Major Barbara

In the film, Major Barbara (1941), Barbara, a Major in the Salvation Army, has been raised with her sister and brother by their mother. She is legally separated or divorced from the father, Andrew Undershaft, who nonetheless finances the lavish lifestyle of his family. Even Barbara, the idealist Christian evangelical, lives on her father’s armaments wealth. Yet when she meets him after several years, she leaves the Salvation Army after Andrew and an alcohol producer donate large sums. Although Barbara recognizes that the Army in London needs the money, she believes that the Army has sold out because providing weapons of death and alcohol are sinful. “What price salvation, now?” a customer at the Army’s soup kitchen asks Barbara after she had taken off her Army pin and given it to her father. Barbara is not willing to continue with the Christian organization because in her mind it has sold out even though it admittedly needs the donations to survive. But has the Army sold out? Furthermore, does Barbara sold out in using her father's business to convert workers. Ironically, that may be more ethical than the Army's approach to saving souls.

Andrew points out that he is giving the donation against his company’s financial interest because he is doing so anonymously and the Salvation Army preaches world peace rather than war. The maker of canons and explosives would not fare well financially were the Army to win the day. Similarly, the alcohol producer made his donation to an organization that keeps the poor fed and thus in less need of alcohol (excluding alcoholics).

From the standpoint of the modern business field of corporate social responsibility, wherein donations are typically strategically given so as to further the business interest, the film illustrates that self-sacrifice can indeed apply to company interests. The illustration may be idyllic, however, because businesses are set up and run to make as much profit as possible. If Barbara’s father runs a public company, then perhaps the other stockholders may object to the CEO giving away a substantial sum to an organization working at cross-purposes with the company’s financial interest. Andrew’s motive is likely to sway Barbara and her fiancée, Adolphus, in favor of the company so the latter may agree to be the next CEO without Barbara holding onto her scruples. Unless the company is privately held by Andrew, other investors and even creditors could reasonably object that the CEO’s personal life is interfering with his job.

Fortunately, Barbara has come to view the Salvation Army as not only selling out to unethical industrialist donors, but also as “bribing with bread.” Indicted are all religious organizations that tacitly bribe potential souls with earthly benefits. Come to our church for a free dinner! The hidden motive is likely to convert the hungry. 

In contrast, if Adolphus takes the helm of Andrew's armaments company, Barbara could work on the souls of workers who have full bellies and thus would approach salvation for its own sake. Ironically, Barbara finds a company that makes weapons—fire and blood—to be a better standpoint on which to utilize her idealism. Religious organizations bribe, whereas a business focuses on material things and leaves religion alone, hence giving Barbara an open birth to convert the willing. To be sure, converting the unwilling workers at a company would be quite unethical. Workers don’t sign up for that in taking a job, and they should not feel pressure from the CEO's wife to convert to the couple's religion. This point is particularly important because Adolphus and Barbara intend to live among the workers on company grounds. Barbara sees in this an opportunity to receive willing people who want God’s love for itself. Starting a Christian organization at the company without any pressure on employees to join could skirt the ethical problems, even as the Salvation Army is ethically challenged by bribing with bread. Also, the Army lives on, thanks to the large donations stained by the sins of alcohol and weapons geared to kill people. Perhaps the lesson is that religious organizations are not as pure as we might think, whereas businesses can allow for more than earthly pursuits.  

RBG

By chance, I watched RBG (2018), a documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, on the day she died in 2020. Being just a month and a half before the U.S. presidential election, the sudden opening immediately became political. This is of course to be expected, given that the sitting U.S. president nominates candidates and the U.S. Senate confirms them. The role of political ideology on the bench and thus in court decisions, however, is considerably more controversial because the justices are tasked with interpreting the law rather than stitching their own ideologies into law as a means of changing society. The documentary demonstrates that changing society through law was precisely Ginsberg’s objective.

As a lawyer in the 1970s, Ginsberg carefully selected cases that could incrementally change how the law discriminated against women. She understood that political change occurs only incrementally in the American system wherein the status quo has incredible inertia. Put another way, powerful interests benefitting from the status quo have considerable influence in American government. So her approach was to change the law bit by bit. Sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, she was able even in her dissents to effect or influence the making of law in the direction of her objective of changing society. For example, her dissent on a case involving discrimination of job benefits led to the passage of a law to stop the discrimination.

It is one thing, however, to choose cases as a lawyer to effect a societal change through law, and decide cases by interpreting law. In cases before the U.S. Supreme Court involving possible discrimination against women, Ginsberg’s mission to change society conflicted with her judicial duty to interpret the law as objectively as possible. In other words, Ginsberg could be criticized for putting her ideological mission above interpreting the law fairly.
The documentary makes clear that her objective to change society flowed through her career in law, yet no one is interviewed to present a counter-argument. Societal change as an objective of judicial decisions is taken for granted. In this way, the film is biased in favor of Ginsberg. Yet this bias is hidden from the viewers because the judicial objective is presented as a given. The documentary, like its subject, works in effect for a specific societal change. I am not suggesting that law should protect rather than prohibit the discrimination of women; rather, I contend that both the documentary and Ginsberg could have subjected the assumed validity (and laudability) of deciding cases to effect societal change through law to critique and thus been more balanced, and thus fuller and broader.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is known for being the first Hollywood movie in which the face of Jesus is shown. From the standpoint of the next century, the scandal in showing Jesus could only seem antiquated, if not outright silly. Rarely can such perspective on a scandal exist as it is occurring. In its own time, a scandal seems all-important and critically in need of being addressed lest life as we know it would otherwise come to an end. Ten years earlier, Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, had also been controversial, as was the 1988 film of the same name (and based on the novel) because Jesus imagines himself in the sexual act and he may struggle with mental illness. This scandal was more serious than was that which greeted The Greatest Story Ever Told even though the Jesus of Last Temptation ends up rejecting the temptation to avoid the cross and is thus faithful to his Father in the end. The viewer is left, however, without a decisive answer as to whether the film's Jesus suffers from mental fits because the film ends with Jesus dying on the cross. The theological validation of Jesus is made in Greatest Story, though curiously not chiefly in the usual way this is done in narratives about him. I submit that this deviation makes the film highly significant in that it emphasizes religious experience as a reaction.

The two parts of The Greatest Story are separated by an intermission. The climax before it outdoes the one that comes at the end of the film. Ironically, the focus in the first climax is on the disciples' reactions rather than Jesus' face. Jesus walks up a hill to Lazarus' tomb to bring him back to life. Although we briefly see Jesus' face as he looks into the tomb, the chief shot is from the perspectives of the disciples downhill looking up. In fact, we only know that Jesus has succeeded by the reactions of the people watching the event from afar. We never see Lazarus. Seeing the reactions--verbal and nonverbal--is a more powerful way of conveying the significance of the event in religious terms. The astonishment and urgency to tell others we see suggests that the event was not just unusual, but more crucially supernatural and thus sourced in divine power intervening through Jesus. The reaction of the disciples to Jesus' resurrection at the end of the film is muted in relative terms. For viewers who are very familiar with the Passion Story of Jesus, the emotional reaction at the end of the film may also be muted.

