those who participate in evil, the need to hear the voice of the persecuted, and the need to root out wickedness from one's own heart. "Oberammergau" asks us the same question posed by its play's central figure, asking whether we have ears to hear and the purity of heart needed to break out of shackles that blind us to our own evil and to the suffering of our fellows.
by James Shapiro
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been in near-contintual production sine 1643 when (as legend has it) terrified townsfolk promised it in return for divine protection from a plague. This hoary drama seems innocent and pious enough on its surface. But after the Holocaust, as many sought the roots of the slaughter of millions of innocents, the people and traditions of Oberammergau came in for their share of scrutiny. This scrutiny topok on special urgency when the Catholic Church officially changed its position in 1965, in the landmark document "Nostra Asetate," in regard to the charge of deicide against the Jews. This book focuses on the seesaw attempts in the last 40 years to rid the play of its antisemitic elements and bring it into line with official Church teaching.
Author James Shapiro makes no secret of his Jewishness, and has produced a remarkably even-handed account of the play's history and theology as well as attempts to expunge strands of anti-Semitism and Christian triumphalism. Shapiro follows the effort of Oberammergau natives Otto Huber and Christian Struckel to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus while making a work that traditionalists would tolerate, the public would pay to see and Jewish organizations could live with. They attempt to deal with aspects of the play that show Christianity as prefigured in Old Testament writings. This idea is odious to Jews, who bridle that this "typology" reduces their faith to a preview of coming attractions. But it remains an aspect of Christianity that is difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge.
The struggle within the Oberammergau community is the struggle of Christians everywhere. It may even be the divine mandate for our time--to use the analytical tools of our age to strip away layers of hatred varnished over gospels accounts that themselves are antagonistic toward Jews. To uproot hatred of Jesus's neighbors and family while retaining the Jesus of faith is no small undertaking. No wonder that less committed people have chosen one of two easy ways: to blame only the Jews for Jesus's death or to call all religion irrelevant. The book also details the self-serving myths surrounding the Oberammergau play's origins and the piety of the "simple peasant folk" who lived there. Oberammergau residents have not been above selling outsiders on the myth that they so inhabit their roles that they are hyper pious even out of play season. Indeed, Shapiro shows how this myth cuts both ways--ensuring the play's popularity, but trapping its actors in an impoverishing economic rigidity between cycles.
The book neither swells on nor shies away from the dark side of Oberammergau. The community, like others in Germany, tends to whitewash its Nazi past and is surprisingly blind to its deeply-seated and axiomatic anti-Semitism. One "Jesus," Nazi party member Alois Lang, played the lead role even after the war. During the war, a jet engine plant was situated just outside of town. And the notorious Dachau concentration camp was a mere 75 miles away. Some Oberammergau residents seem genuinely baffled that a play that casts Pilate as a hero and Jews as money-hungry could be seen as anti-Semitic. Even the younger residents come perilously close to reverting back to old attitudes when encountering pressure and bad press from the Jewish organizations they are courting. And in spite of the wish for residents to keep the world at bay, modernity rears its head -- Oberammergau youth are no different than other in having abandoned devotions; and married women clamor to be allowed into the play.
"Oberammergau" does wonderful job of depicting the contradictory threads that run through producing a gospel drama in an age when the old certainties--the virtue and inevitable triumph of Christianity, the eternal guilt of the Jews, the historicity of the gospels--have been called into question. In many important ways, the drama replays themes of great and global import--the rehabilitation of those who participate in evil, the need to hear the voice of the persecuted, and the need to root out wickedness from one's own heart. "Oberammergau" asks us the same question posed by its play's central figure, asking whether we have ears to hear and the purity of heart needed to break out of shackles that blind us to our own evil and to the suffering of our fellows.
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