In retrospect, some viewers may notice that the reactions of the disciples (and others) at Lazarus coming back to life (as distinct from being resurrected) are not the reactions that are typically seen in Churches during worship. Although in John (20:29) it is written, "Blessed are those who have not seen [me] and yet believe," it is also true that human reactions from witnessing a miracle of the significance of Lazarus would naturally be more intense than from hearing about miracles from the lectern in a church. Indeed, because Christians down through the centuries have not witnessed any such miracles of that magnitude personally, but only through a book, muted reactions have been the norm.  That is to say, relative to the reactions of the disciples and others in the film during the first climax, the intensity of Christians has been less in merely hearing about the miracle. Christians may notice that the miracles that evince a supernatural aspect are believed only in the narrative. This is not to say that the miracles were not empirical (i.e., historical) events; rather, my point is that Christians through the centuries have as their source the Bible, whose inerrancy pertains to belief rather than knowledge. Empirical facts, as from historical accounts written by historians, count as knowledge; belief does not. For such Christians, a miracle can be a literary device because the belief must come out of a book. The device, I submit, lends authenticity to the principles that a religious narrative conveys, rather proffers proof of an empirical event in the past. In short, Christians since the eye-witnesses such as those depicted in the first climax of the film have been dependent on the Bible sans direct experience.

I do not mean to suggest that religious experience from a miracle depends on being an eye-witness. This is where the film has particular value. The narrative device can trigger a distinctly religious reaction (i.e., experience). Watching the reactions from the Lazarus event, which itself was largely hidden from the viewer, the viewer may have a reaction that transcends emotions. Such a distinctively religious reaction, as for instance from feeling the hair raise on one's arms, is itself a religious phenomenon that exists even if miracles are only a literary device without having happened historically. None of us can know whether or not they did.  It is amazing that a mere literary device can trigger such a distinctive spiritual (rather than emotional) reaction. Generally, symbols, myths and rituals can trigger religious reactions. The reaction to a significance of a type that transcends our realm is distinctly religious or spiritual, and thus part of the human experience even if miracles are not. 

In short, the film's visual point-of-view assumes an unusual vantage point as Jesus is performing the miracle on Lazarus by focusing on the onlookers and thus their respective reactions. In contrast, a traditional vantage-point is assumed as viewers look at the raised Jesus talking with his disciples. Containing these two different perspectives in the two climaxes of the film, it points greater attention on the Lazarus miracle than that of Jesus' resurrection. The greater attention is itself distinct because the reactions that people would have to witnessing a significant, empirical miracle are highlighted. As a result, some viewers in turn may have a novel reaction that is distinctly religious and yet does not require that miracles occur outside of being a literary device. The reaction itself may point to the human propensity to transcend the limits of perception, cognition, and even emotions and thus to have a distinctively religious or spiritual experience. Such an experience, rather than major figures, may be the point that religions try to convey.  

The Ninth Gate

Released in the last year of the twentieth century, The Ninth Gate is a film about the use of a book to conjure up Satan. The book's title is The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows. Between three copies exist nine engravings appropriated from a book written by Lucifer. The person who gets all of those engravings can conjure up the devil. The Kingdom of Shadows presumably refers to Satan's kingdom. At the end of the film, Dean Corvo, a dishonest book dealer, rather than his client, Boris Balkan, is welcomed into a castle in which Satan is located. As the castle's main doors open, a blinding light shines outward into the night. Although Thomas Hobbes castigates the Roman Catholic Church as the kingdom of darkness in his text, Leviathan, Satan's realm has typically been depicted as dark in Christian art. Indeed, the film's own reference to Lucifer's kingdom as that of shadows follows this motif. Yet how can we account for the white light inside the castle? 

Some commentators of the film have suggested that the light casts shadows in our earthly realm, but this does not answer why Satan is surrounded by light, especially as the devil is associated with lies, which do not thrive in the translucent disinfectant of light. Furthermore, Leibniz's notion of God as perfect being implies that the darkness of nonexistence is furthest from God. In the Gospel of John (1:4) is written, "In Him was life, and the life is the light of men." Furthermore, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome" (1:5). Finally, Jesus says, "I am the light of the world (8:12). Seeing Dean Corvo enveloped in bright light as he enters the castle in which Satan has been conjured up does not make sense; the devil is not the light.

Some commentators of the film have argued that the light represents Dean Corvo's enlightenment. After all, he is the one who gets to see Satan. This raises the question of whether knowledge of evil can constitute enlightenment. The Gnostic Gospels refer to Christ as enlightening. From The Gospel of Truth (18:12-14) is written, "Through the hidden mystery Jesus Christ enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He enlightened them and show the way, and that way is the truth he taught them." Being enlightened thus brings a person out of darkness. Truth and darkness are mutually exclusive. So even though Dean Corso comes to know more about Satan, this cannot mean that he is enlightened. We are here at the point of a paradox in which Corso comes to know more about ignorance (of truth). To be sure, seeing a supranatural religious entity would be stunning; such a person would know that such entities really do exist even if the entity seen is the master perpetrator of lies, ignorance, and forgetfulness of God.  

Perhaps the blinding light illustrates just how qualitatively different the supranatural religious realm is from our own. It could even be that when the two realms come in contact, a clash-point exists such that high intensity energy is released in the form of light. The bright light may be indicative of such an interface, and thus point to the qualitative difference between the realms of the religious supranatural and our own natural world. In the film, Dean Corso wins the contest in being able to see the devil. What he has access to (i.e., the supranatural) is distinct and rare in even the film's story world. 

Going outside that world, to the authorial intent, Roman Polanski says in his commentary to the film (on the dvd) that he was making fun of the supernatural in films, such as in leaving it unclear to the viewer whether "Green Eyes" has supernatural powers such as flight. Polanski's ironically "dark humor" includes Boris Balkan's expressionistic facial expression while he strangles Liana Telfer in the film. Not every viewer catches that kind of humor, Polanski admits. His choice of piercingly bright light as the door to the devil opens could thus be a deliberate use of a motif that is generally related to God rather than the devil. If so, my musings about on why light rather than darkness could be associated with the devil are for naught; they are eclipsed, or overridden. 

Similarly in the case of the Bible, authorial intent can eclipse the story world. For instance, the latter may portray some features as historical facts. If the authorial intent is to make religious points rather than provide a historical record, the veracity of the "facts" in the story world should be subordinated to religious appropriation (and misappropriation) of said empirical facts. If two Gospels differ, for example, on when, relative to Passover, the Last Supper takes place, the supposedly historical disagreement is really, given authorial intent, the authors making different theological points. In short, the depiction of events as historical happenings serves theological points so such depictions can legitimately be fabricated. This is not to say that a theological point cannot make use of historical events, but even here, an independent historical account is necessary to verify that the events really did occur as depicted. 

Breaking the Waves

In what begins as a story about Bess, a mentally-ill (or cognitively challenged) woman who marries Jan, an oilman, Breaking the Waves (1996) is a film that ends on a distinctively religious note that is nothing short of miraculous. The viewer is meant to be skeptical concerning the authenticity of Bess's spirituality, especially as seems delusional in having two-way conversations with God. Even as one of her prayerful petitions seems perhaps of having been granted when Jan returns from the oil rig to Bess, albeit with Jan paralyzed from an accident, the overwhelming view of the characters in the story, including Jan, is that, as Bess's physician asks Bess, "Do you really think you have so much power?" Bess is blaming herself for Jan's serious medical condition. She could reply, "It's God's power, not mine," but she is slow. Yet she can love, unconditionally. When Jan urges Bess to sleep with other men then tell him about the experiences so he will have the will to live, Bess complies and is summarily kicked out of her church. Even Bess's mother, with whom Bess lives, locks the door. The church elders and the minister are judgmental hypocrites who presume that they can consign a person to hell. Even so, Bess's trust in God as a matter of faith continues, and she sacrifices her life by willingly submitting herself to a sadistic sailor so that God might then heal Jan. Meanwhile, the unbelievers are trying to get Bess to a mental hospital, given her "delusion." On the morning after Jan and his friends on the rig drop Bess's body into the sea, one of the friends wakes Jan to come outside and hear bells ringing even as radar shows nothing out there. The viewer now knows not only that God performed a miracle on Jan, for he is walking around and even back on the rig, but also that Bess's faith is vindicated as heaven's bells miraculously are chiming. The burial followed by bells ringing at sunrise reflects the story of Jesus' passion. The overall message seems to be that we mortals don't know as much as we think we do about God's ways, even if we do happen to have power in the governance of a church.

It is ironic that people so outwardly engaged in the religious domain can actually be so far from it and even, pathetically without realizing, attack the people who are religious. To put in Christian terms, as Christianity is the religion in the film, a person with power in a church can be oblivious to the fact that he or she is acting like the people who Jesus castigates in the Gospels. Astonishingly, an avowed Christian involved in the governance of a church can be oblivious to the fact that he or she is violating Jesus' preaching on neighbor-love, for example. To count oneself as part of the elect (i.e., predestined to be saved) does not give a "Christian" license to act contrary to Jesus' words and example. 

In the film, for example, the minister walks away from Bess when she is collapsed and unconscious in front of the church. Although he has stopped boys from pelting Bess with pebbles, the minister who excommunicated Bess then looks around to be sure he is not being seen as he walks away from her. He is the opposite of the proverbial good Samaritan, based in part on his presumed infallibility in excommunicating Bess from the church and community. At the end of the film, his arrogance is on full display as he consigns her to hell at her burial even though she has voluntarily sacrificed her life so her ill husband would receive a miraculous recovery rather than die. Her vindication comes in the form of another miracle on the early morning after her burial. Sound familiar? Not to the minister or the church elders. Their lack of compassion for Bess is all the more pathetic because at her wedding they recognized her for her faith as well as the many times she had cleaned the church. 

It is all too easy for the hypocrites in charge to view Bess as "slow" or mentally ill, and thus as delusional in prayer when she talks to God. Is not a Christian in prayer to listen for God's thoughts? Surely this form of prayer is superior to asking God for favors. To be sure, Bess is not perfect; she asks God to return Jan to her from the oil rig. This petition is answered, but not in the way Bess assumed. Also, she sins in going along with Jan's sexual fetish that she sleep with other men and tell him about the sex. The excommunicators, however, missed the fact that she complied out of love for her suffering paralyzed husband. 

When Bess willingly goes back to a sadistic sailor in hopes that God would miraculously heal Jan because of her sacrifice of her life, she wonders aloud at a hospital whether she is wrong because Jan has not improved. Her fallibility and humility amid sacrificial love is in contrast to the stern minister and church elders. It isn't until the miraculous sounds of bells at sunrise on the day after Bess has been buried that the viewer knows for sure that the minister and elders are actually anti-Christians and that Bess has indeed been talking with God in prayer, although it is possible that she has been delusional in what she said God was telling her in prayer and yet her sacrifice has prompted God to heal her husband, Jan. Surely the minister and elders would be appalled to learn that a retarded or mentally ill woman whom they expelled is in heaven whereas they are bound for hell. The lesson is that we mere mortals are not able to consign people to heaven or hell, especially in the case of a religion that privileges matters of the heart. That the minister and elders even miss Bess's fruits of the Spirit tells us that even people governing a congregation or serving as its clergy can be wrong rather than presumptuously infallible. 

We too, even as viewers of the film, can unwittingly accept the perspective of the minister and elders, and indeed Bess's own mother. This says something about us. The fact that the supranatural sound of bells does reveal the validity of Bess's relationship with God until the end of the film keeps the viewer in the wrong camp long enough for the bells to be a shock. "I sure got that wrong," I said to myself (perhaps God replied, "Yes, you certainly did). It was not that I agreed with the way in which the minister and elders treat Bess in the film; rather, I shared their assumption that Bess is crazy and so cannot possibly right about her relationship with God.  

At one point in the film, Bess addresses the men meeting in the church after someone emphasizes the need to keep the law. Bess is dismissed and excommunicated after she objects that words cannot be loved; only people can be. In reforming Judaism, Jesus says the same thing to the Pharisees. Loving even strangers trumps observing the strict Jewish law. The minister and elders are Pharisees who conceive of God as angry and judgmental at the expense of compassion, love, and forgiveness. The minister, elders, and even Bess's own mother have missed this fundamental point about Jesus and they stupidly and arrogantly presume themselves to be members of the elect. For all the importance they give to their religious identities, the hypocrites in the film do not internalize Christ's message of the humble love of self-sacrifice even for sinners.  

Pope Francis: A Man of His Word

The documentary, Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (2018) chiefly lays out the pope’s critique of economic Man. The film begins with references to climate change too loosely linked to the global population figure of 8 million humans, 1 billion of whom are unnecessarily living in poverty. The viewer is left to fill in the gaps, such as that because as biological organisms we must consume and use energy, the hyperextended overpopulation of the species is the root cause of climate- and ecosystem-changing CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans. Arguably, the salvific Son of God or the means into the Kingdom of God enjoy pride of place in the gospels, but compassion for the poor as well as outcasts and the sick is indeed a message that Jesus stresses in the faith narratives. Rather than being a sign of sin, poverty, especially if voluntary,  can permit the sort of humility that is much superior to the pride of the Pharisees. In the documentary, Jorge Bergoglio, who took the name Francis in becoming pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, is a practical man who points to the sickness or temptation of greed that keeps humanity from riding itself of poverty, unnecessarily. Moreover, the hegemony of the market, with its culture of consumerism and commoditization, comes at the cost of the common good, which to Francis has a spiritual basis. Abstractly speaking, harmony, which inherently respects its own limitations, should have priority over greed and markets. Both of these can go to excess without enough built-in constraints as occurred before and during the financial crisis of 2008, with poverty plaguing humanity even more rather than less as a result. 

   

Such poverty as exists in the world (in 2017) is a scandal, the pope says, because we could solve the problem. “We have such riches, so many resources for giving food to everybody,” yet so many children are hungry. If we become a little bit poorer—having not so many things—we can help the poor. The pope even wants “a poor church for the poor.” Unfortunately, men can be found even in the Church who have yielded to—rather than resisted—the temptation to have more things. More things owned by fewer people means that more people get less.

Organizational theorists speak of dysfunctional organizations; the pope refers to the Curia, the government of the Church, as dysfunctional. Sins are malfunctioning diseases that weaken our service to God. In men of God, the result is tremendous hypocrisy. According to the pope, a sick organization can suffer from people who think they are immortal in the sense that they deem themselves immune from temptation. Other spiritual diseases include rivalry and vaingloriousness (boastfulness), closed circles (cliques), and lugubrious (sad looking) faces. Existential schizophrenia[1] and spiritual Alzheimer’s disease[2] are two others. Last but certainly not the least, given Francis’ preoccupation, is hoarding. A person seeks to fill an existential void in one’s heart by accumulating material goods not out of need, but, rather, to feel secure. Twice the pope states, “As long as there’s a church that places its hope on wealth, Jesus is not there.” This alone doesn’t exclude a church from having wealth, though Francis clearly wants a poor church for the poor. To be sure, a church that is itself poor has limited funds to lift the poor out of poverty, let alone help them momentarily, but in the spending of vast wealth a large church can made a dent in the problem and the remaining lower cash-flow can make use of fund-raising.

We need only look at Wall Street bankers to see that wealth can be accumulated much beyond even the most risk-averse need for security, financial and otherwise. Pope Francis does not discuss Wall Street in the documentary. No doubt he would have expressed disgust at the many traders for whom maximizing a yearly bonus is a game even during a financial downturn such as that of 2008-2009 even though many sub-prime mortgage producers and mortgage-based bond traders were culpable both ethically and in terms of competence. Making unnecessary hoarding into a game when ending poverty lies within our species’ grasp and poor people are suffering surely involves an immature, selfish dysfunction. What is for one person a game is for another hunger and even homelessness. No brotherly love exists in such a deprived culture of consumption.

In such a culture, money can apply value anything that can be commoditized. Goods, services, jobs, and even people are valued monetarily. A Hollywood movie star (i.e., a popular actor), for example can make millions of dollars on just one film, while dollars can be scarce for organizations that attempt to reduce poverty. This is a reflection of how much movies and reducing poverty are valued in a society. As Pope Francis makes clear in the documentary, enough wealth exists that poverty could be eliminated, but people with a surplus of money want to go to the movies more than they want to pitch in together to end poverty.

St. Francis rejected the distended hoarding disease that springs from the sin of greed. He likened money to animal dung and lauded poverty, especially of the voluntary sort.[3] So he viewed money itself, rather than just the culture that forms from it, as problematic. In the context of ordinary Christians first being able to accumulate coin from trade during the Commercial Revolution in the High Middle Age, St. Francis eschewed his inheritance to undergo voluntary poverty in solidarity with the poor, the sick, and the outcasts like Jesus.

The saint felt a calling to restore God’s house on Earth, for which a complete transformation of attitude would be needed. Such a transformation, while not impossible with human nature, would surely go against its grain and thus could not be based in it. Like Kant’s notion of perpetual peace protected by a world federation, the transformation is possible but not probable.[4] Being very difficult to accomplish in human nature, we can conclude that the transformation is sourced either in the higher faculties of human nature or a source that is wholly other to our artifacts and nature. Both St. Francis and the pope who took that name would say that the transformation is so foreign to our nature (and thus ways) that the source must be divine, transcending Creation, hence wholly other.

To St. Francis, the transformation of attitude, which I submit applies not only to greed, but also pride,  can result in “a new brotherhood of man dedicated to the common good.” The documentary uses that rather secular language—the common good. In political theory, the common or public good stands for what is in the public welfare—the good of the whole (e.g., a city). The aggregation of private uses can fall short of that which is in a community’s interest. Hence, in Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith advocates a role for government in regulating markets. Relatedly, public goods like air and water are for common use because either they cannot be privatized (e.g., contained in packages) or the cost of exclusion is too high. Air and water, respectively, apply. This is why Polanyi argues in his book, The Great Transformation, that social norms should hold sway over markets, rather than vice versa, and thus governments should not be controlled by the financial sector. Even though markets can efficiently allocate goods and services, even a financial system, if left to itself especially in times of great volatility, can go beyond equilibrium and collapse without the overarching public good being enforced by a government, such as in the United States in 2008.

In St. Francis’ usage, the term common good is not just secular, for the transformation needed has a divine rather than an earthly source. The transformation runs against the human nature to economize even for a person’s own self-preservation. Godric of Finchale, a trader during the Commercial Revolution more than a century before St. Francis, gave his accumulated wealth to the poor in order to live as a hermit close to Nature. Godric put even his own life at risk because he, like St. Francis, believed that having any wealth would castrate his salvation. That is, salvation does not allow for making an income and accumulating wealth. The underlying assumption is that wealth is tightly coupled with the stain of underlying greed. Elsewhere, I call this stance the anti-wealth paradigm.[5]

That paradigm was dominant in Christian thought for centuries; the pro-wealth paradigm, in which greed is not necessarily behind profit-seeking and wealth, only began to take hold during the Commercial Revolution in the High Middle Age. Interestingly, just as capitalism arrived on the world stage two centuries before Adam Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations during the eighteenth century, so too did the pro-wealth paradigm come to dominate among theologians two centuries before Max Weber wrote his Protestant Work Ethic. Ricardo’s world capitalism began during the sixteenth century, and the pro-wealth paradigm had begun in the Italian Renaissance during the fifteenth century. Renaissance theologians emphasized the Christian virtues of liberality and munificence as “good uses” of wealth, and thus as justifying the fortunes of even the usurer Cosimo De Medici.[6] He made a deal with Pope Eugene IV: In return for financing the renovations of a Florentine monastery (at which Cosimo got a cell for prayer), the international banker could keep his fortune of usurious interest and secure his salvation. St. Francis must have been spinning in his grave.

As shown in the documentary, Pope Francis is also an adherent of the anti-wealth paradigm. “Jesus in the Gospels says no one can serve two masters. We either serve God or we serve money,” the pope says. He is assuming that serving money means that greed and money are present. In other words, greed and wealth are linked. Unlike Godric and St. Francis, however, Pope Francis was at the time the head of a very wealthy organization, the Roman Catholic Church. Although he says in the documentary that he wants a poor church serving the poor, he, like the pro-wealth paradigm adherents, had to confront, by which I mean legitimate, the extant wealth of his Church. He emphasizes good uses, namely to the poor, in the documentary. In contrast, St. Francis “attacked the subtle temptation of pious Christians to pile up wealth under the pretext of using it to beautify churches or serve God.”[7] Had he been alive in Cosimo De Medici’s day, St. Francis might have preached that Pope Eugene should pick up one of De Medici’s usurious coins by the teeth and deposit the coin on top of a pile of animal dung. Moreover, by contrasting St. Francis and Pope Eugene IV, we can see that the zenith of the anti-wealth paradigm had been replaced by that of the pro-wealth paradigm by fifteenth century—two centuries before Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic.[8]

As if channeling St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Francis says in the film that the big temptation for mankind is greed. Even though Francis mentions St. Francis’ notion of an attitudinal transformation, the pope could have said more concerning how the dysfunctional attitude of pride fits in. This would be a nod to Augustine, who had written of pride as the chief sin. In the twenty-first century, the term sin can seem vague and even antiquated; hence the pope uses the terms, temptation and disease. Perhaps these, while workable in reaching a secular world, do not go far enough.

Beyond the temptation of greed issuing out in diseases, St. Francis’ transformation of attitude could be contemplated beyond the immaturity, selfishness, and lack of compassion for others. When Wall Street traders turned maximizing their bonuses into some kind of a game, something more than greed was at work, even during the mortgage-bond fiasco that led to the financial crisis of 2008. Not only did it not matter that subprime mortgage borrowers were going homeless; traders actually blamed the scheme on those borrowers (for being stupid) instead of themselves. During a flood, arrogance has no place above water, let alone on stilts.

A dysfunctional socio-economy can be viewed as an encrusted artifact of the attitude borne of the temptation of greed and its diseases. In the film, the pope bemoans an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, as having resulted in a plundered planet; we have abused rather than cultivated it, and climate change may be our reckoning. Work is sacred, the pope says, because creating something is a version of doing the Creator’s work. “The way to escape consumerism, this corruption, this competitiveness, this being enslaved to money, is the concreteness of day-to-day work”—a “tangible reality.” Similarly, Heidegger wrote that in concrete work, such as nailing with a hammer, a person comes to realize oneself as an entity that exists (dasein). God sent our species to cultivate, through work, not only the land, but also science, art, technology, and culture. “But when someone feels that he owns this culture and feels all-powerful,” the pope says, “the temptation arises to go further, and destroy the culture.” This feeling of “all-powerful,” as if self-appointed as a god, is otherwise known as pride. Here we see the pope link it to the temptation of greed. Perhaps the common denominator is a refusal to recognize limits upon oneself. As Gordon Gekko says in the film, Wall Street, the wealth that he desires as a trader is unlimited. How much is enough?  "It’s not a question of enough.”

Exploiting the planet’s resources, including coal for energy, plays into more for its own sake. Increasing the CO2 concentration in the oceans and atmosphere does so as well. Even being fruitful and multiplying without limit—as if the divine command holds even after sufficient multiplying has enabled our species to cultivate the Earth—plays into more. Indeed, as the overpopulation is behind the CO2 increases because biological organisms, including of our species, must use up energy, our species may go extinct because of the refusal to rationally curb the more even to the extent that it is instinctual and woven into the fabric of our economic, social, and political systems. In the film, neither the narrator nor the pope go this far in connecting the major themes. Essentially, the pope argues that if people live as Jesus in the gospels, then exclusion, poverty, and the cult of more, including its destruction of the planet at least in terms of human habitation, and thus the overall good of humanity, could be expunged. Instead, a harmony could exist in line with the principles of ecosystems. It is a “law of nature,” the pope says for lack of a better expression that “all things should be in harmony.” Plato’s notion of justice, by the way, is when a musical-mathematical harmony exists within a reason-directed psyche (mind) and polis (city and even country).

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1. Efforts to stabilize one’s existence, in this case by having more wealth.

2. Remembering God no longer. In this void, a person can engage in self-idolatry, which can include worshipping one’s own wealth as an extension of oneself.

3. Skip Worden, God’s Gold.

4. Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace.

5. Skip Worden, God’s Gold.

6. Ibid.

7. Dan Runyon, “St. Francis of Assisi on the Joy of Poverty and the Value of Dung,” Church History 14 (1987).

8. Skip Worden, God’s Gold.

The Case for Christ

A film narrative oriented to an investigation of Christianity is tailor-made to illustrate the potential of film as a medium to convey abstract ideas and theories. In The Case for Christ (2017), a skeptical journalist—Lee Strobel—takes on the contention that Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospels was also a historical event (i.e., happened historically). Lee states the proposition that he will investigate as follows: “The entire Christian faith hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. If it didn’t happen, it’s a house of cards. He’s reduced to a misunderstood rabbi at best; at worst, he was a lunatic who was martyred.” The journalist’s initial position is that the resurrection didn’t happen historically; it is just part of a faith narrative (i.e., the Gospels). Lee wants to test the proposition by interviewing experts. The dialogues between the journalist unschooled in theology and the scholars of religion provide a way in which complex ideas and arguments can be broken down for the viewer and digested. The journalist stands as a translator of sorts similar to a teacher’s function in breaking down knowledge new to students so they can grasp and digest it.

The journalist attends a debate between two scholars of religion, Singer and Habermas, on the historical Jesus movement in Biblical hermeneutics—that is, on what the Gospels, as faith narratives, can tell us about Jesus as a historical person. Singer denies that information in a faith narrative, or myth, can be taken as historical evidence. Logically, to treat a religious text as a historical account is to commit a category mistake (i.e., ignoring the distinction between two categories). For one thing, the incorporation of history into a faith narrative serves religious points, which are of a higher priority than historical accuracy. In writing a religious narrative, the writer’s intent is not to provide a historical account; historians do that.

For example, the synoptic Gospels differ on when the Last Supper takes place relative to Passover. Different theological points are being made. Jesus being crucified during Passover likens him to the animals sacrificed in Exodus. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Were the authorial intent to provide a historical account, this theological point could not be made if the historical Jesus was crucified after Passover. It makes sense that a writer who is religious would be more faithful to his theology than to history. The Gospel writers selectively appropriated historical accounts without verifying them as historians would have done. In fact, the writers would even have been inclined, given how important their faith was to them, to take sayings passed on orally as unfettered (i.e., unbiased) historical accounts.

A Gospel writer (and Paul) could have written things as if they were historical to make theological points. Paul’s miraculous experience on the road to Damascus provides the man who had prosecuted Christians with status in Jesus’ inner circle. The historical nomenclature tends to crystalize over centuries as the historical “fact” eclipses Paul’s religious reason for portraying the miracle as having really happened (i.e., as an event in empirical history). That is, the authorial intent in making an event seem historical by using historical nomenclature is often overlooked by faith-readers, especially in an era in which empirical facts are the gold standard covering even religion. Therefore, Singer’s position is that the Gospels cannot be assumed to be reliable sources of historical information.

Habermas answers Singer by claiming that the Gospels are indeed reliable sources of historical events. As a public event, the crucifixion would have had witnesses—sympathizers and critics. Habermas points out that an atheist school of thought “now believes that the earliest known report of the resurrection was formed no later than three years after the Cross.” Habermas cites a book by Gurd Luderman, which discusses the report. Unlike Singer, Habermas believes that the obvious faith-interest of the sympathetic witnesses in the resurrection having really occurred would not cause them to lie. That many witnesses saw Jesus after he resurrected adds to Habermas’ confidence.

It is interesting that in using the word, really, to refer to history, I have just committed a common error wherein even in religious matters, the historical criteria trumps, or is more real, than religious truth, whose reality comes to us by symbol, myth, and ritual. The religious truth of the resurrection is contained in the Gospels, whose theological truths transcend history, just as the Creator transcends Creation.  

Implicit in Habermas’ position is the rhetorical question: why would people of faith lie? Why would people deeply motivated by religious truth violate truth itself by fabricating their historical accounts of Jesus after his resurrection? Habermas would likely dismiss the “ends justify the means” rationale for doing bad things for a good outcome. Fundamentalists may be particularly susceptible to this way of justifying doing bad things in service to a faith even though an objective observer would see the hypocrisy. The two scholars may thus be debating, at least in part, how human nature interacts with religion.

The journalist’s initial position rephrased is that if the resurrection did not happen historically (rather than only in the faith narratives), then religious truth in the faith narratives would have no value. In other words, faith serves history rather than vice versa in the religious domain. To be sure, it can be argued that if the historical Jesus did not “really” resurrect in physical body and spirit, then his true followers will not resurrect after their physical death. The religious truth necessitates the historical event, yet no reliable (i.e., independent of the faith narratives) historical account exists. The journalist and Habermas are thus diametrically opposed.

Historians overwhelming contend that the Jesus passage in Jewish Antiquities, written by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who covered Jesus’ period in Judaea, was actually added subsequently in order to include Christian faith claims that go beyond what a historian would include in writing history, and what a Jew would believe and thus proselytize through writing “history.” The journalist would strongly agree that historical accounts that are separate from faith narratives can be susceptible to interpolated (i.e., injected) faith material that is portrayed as historical. Josephus mentions Jesus and his followers, though “close in style and content to the creeds that were composed two or three centuries after Josephus.”[1] Specifically, Josephus’ uses of “the Greek verb forms such as aorists and participles are distinct in the passage on Jesus.” They are “different than the forms that Josephus uses in other [Pontius] Pilate episodes, and these differences amount to a difference in genre.”[2] The passage on Jesus is close to the Gospels, which are faith narratives, whereas the other events involving Pilate are written in verb forms used by historians to write histories.

A Jewish historian such as Josephus would not have been inclined to include Christian faith-claims, especially as part of a historical account. For example, the parenthetical () “if indeed one ought to call him a man” is not a historical fact and not something to which a Jew would subscribe. Furthermore, Josephus did not use the literary device of parentheticals except in his passage on Jesus. This suggests that a later Christian editor or copyist may have inserted material within sentences to include elements of the Christian faith (even inserting phrases within sentences distinct from the sentences’ contents) morphed into historical content by means of historical nomenclature (i.e., using words that make something seem historical). That is, the interlarded additions in the passage on Jesus conflate two distinct genres, faith narratives and historical accounts.

As a Jew and a historian, Josephus would not likely have written that Jesus was a teacher to people willing to “accept the truth.” This is not a historical statement, for truth is not a historical event. This applies also to the statement, “He was the Messiah.” Finally, the statement that after three days, Jesus was “restored to life” (i.e., resurrected) is not something that a Jew would take as a historical event.[3] Interestingly, not even Habermas sites Josephus; rather, the religious scholar relies on witnesses in the Gospels, thus conflating the two genres: myth (i.e., faith narratives) and history.[4] Singer points out that taking witnesses in a faith narrative as providing historical evidence is invalid by the criteria of history.

In short, Josephus would indeed have been a very unusual Jew had he believed these faith claims to be valid; he would have been a deficient historian had he viewed them as historical accounts rather than faith claims.

Justus of Tiberius, a rival historian, did not include Jesus even though this historian “wrote in great detail about the exact period of Tiberius’s reign that coincided with Jesus’s ministry.”[5] Therefore, even the validity of Josephus’ mention of Jesus as a historical person living in the Middle East can be contested. Perhaps the entire passage of Jesus was implanted by a later editor or copyist sympathetic to Jesus. If so, then no historical record exists to support the claim that Jesus existed historically rather than only in the faith narratives. We could not know whether Jesus’ resurrection really happened by appealing to historical evidence (e.g., witness accounts separate from those in the Gospels).

After the debate, Habermas and the journalist sit down for a coffee. “How can anyone talk about historical evidence for a resurrection when the resurrection is by its very nature a miracle?” the journalist asks. “We all know miracles can’t be proven scientifically.” The source of a miracle is outside of Creation, and thus its natural laws and processes. “We don’t have to prove a miracle in order to prove the resurrection, Habermas replies. “You just have to show that Jesus died and was seen afterwards.” Interestingly, Habermas uses the word show rather than prove. This may suggest that he has already ceded some ground on how difficult it is to prove that an event happened empirically two thousand years ago. The journalist seizes on this vulnerability of historical studies. “Right,” he says, “but the very people who claimed that they saw him are religious zealots. In my line of work, we call those biased sources.” We are back to the problem of the selective use of history in faith narratives, and in taking Josephus’ historical account as valid historically.

Habermas dismisses the problem of biased sources and declares, “I care about the facts.” The journalist cleverly hinges on the problem of what constitutes a fact. “So what are the facts, Dr. Habermas? The resurrection narrative is more legend than it is history.” To be sure, that the resurrection is in a myth does not in itself mean that Jesus did not resurrect historically (i.e., it was a historical event). Even if neither the witnesses in the Gospels nor even Josephus’ historical account suffices under historical criteria, historical events have surely gone unreported by historians. In effect, the journalist is using his stance in the discussion as a fact. Habermas spots this fallacy and replies, “Really? Not according to historical records. Did you know that we have a report of the resurrection from specific eye-witnesses that dates all the way back within months of the resurrection itself? That source also adds that five hundred people saw Jesus at the same time.” However, because Habermas is relying on witnesses in a faith narrative, or myth, we cannot count them as historical witnesses. In other words, he is conflating the two genres and not offering a counterargument to the problem of biased sources. Even the journalist falls victim to conflating the two genres.

Replying to Habermas, the journalist says, “That’s still just one historical source—the Bible.” Habermas replies, “Wrong, there are at least nine ancient sources both inside and outside the Bible confirming that disciples and others encountered Jesus after the Crucifixion.” Notice that Habermas refers to ancient sources inside the Bible. The word ancient is a historical term. Habermas is likely invoking Josephus’ historical account, which as discussed above is problematic in itself as a historical source. If the scholar is counting other historical accounts, he would have to confront the consensus among historians that Josephus provides the only mention of Jesus in a historical account (as well as the consensus that Josephus’ account is problematic as a historical source). It would be presumptuous of Habermas as a religious scholar to claim superiority over historians in deciding what constitutes a valid historical account (i.e., by criteria in the discipline of history). Would the historians then have superiority over scholars of religion on religious questions?

Pointing to the problem of biases sources, the journalist claims that the disciples and others who encountered Jesus after the Crucifixion “were already followers of Jesus.” This gives us an idea of what would be needed to have a valid historical source. Such a witness would have be verified as independent of Jesus and his followers, and mentioned in a historical account, which itself would have to be authenticated. This is not to say that Jesus’ followers could not have witnessed an event such as the resurrection and reported it orally to others. A historical account would need more support; however, as such witnesses would have had a faith-interest in reporting the event as empirical even though the resurrection has religious truth-value in the faith narratives alone.

Strangely, Habermas uses Paul, a zealot for Christ. “Think of Saul of Tsaris,” Habermas says. “He originally was a persecutor of Christians.” However, Paul’s letters are from the perspective of Paul as a devoted follower of Jesus. How could Habermas possibly think that because Paul as Saul had been against the Jesus movement that he would be unbiased after his conversion? Indeed, Paul’s own written account of his conversion experience is subject to the point that he could have added in his miraculous vision to legitimize himself as an apostle even though he had not met Jesus. Also, just because Paul’s letters are historical artifacts does not mean that their contents report historical events. Paul was not writing historical accounts, and so his religious messages and religious-interest could have used historical events selectively and even invented some. The warping effects of religious ideology on cognition (and ethics) can be significant.

Habermas next accepts the journalist’s initial premise that if Jesus’ resurrection is not a historical event, then the Christian faith would collapse. This is so because it depends on that historical event. Nevertheless, that faith has not collapsed, or been discredited, and in fact Christians have even been willing to die in its service. “If the early church fathers knew that the resurrection was a hoax, then why would they willingly die for it?” Habermas’ assumption can be critiqued.

Firstly, that Christianity has not collapsed does not necessarily mean that the theological resurrection in the faith narratives happened historically. Christianity could have endured due to the intrinsic value of the religious truth that is in the faith narratives (and Paul’s letters). It may have been enough that those narratives depict the resurrection as a historical event without the event having taken place empirically (i.e., outside of the narratives).

Secondly, Habermas assumes that if the resurrection did not occur as a historical account, then the early Church fathers would have known that the resurrection as a historical event was a hoax. This assumption too does not hold, for the fathers could have erroneously assumed that the historical nomenclature (i.e., wording) used in the faith narratives is sufficient to guarantee that the resurrection was also a historical event (i.e., apart from its mention as such in the Gospels). That is, the portrayal in the Gospels of the resurrection as a historical event does not mean that the resurrection “really” happened. Furthermore, to put so much emphasis on whether the resurrection really happened eclipses the value of the resurrection’s religious truth-value in the faith narratives. Lastly, Habermas assumes that if the resurrection were not a historical event, then the church fathers would have known it. They were not omniscient, so it is possible that the historical event did not occur and yet the fathers assumed from the historical nomenclature in the faith narratives, casting it in a historical light, that the resurrection must have happened as a historical event.

Habermas then brings up the Christian assumption that Jesus’ resurrection must have “really” happened (i.e., historically) for Christian souls to subsequently be able to enter heaven. Without that empirical event having taken place, no souls could go to heaven. “I know that I’m going to see my wife again someday,” Habermas says. He is committing a category misstate, however, in claiming that knowledge rather than belief pertains to faith. The religious studies scholar Joseph Campbell once asked why faith would be needed at all if were knew that heaven exists and that we would go there. Empirical knowledge, unlike belief, requires the certainty that scientific evidence can make more likely than can faith-claims. Such claims are true in a religious sense, and thus provide certainty as to religious truth, but not to empirical facts. The hold of Habermas’ religious ideology on his epistemological knowledge (i.e., what counts as knowledge) is responsible for his embellishment of religious belief as knowledge. The added certainty that knowledge provides is without merit, but this is of no concern to Habermas as the assumption of certainty conveniently aids his religious ideology.

Habermas nonetheless declares, “What I want and what I don’t want has no impact on truth. That said, if Christ’s resurrection means that I get to be with Debbie again, then I have no problem being happy with that. Sometimes truth reminds of us of what is really important.”

I submit that what a person wants does have a bending impact on one’s hold on truth. That is, even though religious truth itself is changeless, by definition, concepts of religious truth in a human mind can wittingly or unwittingly serve the ideological interests of a mind (i.e., person). Habermas assumes that his desire to be with his wife in heaven has no impact on his belief that Jesus’ resurrection in the faith narratives refers to a historical event, and, furthermore, that the historical resurrection made it possible for souls to go to heaven. In other words, a historical event made possible a spiritual (i.e., nonempirical) state that is outside of history. This belief is based on an underlying belief: that of the Incarnation (i.e., God made flesh in Jesus).

Putting aside the matters of people who had died before the historical resurrection and non-Christians thereafter that challenge Habermas’ belief-claims, Christian theology contends that the Crucifixion in the Gospels, as also a historical event, makes it possible for souls to enter heaven. Jesus’ vicarious atonement made possible by his willingly sacrificing himself even though he is innocent makes possible the reunification of a human being with God. Specifically, Jesus’ death pays the price of original sin. In contrast, Jesus’ resurrection as “first fruits” means that the saved souls that are in heaven will someday be bodily resurrected. Therefore, even though Habermas claims to know that Jesus’ historical resurrection made going to heaven possible, Christian theology begs to differ; the historical resurrection made bodily resurrection possible. Habermas is thus overstating the importance of a historical resurrection in regard to him being able to be with his dead wife again. Put another way, even from the standpoint of theology, we can see that embellishment can result from self-interest, which includes the matter of the veracity (i.e., truth) of a religious ideology even hyperextended to cover historical empirical facts.

After speaking with Habermas, the journalist makes an appointment to speak with a Roman Catholic priest whose specialty is biblical manuscripts. Especially because Christians rely so much on the faith narratives in believing that the resurrection was also a historical event, the question of the manuscripts’ authenticity is highly relevant. Specifically, the question can be raised as to whether the manuscripts we have are accurate copies of the originals. Just as a Christian copyist may have added the non-historical faith claims to Josephus’ reference to Jesus and his followers, copyists may have embellished the biblical manuscripts by adding miracles and even claiming that they “really” happened. That is, copyists may have used history as a justifying basis for religious truth rather than in sufficing to treat the latter as being intrinsically valid in its own domain, and thus as needing no validation from other domains.

The journalist first points out to the priest, “Just because I write something down and bury it in dirt, it doesn’t make it true. How can we be sure of the reliability of these manuscripts?” The priest answers, “The same way we authenticate any historical document—by comparing and contrasting the copies that have been recovered. It’s called textual criticism. The more copies we have, the better we can cross-reference, and determine if the original was historically accurate, and the earlier they come in history, the better.” If a biblical passage is in all of the extant copies—and even better, word for word—then the chances is higher that a copyist did not tamper with the passage. It would still be possible, however, for changes to have been made by a copyist that are reflected in all of the extant copies available now. This would be increasingly possible the earlier the copyist. It should be noted that the historical accuracy of a copy of a manuscript refers back to its original manuscript, rather than to whether the events in that original really (i.e., empirically) happened. Even if a Gospel’s original writer used historical nomenclature to describe an event in the narrative as being a historical event does not mean that the event in the narrative corresponds to a historical event outside of the narrative. Historical nomenclature itself is a narrative device in service of the narrative’s theme or point.

The writers would have known themselves to be writing faith narratives rather than historical accounts because the writers wrote primarily of religious belief-claims that go beyond history, and thus the writing of historical accounts. The proof of the genre is in the writing itself (i.e., what is written). Writers of religious belief-claims rather than historical accounts would not have felt obliged to record only historical events. In fact, the latter could be selectively appropriated and even invented to suit the construction of the faith-narratives. A major drawback of this device is that readers may assume that religious truth needs historical verification to be valid. This fallacy is especially possible in an empirical-fact, or scientific era. Therefore, cross-referencing manuscripts to get as close as possible to the original manuscript can only get us so far if our aim is to ascertain the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection outside of the faith-narratives.

For example, the Gospels do not have the same women discover Jesus’ tomb. To be sure, the Gospel writers may not have had access to the same information. Even the accuracy of historians’ accounts can suffer from this problem. Alternatively, in writing faith narratives, the Gospel writers may not have been motivated to obtain the information and verify it as historians are. Instead, the writers of the faith narratives may have chosen characters to make theological or ecclesiastical points.

Because women in ancient Jewish culture (i.e., historically) were deemed to be unreliable witnesses—as a religious studies scholar tells the journalist—the Gospel writers’ decision to specify that the witnesses at the tomb are women has been taken as support for the historical veracity not only for the witnesses, but also the resurrection itself. “Why else, the religious scholar from Jerusalem asks the journalist, would “all four Gospel writers record that it was women who discovered the empty tomb?” But were the writers recording? Historians do that, whereas the writers of faith narratives make religious points to serve a religious theme, or faith.

Perhaps the Gospel writers, who differed in their choice of which women are at the tomb, made their respective choices to support different theological or ecclesiastical points. There were, after all, factions in the early church. For example, Paul is said to have differed from the Jerusalem church on whether converts must be circumcised. Whether or not to include Mary Magdalene as a witness at the tomb (all four Gospels do, but Paul does not) and whether she is first among the women has ecclesiastical implications both concerning her status as an apostle and whether women should hold leadership positions in the church. Considering Paul’s opposition to this and the fact that he excludes women at the tomb, we cannot conclude that he was oriented to providing a historical account; his agenda was ecclesiastical.  Similarly, rather than recording an account from historical research, the Gospel writers could have been pushing back against Paul by providing a basis on which women could have legitimate authority in the early church.  All this is in line with the point that the Gospel writers were writing faith narratives rather than historical accounts, and that Paul’s letters are not historical accounts, but, rather, preachments.

In fact, given the clear difference between the two genres, the writers of the faith narratives would have known that their readers not assume that they were reading historical accounts. Yet many evangelical Christians in the twentieth century disregarded both the authorial intent and the early reader response—both being in the faith-narrative genre—in assuming that the Gospel writers were operating as historians as well as men of faith. A further assumption is that the faith role does not have any impact on the historian role, so the Gospels can be taken literally.

In biblical hermeneutics (i.e., methods of interpretation) until the twentieth century, figurative, symbolic, analogical, and literal interpretations were generally understood as equally valid and thus as useful—the objective being to use the one that fits best for a given biblical passage in deriving religious truth. With science propelling technological advancement, and thus dominating Western society by the mid-twentieth century, the literal (i.e., “historical fact”) kind of interpretation enjoyed a presumptive place for any biblical passage that could be taken as historical. This new predominance would have been unknown both to the Gospel writers and to interpreters prior to the twentieth century. That is, the Gospel writers could scarcely have anticipated the overarching role for literal interpretation even when they were using historical nomenclature to make religious points in their faith narratives.

Distant culturally and through oceans of time from the writers’ world and literary context, we can unwittingly reflect our culture in approaching the Gospels. Of course, we do not know how the writers would react were they alive today because much of their intents, especially for particular verses, are lost to us today. Instead, we supply our own intents onto the page and presume that the authors had the same intents. In our era, empirical facts are hegemonic (i.e., on top), so we naturally assume that history plays a salient role in the construction of a faith narrative. We even subordinate religious truth in a faith narrative to the extent that it is not supported by empirical, historical facts. By implication, we are of little faith in scarcely believing that  religious truth has its own intrinsic value and is therefore not in need of historical justification and sanctification.

Perhaps we cannot help remaking an ancient religion in our own societal image. Perhaps religious ideology bends space and time to reflect what is acceptable to us. The medium of film, being in our era rather than that of the founding of an ancient religion, can operate as a facilitator. Helped by the suspension of disbelief, we believe that we are “in” Jesus’ world, and thus closer to his story and its religious meaning. What we see of ancient Judaea on the screen only reflects what the filmmakers construct, based on the faith narratives and what historians have uncovered of that locale back then. Film viewers are not in Judaea as it was. They are not in the garden and at the crucifixion. Yet the viewers naturally feel that they have never been closer to them. Furthermore, the illusion and related suspension of disbelief that the medium of film has can lead the viewers to assume the historicity as factual rather than conjectured. For example, seeing the dramatic coming of dark clouds as Jesus dies on a cross can result in a false sense of historical accuracy as in, so that’s what it was really like. Future Good Fridays that are sunny may not even feel like Good Fridays.

Additionally, what conjecture that film can give us of the story world as historical too combines with the religious interpretation or ideology (i.e., a set of aligned interpretations) driving the film to present the narrative’s point, or theme. This can uplift the faithful or give them reason to subject their faith to critique. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. A faith pruned of bad assumptions can become a healthier mature tree. What need of childish things does an adult faith have? A film can aid in this process.

I contend that The Case for Christ falls short because the pruning tools provided are not strong enough. The character arc of Lee, the journalist—that is, his transformation or inner journey over the course of the film narrative—goes from an atheist stance to an affirmation of evangelical Christianity. In spite of this protagonist having a critical stance toward religion (and Christianity) through most of the story, he suddenly decides that the resurrection was indeed a historical event. This can be taken as the filmmakers’ desired stance, at least as far as the movie goes. I have emphasized the critique of this stance precisely because the film does not give the arguments enough credit. In other words, the film makes a “straw man” argument against the resurrection being a historical event. The case against Christ is too easily pushed aside by the case for Christ. So I lean here in the other direction, not because I personally take the anti-historical-event side, but, rather, because moviemakers and viewers alike would benefit by understanding that the dialogue on Christianity could have been better written, with better arguments on the skeptic’s side, so that the viewers, whether atheist or theist, could have a better grasp of the difficulties involved in using faith narratives to make historical claims. 

For Christian viewers, a more realistic stance could prompt a realization that religious meaning or truth is inherently or intrinsically of great value. For example, the spiritual value of turning the other cheek, or, even better, helping people who have insulted or even attacked you does not depend on historical facts. In other words, such value need not stand on the stilts of history. In fact, religious truth transcends history. The means that Jesus teaches, such as turning the other cheek or loving enemies, are so foreign to human nature and history that the source of the value can be viewed as being beyond human nature and history, and thus divine. If the medium of film can facilitate a recognition of the sui generis (i.e., unique) nature of religious value (of religious truth or meaning) as distinct from and independent of historical facts, the medium is indeed more valuable than perhaps we realize in handling deep meaning.

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[1]   Paul Hopper, “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii: 63, In Linguistics and Literary Studies, Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob, Eds. (Walter de Gruyter, 2014), pp. 147-170.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The Testimonium Flavianum, in Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3, section 63, translated by Louis Feldman (The Loeb Classical Library).

[4] On this distinction in Judaism, see Von Rad’s two-volume History of Israel.

[5] Paul Hopper, “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus.