A Fortunate Man

Religion plays a prominent role in the film, Lykke-Per, or A Fortunate Man (2018). On the surface, Peter Sidenius, a young engineer, must navigate around an old, entrenched government bureaucrat to secure approval for his ambitious renewable-energy project. The two men clash, which reflects more general tension that exists everywhere between progressives and conservatives regarding economic, social, religious, and political change. Although pride may be the ruin of Peter and his project, the role played by religion is much greater than pride manifesting as arrogance, if indeed it is arrogant to stand up to abuse of power, whether by a government bureaucrat or one’s own father.

Peter’s dad is a Christian pastor whose meanness to Peter belies any claim to know God’s judgment as well as to have an authentic Christian faith. Kierkegaard’s chastisement of the Lutheran clerical hierarchy in Copenhagen in the nineteenth century by emphasizing the need and primacy of subjective, inner piety resonates in this film. In fact, Peter’s angry reaction to his dad’s meanness when Peter is leaving home to go to college is similar the reaction that Kierkegaard must have had to hardened clergy in his day. Peter’s father begins by saying that although he gave money to Eybert, Peter’s older brother, when he left home, “you will get no money.” Adding insult to injury, the malevolent father gives Peter a watch that Peter’s grandfather had given Peter’s father. The “strings” attached to the watch that undo the giving spirit that runs throughout the Gospels is his dad’s hope that the watch will “sooth your hardened heart and open your stubborn mind.” Just in case Peter misses the point, his dad notifies his son that he is on the “road to perdition.” Peter is right, of course, in calling out his dad for his “cold intolerance” and “false piety.” That his dad demands an apology without having apologized for insulting Peter and then slaps his son’s face hard reveals the Christian minister’s abject hypocrisy, which we know has been longstanding because Peter says that he felt “like a homeless stranger” growing up in his dad’s house. Faith without love is worse than naught. Interestingly, after being slapped, Peter tells his dad, a Christian minister, to hit him properly. It is as if Jesus were saying to the Roman guard who scourging Jesus, lash me again—this time do it properly. In retrospect, Peter’s line anticipates his integrity and spiritual nature that come out as the narrative evolves.

Peter can be excused from rejecting his dad’s deity even though Peter has no idea that the Jesus in the Gospels would reject the hypocritical piety of the judgmental and hateful pastor. “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus would likely say to Peter’s dad, and to Peter himself, Jesus would likely advise, “kick the dust off your sandals” and don’t look back. Peter has no idea that the Jesus in the Gospels is innocent and yet willingly suffers by judgmental and hateful men who are like Peter’s dad.

Following the death of Peter’s dad, Peter’s mother less harsh though just as judgmental when she meets with Peter, as if she, like her husband, were omniscient and thus entitled to judge their son’s soul. She presumes that her son has rejected God, when in actuality Peter has rejected his parents’ conception of God, and for good reason. His mother, unlike his father, however, grasps from the Gospels the value of humility and selfless love, and she is clever enough to urge Peter to be humble and selflessly love other people rather than demand that he recite the Nicene Creed. I suspect that his mother’s softer message of humility and selfless love is what enables Peter in grieving the death of his parents to face and reject his own sin of pride.

Peter asks the Christian pastor who officiates at the funeral of Peter’s mother for forgiveness for having hurt so many people. In the humbly asking the pastor for forgiveness, Peter accepts and values the Christian message underlying the Incarnation in the Gospels, where God’s selfless, or self-emptying love (agape), is in God becoming lowly flesh in order, again in selfless love, to redeem humanity from itself, and especially its pride. In other words, Peter does not need to make a profession of faith by reciting the Nicene Creed. In fact, that pastor, who associated with Peter’s dad when he was alive, abandons Peter by walking away rather than comforts the young, grieving son who is literally on his knees begging for forgiveness from God through the pastor. “You can cry more if you want to,” the callous cleric says as he turns to walk away as Peter is still kneeling. That pastor does not absolve Peter, or even say that God forgives him. But this is not necessary, for God is present not in that pastor, but, instead, in Peter’s change of heart that is triggered by his grieving. To be sure, Peter may go too far in his embrace of institutional Christianity, for he deeply hurts Jakobe Salomon, his fiancée, by breaking off their engagement because she is Jewish and he now views himself as officially Christian. Perhaps in grieving his parents, Peter internalizes some of their judgmentalism, which, along with omniscience, is associated in the film with institutional religion.

The irony may be that Peter, who dies a few years later from cancer even though he is younger than 45 or so, may go to heaven whereas both of his parents are likely in hell, but, lest I fall into the trap of presumed omniscience like Peter’s parents, I must remind myself: who am I to judge those characters? I can only stand perplexed as to the staying power of the stubborn presumed rectitude of Peter’s parents while I admire Peter’s willingness to confront himself spiritually to the point of willingly putting himself in a vulnerable position, literally and figuratively, that reveals the hurtful hardness of heart of yet another Christian pastor besides Peter’s dad.

 

Confucius (Kongzi) said, "A cap made of hemp is prescribed by the rites, but nowadays people use silk. This is frugal, and I follow the majority. To bow before ascending the stairs is prescribed by the rites, but nowadays people bow after ascending. This is arrogant, and, though it goes against the majority, I continue to bow before asccending."  The Analects 9.3 

 

Mickey 17

Ethical, theological, and political issues are salient in the film, Mickey 17 (2025), which is about Mickey Barnes, a character who is repeatedly cloned on a space-ship and on a distant planet. The one-way trip alone takes over four years, during which time Mickey is tasked with dangerous tasks because when he dies, another clone is simply made. A mistake is made when the 18^th clone of Mickey is made even though the 17^th is still alive; they are “multiples,” which is a crime for a theological reason. I contend that reason is erroneous, as is the political, ethical, and theological regime that undergirds clones being expendable. 

In a flashback to back on Earth, a man who represents an evangelical Christian perspective urges lawmakers to criminalize multiples even on other planets because a soul cannot have two bodies. Such a claim turns the soul into something imaginary—an abstraction only. In the movie, that no two clones of a person have the same personality suggests that they do not have the same soul. They make different choices and can even have different values, as when Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 are at odds on whether to kill Timo, a pilot who had been in business with the original Mickey. Both clones have the memories of the original Mickey, yet the two clones have very different attitudes towards Timo. Mickey 18 is more aggressive than Mickey 17, and yet the former decides in the end to sacrifice his life to kill Kenneth Marshall, an autocrat who fixes elections by the Assembly in order to stay in power on the mission. Furthermore, that Kai Katz prefers Mickey 17 romantically while Nasha is really turned on sexually by Mickey 18, and even that Nasha wants both clones for herself as a three-some sexually implies that the two clones are different people. In effect, they are identical twins, and even such twins do not share the same soul. Although not clones by any means, my brothers and I could not be more different from each other. That the clones of Mickey differ suggests that the cloning “printing” doesn’t replicate the DNA exactly. That Mickey 18 is so different than Mickey 17 immediately after being “printed” means that the differences cannot be due to environmental factors. Therefore, the theological argument that two clones should not be alive simultaneously because they share the same soul fails.

The argument that multiples is against the “natural order” also fails because cloning itself is not natural. So if multiples are objectionable theologically for this reason, then cloning should be illegal not only on Earth, but also on colonies on other planets. Furthermore, the argument used that human cloning is a sin, but it can be sued by humans on spacecrafts and on other planets is a non-starter, for a sin is a sin, no matter where it is being committed.  The argument seems to be that if the sin takes place far away from the rest of us, and if the sin has unintentional beneficial consequences, which Augustine claimed of sin in general (for otherwise, our species would have self-destructed), then consequentialism trumps the duty not to sin. In the utilitarian ethical principle of the greatest pleasure to the most people, the suffering of the clones of Mickey can be said to be ethical because the clones’ dangerous tasks make it possible for everyone on the ship to survive. That the same rationale could ethically justify the Nazi’s concentration camps and eastward expansion strongly suggests that utilitarianism fails if the distribution of suffering is concentrated within a collective.

Just as the ethics of cloning for use in dangerous tasks is ultimately answered by blowing up the cloning machine at the end of the film, so too is organized religion eschewed. It is very significant that Kenneth Marshall accidently lets out the secret that the company behind the mission is in fact a church, and that the point of the colony is to create “the one and only pure colony planet,” meaning that the human inhabitants are genetically pure.

The religious auspices make use of political autocracy disguised as democracy. It is no accident that at one point, Kenneth and the audience of his show give each other the Nazi raised-arm salute. Kenneth’s religious hypocrisy extends to his willingness to have the clones suffer even apart from in performing dangerous tasks, such as breathing in a virus in the planet’s air so a vaccine could be made so everyone could venture outside without dying. The callousness of the “church, I mean company,” towards suffering is matched by Kenneth’s willingness to subvert elections to keep himself in power on the planet. That political resistance develops suggests that it is a natural consequence of unchecked power being exercised on a captive population that cannot leave. In the end, Mickey 18 blows himself up because Kenneth would also die. Kenneth had strapped bombs to Mickey 18 with impunity, even though the Assembly was in theory democratic rather than autocratic. It is significant that after Kenneth, legitimate trials began and even Nasha, whom Kenneth unilaterally declared to be a criminal, is elected to the Assembly.

The republic wins in the end, whereas the church and its prelate/dictator are discredited. Although in this respect the film has a happy ending, for the good guys win in the climax, what the film says about the hostility and even aggression that is in human nature even under the auspices of religion is a severe indictment of the species. This indictment is perhaps most revealed in the severe suffering that many of the Mikey clones must endure on the orders of other humans.

Empirically, the Milgrim experiment at Yale in 1968 found that 40 percent of the people in the study thought they were giving severe electric shocks on other people even though those people had been screaming at the previous level of shock, and just for being wrong in answering questions! Ironically, at the same university nearly 60 years later, and fifteen years after I had finished my studies there, two police departments, one under a city government and the other under the non-profit Yale Corporation, plus Yale’s proto-police security guards, kept up constant and overlapping “presence” on and around campus; in fact, by 2025, Yale’s police unit had accepted the FBI’s invitation to Yale to participate in counter-terrorism tactics used on students. The risk of autocratic passive-aggression even just to intimidate by an overwhelming “presence” as a deterrent was real where the film was screened (and where the director, Bong Joon Ho, would speak on May 5, 2025). The tactic itself evinces not only a very negative assumption about the human nature of Yalies (and local residents), but also reveals the sordid nature of those people using the tactics. In fact, the “overkill” in “presence,” which compromised the otherwise relaxed atmosphere on a college campus, can itself be viewed as hostile and autocratic, not to mention disrespectful of students and academia more generally. Turning around, and, as I had to do quite unexpectedly, having to walk off a sidewalk on campus while talking with students and faculty because a Yale police car was driving on the sidewalk on a weekday morning with red and blue lights on, and even headlights blaring, even though the car was only on a patrol, is at the very least uncomfortable and definitely antithetical to an academic atmosphere, where shows of the threat of might does not make right.

Yale security and police stationed outside of the classroom building where the film was screened.

With lights glaring, a Yale police presence "screens" outside after the screening of the film.

More yellow, blue, and red lit-up stationary "patrols" nearby after the film on April 19, 2025

It is interesting, in terms of the theological-political nexus in the film, that Yale was founded by Christian Calvinist ministers who had been at Harvard but would not tolerate the Unitarians having any influence. The dichotomy of the elect (saved) and the rest of humanity in Calvinism can easily result in repression of the latter, as if the rest of us were sub-human and thus needing to be constantly watched (which is a form of passive aggression). In the film, clones are viewed as such by the elite of the “church,” who are not bothered by their respective consciences for inflicting much suffering on the Mickeys even beyond that which results from the dangerous tasks for the good of the whole. Whether in the fictional film or on the ground at Yale, where the movie was screened and the director would soon thereafter give a talk, power without being checked can easily be used by human nature in very unethical and anti-spiritual ways.

The question from the movie is not whether each clone has his own soul, for in choosing to sacrifice his life, even Mickey 18 has a good soul, but, rather, whether Kenneth and his wife have souls, and even whether their “church” is at all religious or spiritual rather than a basis for autocracy being used to conduct medical experiments on clones and construct a genetically pure colony, although presumably with an underclass of servants who obviously would not be treated well, as they would not be among a Calvinist elect.

Conclave

In the film, The Godfather, Part III (1990),  Cardinal Lamberto laments that Christianity, like water surrounding a stone that is in a water fountain, has not seeped into European culture even after centuries of being in Europe.  Watching the movie, Conclave (2024), a person could say the same thing about the Roman Catholic Church, though the ending does provide some hope that internecine fighting and pettiness for power, even aside from the sexual-abuse epidemic by clergy, need not win the day.

Concerning the dead pope, we are told at the beginning of the movie that he never had any doubts about God; what he had lost faith in was the Church. Through the movie, the reason is obvious. At one point, the new Cardinal Benitez from Kabul, Afghanistan aptly characterizes his fellow cardinals as “small petty men” concerned with power. Even thusly characterized, the cardinals elect Cardinal Benitez as pope, and it is only fitting that he chooses the name, Innocent. It is in the innocence of a person who has no ambition to be pope and is genuinely surprised to be elected that the Church has hope.

The outcome of the election is subtly anticipated early on by the notably unique sincerity in the blessing of the food that Cardinal Benitez gives at the beginning of the conclave, and is implicitly guaranteed by the rebuttal that he later makes in front of the other cardinals to Cardinal Tedesco’s claim that the Church is at war with Muslims. After the second bomb, Tedesco declares, “We need a leader who fights these animals,” who are the Muslims in Europe. Cardinal Benitz disagrees: Inside each of us is what we are fighting. This is exactly what Mary Magdalene tells Peter and the other disciples in the upper room after the resurrection in the film, Mary Magdalene (2018); rather than waiting for Jesus to come on clouds to vanquish the evil Roman soldiers, the change starts within, “in the transformation of our own hearts.” Accordingly, the kingdom of God is already here even as it is not yet—pending us vanquishing the enemy within, which is done in part by being compassionate to people who are suffering.

In the conclave, “the men who are dangerous are the men who do want it.”  Cardinal Bellini says he doesn’t want it, but he does. He has progressive views (e.g., more of a role for women in the Curia), which he refuses to hide in his campaign, and this strategy makes him appear to have integrity, but he doesn’t. Even though he is a Christian, and even a cleric, he angerly rebukes Cardinal Lawrence’s claim, “This is a conclave, not a war,” by saying of Cardinal Tedesco and the conservatism which that cardinal represents, “This is a war!” This is the first of two mentions of being at war—Tedesco’s war with Muslims being the second.

Even Cardinal Lawrence, the dean of the College of Cardinals, who laudably seeks the truth concerning Cardinal Tremblay and even Cardinal Benitez, is a partisan. The homily that he gives on the first day of the conclave subtly favors the progressive platform of Cardinal Bellini, whom Lawrence was still supporting to become pope. Cardinal Lawrence lauds the Church’s diversity in being comprised of people in different countries, whereas Cardinal Tedesco wants an Italian pope. “Certainty is great enemy of unity,” Lawrence tells his brothers. “Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. . . . Faith walks hand and hand with doubt. Otherwise, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.” This message is in line with Cardinal Bellini’s liberal platform because the presumption of certainly saturates Cardinal Tedesco’s ideology. As the Cardinals sitting at tables at the first dinner, Cardinal Tedesco observes that the tables are “divided by language.” He suggests to Lawrence that the next pope be Italian so it is not Cardinal Adeyeme, a black African. Cardinal Lawrence is rightly disgusted and leaves the table. Lawrence even prays with Adeyine as he cries, and puts his hand on Adeyine’s hands even though Lawrence knows that Adeyine had impregnated a teenage woman when he was 30.

Furthermore, at some point in his search for the truth concerning whether the dead pope had fired Cardinal Tremblay, Cardinal Lawrence tells a bishop, “No more secrets; no more investigations; let God’s will be done.” That Lawrence himself later investigates by entering the sealed-off papal apartment is justified by what he uncovers not only concerning the dead pope, but also Cardinal Tremblay. Finally, Lawrence is justified in keeping Cardinal Benitez’s medical secret after that Cardinal's election. Even though Benitez’s rather unique medical situation technically violates church law, Lawrence earlier said to Cardinal Bellini, “I thought we were here to serve God, not the Curia.” 

As truth-oriented as Cardinal Lawrence is, faith without love is for naught in Christian terms. In this regard, Cardinal Benitez steals the show; he is the true protagonist in the end. Just as Mary Magdalene’s rebuttal to Peter on the nature of the kingdom of God gives the film, Mary Magdalene, so much theological value for audiences, it is Cardinal Benitez’s rebuttal to Cardinal Tedesco that the Church is at war with Islam that not only gets that cardinal elected, but also provides the theological value, and thus hope, of Conclave. Take on the enemy within—one’s own hatred of Muslims—rather than fight them, Benitez tells his brothers. He could have gone further by preaching to the petty, power-seeking men: feel and exercise kindness and compassion to Muslims; go out of your way to serve them, especially those who dislike you, for something more is involved spiritually than the much easier, "love thy neighbor as thyself." Then you will find that you have conquered the enemy within and entered the kingdom of God.

Mary Magdalene

In the film, Mary Magdalene (2018), Mary Magdalene and the other disciples have two different interpretations of the Kingdom of God; these may be called the interior and the eschatological, respectively. The Kingdom of God is within, already and not yet fully realized, or not yet at all, as it will be ushered in by Christ in the Second Coming, which is yet to come. The film’s point of view is decidedly with Mary’s interior interpretation and against Peter’s revolutionary (i.e., against Roman oppression) eschatological take. After both sides fail to convince the other, Peter sidelines Mary in part also because of her gender, so she decides to preach and help people on her own. That the film does not portray Jesus and Mary as romantically involved is a smart move, for it sidelines a controversy that would otherwise distract the viewers from focusing on the question of the nature of the Kingdom of God. This focus is long overdue in Christianity, and is important because only one of the two interpretations—the eschatological—has dominated historically. The film is valuable theologically in that it gives the minority position—Mary’s interior interpretation—a voice. To be sure, Mary Magdalene is a controversial figure, so the choice of that character as a mouthpiece in the film for the minority theological position on the Kingdom is daring and not without its drawbacks. For one thing, she is a woman in a man’s world in the film. Outside of the film, in real life, a medieval pope denigrated her by erroneously identifying her as the prostitute in the Bible, and her reputation had to wait until the twentieth century for the Vatican to correct the error and label her as the Apostle to the Apostles. Finally, there is the Gnostic gospel, The Gospel of Philip, in which Jesus kisses her and the male disciples ask, “Why do you love her more than us?” That jealousy is present in the film, and plays a role in the dispute between Mary and Peter on the nature of the Kingdom. So, returning to the film, having her as the mouthpiece for a minority position that has not seen much light of day historically in Christianity puts the credibility of the interpretation at risk. Accordingly, it may not have much impact in shifting the emphasis away from the eschatological Kingdom in the religion, given the tremendous gravitas that any historical default enjoys.

The version of the Kingdom of God that has dominated in the history of Christianity has the Kingdom not yet here as it depends on the Second Coming of Christ. In contrast, the minority’s report, which Mary holds and advocates in the film, has the Kingdom being “already” and “not yet.” Whereas the Second Coming is external, being evinced in the world and on a collective level, Mary understands Jesus as preaching the importance of the interior conversion of the individual as being crucial to any change in the human condition externally in the world. Whereas the Second Coming commences a revolution against collective oppression and injustice more generally, Mary’s Kingdom gives primacy to each individual letting go of hatred and embracing love. Jesus’ second commandment, to love one’s neighbor, including one’s enemies, fits Mary’s version.

The film is unique among Christian films not only in providing a substantial and sustained dialogue focused on the Kingdom itself, but also in relegating the resurrection and the Second Coming to secondary roles. This corrective is overdue. When Mary joins the other disciples (for in the film, she is a disciple) to tell them that she has just seen Jesus risen, the men have much less trouble believing that Jesus would choose a woman as the witness than in Mary’s notion of the Kingdom. That is, the men seem something less than awestruck by Mary’s good news that Jesus has beaten death and is finally at peace, whereas they are very concerned about the Kingdom. This suggests that for them, the latter is more important. To them, the resurrection is just a sign that the Second Coming will indeed occur and bring with it the Kingdom on earth in a revolutionary battle against Roman oppression.

According to Mary Magdalene, the men misunderstand Jesus’ conception of the Kingdom of God. If she is right, they are relegating the resurrection to a mere sign for nothing. For one thing, Jesus’ insistence in Matthew 24 that “this generation will not certainly not pass away until” the Son of Man comes “on the clouds of heaven with power and glory” undercuts continued belief in the Second Coming itself, for it did not happen while Jesus’ generation was still alive. It does not undercut Jesus’ divinity to say that he is wrong about when the Son of Man would come on clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead, for Jesus goes on to say at Matthew 24:36, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the father.” That the Son is thus not omniscient (i.e., having complete knowledge) raises questions about the relationship between the Father and the Son, but for our purposes here, the problem is that Jesus makes a statement about when the Second Coming will occur then contradicts being able to make such a statement by admitting that he doesn’t know when the event will occur. The contradiction is in scripture itself. Making a claim about something that the claimer knows is beyond the person’s knowledge is itself a mistake. Were I to tell you that I will be arriving next Tuesday and that I don’t know when I will be arriving, you would scratch your head in bewilderment.

When a gospel narrative contains a contradiction in dialogue, it is tempting to eclipse the biblical narrative by going behind it to ask what historically might have been said (we don’t know) or whether a copyist could have inserted the line about the current generation to get the Christians then to wake up. Such a copyist would have erred in creating the contradiction if the line about the Son not knowing the day or time was already extant in the manuscript; otherwise, whoever subsequently added the line about the Son not knowing the day or time—that line likely added after the generation alive during Jesus’ lifetime had died (and the Second Coming had not yet occurred)—erred in failing to remove Jesus’ (or the earlier copyist’s) statement claiming that the Second Coming was imminent.

Whether taking the errors in the gospel as a given or trying to get behind them by speculating about copyists, I contend that giving the Second Coming pride of place in interpreting what Jesus means by the Kingdom of God is not a smart move. Recently, I attended an “Oxford Movement” Episcopal Church “high church” service during which the pastor claimed that the season of Advent pertains to the Second Coming rather than to Christmas. I walked out during the homily and got some breakfast. At the diner, a professor at Yale’s divinity school told me that Advent had referred to the Second Coming from the second to the eighth centuries (notably not from the start). He said Advent came to be associated with Christmas because that is lighter. He was insulting the association with Christmas (even though he going to do some Christmas shopping after breakfast!) “Well,” I replied, “then Advent should be before Christ the King Sunday rather than after it.” That Sunday culminates the liturgical year because Christ the King refers to the Second Coming (which ushers in God’s Kingdom in that interpretation), which is the end of the story. Then the liturgical year begins again with the season of Advent, which I had assumed was universally known by Christians as period of awaiting the birth of Christ, the light coming into the world. How could that possibly be a degradation? I was implying that the Second-Coming referent had been wrong, and thus the subsequent tie to Christmas was an improvement. The scholar demurred. To place a season called advent just before Christmas but claim that the season pertains to another event is misleading at best. It’s just dumb. In actuality, Roman history suggests that Christmas on December 25 only began in the fourth century, so the Advent that had begun to be observed in the second century was a completely different season from what Advent is today. To take what was a completely different season and superimpose it on another season just because they both have the same generic name (advent means “arrival, emergence or coming of” something significant) and claim that the latter season should have the same meaning as the former is asinine. Having a liturgical reading on the Second Coming (e.g., Matthew 24) on the first Sunday of Advent, after Christ the King Sunday, constitutes a liturgical error, given that Christ the King ends the liturgical year. Liturgists would be better off creating an advent season (calling it something other than Advent) that leads up to Christ the King Sunday, and keeping the Advent season of Christmas where it is (i.e., leading up to Christmas, after the Sunday celebrating the Second Coming as the END).  However, to add a season oriented to the Second Coming ignores the scriptural (and perhaps historical) problems with the Second Coming itself. Even if taken only as myth, the Second Coming is weakened by the scriptural contradiction, especially if that comes out of copyist errors, which may suggest that the myth itself was added. The myth may have been added because the world really did not change in the first century of Christianity; something more was needed to effect the change of heart preached by Jesus in the Gospel narratives. That which was needed, however, may have been a different interpretation of the Kingdom of God—precisely that which Mary advocates in the film.

Therefore, I submit that it is foolish to pin the Kingdom of God to a theological concept that is problematic even within the faith narrative alone (i.e., without eclipsing by asking historical questions). Practically speaking, to predicate the arrival of the Kingdom on the Second Coming, which did not arrive while Jesus’ generation was still alive, may push the arrival of the Kingdom off indefinitely, and thus keep Christians from acting so as to bring about the Kingdom now. To be sure, even if the Kingdom is to come in the future, the Bible indicates that Christians can do things now so as to be able to enter the Kingdom in the future. In Matthew 25, Jesus says that when “the Son of Man comes in his glory,” people who have cared for the poor, prisoners, and, moreover, strangers will “inherit the kingdom,” which is “eternal life.” Essentially, the Kingdom in this version is heaven, which may explain why Jesus says that the generation then alive would still be alive when the Son of Man and the heavenly Kingdom arrive. In caring for people beyond one’s friends and family, Christians can make it more likely that they will go to heaven.

It is interesting, however, that enemies are not mentioned explicitly even though Jesus commands his followers to love their enemies. This omission is problematic because, more than helping the poor and even neighbor-love in general, coming to the aid of one’s enemies (and detractors) would “move mountains” in bringing about interpersonal and world peace. The great fault in the eschatological version of the Kingdom lies in not being able to recognize that the Kingdom is present in a heart that overcomes its hatred in order to care even and expressly for enemies, and in a world that is constituted by such individuals who have voluntarily undergone the interior transformation that brings forth forgiveness and even caring where it is least convenient but most needed, given human nature.

Viewing the Kingdom as exclusively “not yet” may itself be erroneous, for Jesus says in Matthew 3:2 that the Kingdom is at hand. There’s a bigger, more intractable problem, however, because Matthew 3 states that the Kingdom is “already” whereas Matthew 24 has the Kingdom “not yet.” The two different interpretations of the Kingdom are both in the Gospel! This is problematic if, as in the movie’s theology, the Kingdom is and ought to be the main focus of Christians and Christianity itself. Supporting this primacy, Jesus states in Luke 4:43 that preaching on the Kingdom of God is the purpose for which he has been sent. This situates him as a means in relation to the Father’s kingdom; he—meaning his preaching—is the way to his Father’s kingdom. To take the way for its destination is to conflate means and ends. It is generally agreed that ends are more important than means.

It is imperative, therefore, that we delve into the rival interpretations of the Kingdom, which we can do by analyzing the dialogue between Mary and Peter in the room where the disciples are hiding on Easter. The film definitely has its point of view, which is in support of Mary’s interpretation. The film backs this up by showing Mary as being the closest to Jesus in a religious (not romantic) sense. For instance, in one scene, after Mary has walked away from the disciples to spend time with Jesus in a field, both characters literally and figuratively look down on the anti-Roman zealotry of the disciples.

After Jesus has risen from the dead, Mary goes to the disciples to give them the good news that Jesus has beaten even death, and is now at peace. Mary refutes Peter’s conception of the Kingdom of God as awaiting the Second Coming for the people to rise and Jesus be crowned king so Roman rule would finally be vanquished. “Jesus never said he would be crowned king,” she tells the disciples. “The kingdom is here, now,” she explains in dispelling the disciples’ misinterpretation of Jesus’ preaching on the Kingdom. The disciples see no kingdom because the Roman occupation has not ended, but she insists that “it’s not something we can see with our eyes; it’s here, within us. All we need to do is let go of our anguish and resentment and we become like children, just as he said. The Kingdom cannot be built by conflict, not by opposition, not by destruction; [rather] it grows with us, with very act of love and care, with our forgiveness. We have the power to lift the people just as he did, and then we will be free just as he is. This is what he meant.” The kingdom, she goes on, is not the sort that is of revolution “born in flames and blood.” Peter dismisses Mary’s version, insisting, “just outside that door, there is no new world. No end of oppression. No justice for the poor, for the suffering.” In keeping with, and applying, her interior-oriented notion of the Kingdom, she asks Peter, “How does it feel to carry that anger around in your heart?” If Peter wants a new world, he first needs to swallow his demons—doing so is the only kind of change that can change the world. Nevertheless, he insists that the fact that Mary has seen the risen Jesus means that “he will bring the kingdom.” It is something not yet rather than here already in the heart ministering to anguish and hatred. “The world will only change as we change,” Mary retorts. Otherwise, what we’re left with is cascading revolutions and oppressions with the human heart unchanged in its balance against its own demons. Real change can only come from within, person by person, rather than collectively, as by organizations such as revolutionary governments. This is the point of view expressed by the film. The disciples opposing Mary have misunderstood Jesus. She is, after all, closest to Jesus throughout the film, so her claim of having understood better what he had in mind is credible.

The implications of the dialogue (and the film’s point of view) are important. For one thing, liberation theology is radically off the mark because it puts societal structures ahead of intrapersonal transformation. We won’t get economic and political structures that do not oppress without the people in business and government letting go of their anger and hatred, as well as their related power-aggrandizement and greed. Moreover, the focus on Jesus, including on his resurrection, is itself off the mark, but so too is the belief that the Second Coming will usher in the Kingdom, for it is “already” here even though it is “not yet” in the sense that not nearly enough individual hearts have transformed themselves for the proverbial mustard seed to manifest into a tree with many branches. Going person by person, eventually enough people will have let go of anguish and hatred and thus be better able to love their enemies for the Kingdom to manifest societally in a peaceable kingdom.

Perhaps the most radical implication is that the focus of the Church should be on helping individuals to face their demons and help not only strangers, but also enemies, rather than on worshipping Jesus. In the film, Mary asks the men if they had heard Jesus ever say he would be crowned king. Because in the Gospels Jesus refers to the Kingdom of God as his father’s Kingdom, it stands to reason that the Father is the king, and Jesus dutifully serves him by telling people about his father’s kingdom. This is not to deny Jesus’ divinity, for he is resurrected both in the Gospels and the film. Nevertheless, of the three manifestations (or personae in Latin) in the Trinity, Jesus Christ has received by far the most attention throughout the history of Christianity. The film does not go so far as to suggest that Jesus should not be worshipped. In the film, he is not worshipped, even by his disciples. Rather, in one scene he and Mary watch the men pray to the God of Israel (rather than to Jesus). Even once Mary tells the other disciples that Jesus has risen, they do not drop down and worship him in that scene; rather, their emotional attention is on the nature of the Kingdom, which is thus presumably more important to them. It is not as if the Kingdom itself can be worshipped, and the disciples do accept Mary’s claim that Jesus has risen from the dead, so it is reasonable to think that they would eventually worship him were the film extended. Such worship would not be their primary focus, however, yet neither would Mary’s version of the Kingdom. The film is thus tragic in that we see the disciples except Mary coalesce around Peter and his version, and we know that historically, their side has been dominant while a pope relegated Mary to being a prostitute. The challenge for Christianity may be in how to shift the focus from that of worshipping Jesus and waiting for the Second Coming before the Kingdom can be realized to the worship being a means to focus on Mary’s version of the Kingdom and the human agency that it implies and indeed even mandates. 

Eyes without a Face

The film, Eyes without a Face (original title: Les Yeux sans Visage) (1960), can be taken as a demonstration of the validity of Kant’s ethical theory. Whether or not viewers have studied Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, the film is a good representation that it is unethical to treat other people only as a means. Kant claims that people should always be treated also as ends in themselves. In the film, physician Génessier literally goes into innocent young women with his scalpel, using them as means in his obsession to provide his daughter, Christiane, with skin on her face. She has no skin on her face because of an automobile accident in which her father was at fault. For our purposes, the film's message is relevant. Companies literally have  human resource departments and so many states use human beings as expendable soldiers. The very notion of a soldier can be viewed as an oxymoron to the extent that beings having a rational nature are sent out to be killed. It's not like having a flee killed. The film provides us with a great service in bringing Kant’s ethic to us, if only in that we don’t to read the philosopher's recondite ethical treatise (though Hegel's books are even more difficult).

Génessier tells Christiane that everything that he is doing, all the (as he later admits) terrible things, he is doing for her good. He also says that if he succeeds, the benefit would be “beyond a price.” Whereas for Kant, reason, or beings having a rational nature (such as us), has absolute value because we use reason to assign value to other things, the devious physician treats his daughter’s good as being absolute. This difference is crucial in terms of ethics. For Kant, rational beings deserve to be treated not just as means to someone’s goal (or interest), but also as ends in themselves precisely because being rational is of absolute value. What about when we don’t think (or behave) rationally? Kant would say that we still have a rational nature, and thus are worthy of being respected by other rational beings not just as means to another’s desire.

Does Génessier use reason—does he think rationally—in removing skin from two young women’s faces and grafting the skin on his daughter’s skinless face? I contend that the father does so because he has a strategy by which to achieve the good, which for him his daughter having a pleasant life. At one point in the film, it looks like the latest skin transplant will work. He tells his daughter that he would pay for her to take a vacation so she could enjoy life after having lived so isolated for so long. He uses the young women and potentially a vacation as means to his daughter’s good, and in this way he is using reason. It is quite another question whether he is being ethical. It is easy to see that he is not an ethical man.

In short, he uses people. Besides the two young women whom he kidnaps and operates on to give their skin to his daughter, he is using Gabrielle as an accomplice and nurse; he had fixed her face, so she feels obligated to do unethical things for him. Interestingly, the police also use someone in the film. Specifically, the police inspector uses a shoplifter as bait to catch Génessier. The inspector is not very concerned about treating the woman as an end in herself, hence he puts her at risk, as if the misdemeanor justifies doing so.

Christiane is the protagonist, and even the heroine, in the film, in resisting her father’s strategy. Whereas he admits that he has done terrible things but they are justified because they serve his daughter’s good, Christiane feels guilty in her new skin during the weeks when it lasts. Génessier remarks that her face looks angelic, but she disagrees. Interestingly, she says that it seems like the experience seems from the beyond. This allusion to religion seems at first out of place, especially given her father’s horrors. But her true, internal angelic nature comes through at the end when she kills the nurse to free the shoplifter. In fact, she goes on to free the dogs and white birds. Like them, she has felt as if she were in a cage. Her father hadn’t bothered to ask her whether she consented to his sordid strategy of abducting young women for their facial skin. In the end, she walks outside, past her dead father whom the dogs have attacked. One of the white birds sits comfortably on one of her arms. She is as though an angel come to liberate the oppressed, which includes herself, and in so doing see that the wicked are punished. Divine retribution. Indeed, Kant’s formulation of his categorical imperative in which the means/ends dichotomy is salient resembles the neighbor-love of Christianity. In other words, the Golden Rule involves treating other people not just as means to one’s own designs, but, rather, how one would want to be treated. Presumably no one wants to be treated only as someone else’s means to their goals. Of course, the difference between Kant’s imperative in this formulation and the Golden Rule is that rational nature is the grounding of the former whereas the soul, and ultimately God, is the basis of the latter. Benevolentia universalis, which Augustine imparts as he emphasizes having a good will (benevolentia), is essentially love, which transcends ethics. The bad doctor Génessier does not love the young women whose skin he flays as a means to providing his daughter with a face. His love suffers for want of universalis.

In Kantian language, which relates to the Golden Rule but is not itself religious, we might say that those who have a rational nature but do not treat others of the same nature as ends in themselves, but only as means, do not themselves deserve to inhabit a rational nature. We could even suppose that it is not rational enough to devise unethical (i.e., means only) means involving beings having a rational nature, so  Génessier can be seen as not reasoning well—not partaking sufficiently in his innate rational nature—in devising his strategy; even his notion of the good fall short in being confined to his daughter’s happiness. To evoke another of Kant’s formulations of his ethical imperative, a person’s maxim or policy for action should be universalized without falling apart in absurdity. The (theory of the) good that the ethic serves should also be universal, as in the good of humanity, or, more precisely, beings having a rational nature.

But such abstractions are not necessary for film to be an excellent medium for conveying ethical dilemmas and even relating them to religious themes that transcend ethics. It is enough that the viewer sees Génessier use other human beings so atrociously and then sees Christiane reject her father’s unethical conduct even though she herself stood (potentially) to gain from it. In the rejection and the demise both of Génessier and his assistant, we see the value in Kant’s ethical dictum that we should respect other people as ends in themselves even while we are using them for our own purposes.

Even if a person stands to benefit, such as a stockholder benefitting from a higher dividend, as managers use employees without taking into account that they have lives outside of work, the ethical obligation is to oppose such unethical business conduct and favor lower dividends. I refused a doctorate in business ethics because there were no ethics courses in philosophy in the program. At the very least, a seminar on Kant should be required of anyone who claims to be a scholar of business ethics. Bentham’s utilitarianism and Rawls' theory of justice also warrant coursework. I stood to benefit from that doctorate, but I could not regard myself as a scholar of business ethics (i.e., business, government, and society). Fortunately, I switched to the humanities—to historical moral, political, and ethical thought—but I did so in their own right—treating such thought as an end in itself rather than as means to understanding business (even though I still have a BS and MBA).

The value in going beyond rational nature to treat things as having value in themselves rather than merely functionally or in line with one’s self-interest goes beyond Kant’s theory of ethics, and yet the dynamic is consistent with Kant’s theory in broad outlines. Christiane kills the nurse and thereby consciously ends any chance of getting skin because like Luther at the Imperial Diet of Worms, she finally says, in effect, Here I stand; I can do no other. I submit that even a principle can be treated as an end in itself, as partaking in absolute value, relative to egoist desire. But is it reason that assigns such value, or might feeling also be involved? Luther was probably acting on feeling, and Christiane has clearly had enough. Kant’s theory relies solely on reason; Hume’s ethic and even Adam’s Smith’s economic theory do not. 

The Passion of the Christ

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) hinges on the root meaning of passion, which is suffering. In fact, Jesus’ body is reduced to a bloody pulp after being brutally tortured by the Roman soldiers going beyond Pontius Pilate’s order to teach Jesus a lesson but keep him alive. At least there is an order to whip Jesus; the Jewish Temple’s guards earlier took it upon themselves to repeatedly hit Jesus with fists and even with chains, and almost strangle him with a rope while arresting him. That guards, or police, especially of a religious institution, are actually garden-variety thugs might resonate with viewers who need only recall the latest news story about police brutality. The implication is that such police employees who are actually thugs are delusional if they consider themselves to be Christians. In fact, such official thugs can be understood through the prism of the film as beating Christ himself, for what you do to the least of these, you do to me. In the Gospel story, Jesus is an innocent victim, and so too are even criminals who do not warrant being attacked. As in the film, police brutality tends to occur before the victims of the abuse are convicted, and thus presumed guilty before the law. For a human being to make oneself the law incarnate or to presume oneself above the law is nothing short of impious and self-idolatrous. In short, the human nature that is on display in attacking Jesus in the story is the same as contemporary innocent victims are forced to confront in corrupt, pathological employees of police departments.

The film brutally dramatizes the price that Jesus pays in the Gospels to make up for the sins of humanity so that the chasm between God the Father and mankind can be narrowed, or even eliminated at least when the son of man (i.e., Jesus) comes on clouds to redeem the living and the dead of the faithful. I include the possibility of narrowed because even if a person’s accumulated debt has been paid off by someone else, it is possible to take on new debt as time goes by. That a Christian is to ask God for forgiveness suggests that on-going sin can widen the gap between a Christian and God. As Paul writes, faith is for naught if there is not love. Sin is the absence and antithesis of love, and thus renders faith for naught. Justification and sanctification are both necessary, according to Christian theology. In the film, the question of whether one man can pay for everyone’s sins is made explicit, and the implicit answer is that this is possible provided that the one voluntarily submits to a lot of severe suffering. Gibson brings the lofty soteriological (i.e., salvific) story in the Gospels down to earth in perhaps even overdoing the violence that is inflicted on Jesus from his arrest to his death. In so doing, Gibson makes it possible for us to relate the violence in the film to that which occurs all too often, as reported in the news. I have in mind the parallel between the aggressiveness of the Jewish and Roman “police” against Jesus in the film and the problem of police brutality even in the twenty-first century, which is supposed to be so modern and advanced in large part though due to technological advances rather than any change in human nature. Primal urges are still with us, so the need still exists to hold them accountable when they lash out against other people. In short, the film is more about human nature than Jesus’ identity as the Messiah and Son of the living God, which in turn, however, is salient enough that Gibson largely omits Jesus’ teachings altogether, and thus how a person can minimize incurring new debt by getting closer to the Kingdom of God by forgiving and even helping rude people detractors (i.e., “enemies”) on a daily basis by taking on the perspective of God in viewing even such people as creatures wholly dependent existentially on God. In other words, Gibson’s focus on the most important event in the Gospel (Passion) story comes with a cost even though highlighting the violence against Jesus by the Temple guards and the Roman soldiers can give us a template by which to perceive the unjustified violence in the world in a new light. 

In the film, the Temple guards manhandle Jesus in arresting him even though he clearly shows no indication of resistance. In fact, he has just healed a soldier’s ear, which Peter had sliced off with a knife. Jesus tells Peter to drop his knife with the adage that all who live by the sword also die by it. Just after Peter drops his knife, a Temple guard hits Peter on his face. The guard slugs like a thug in a one-sided street fight, rather than being ordered by superiors to do hit the “culprit”; thus, the guard’s act cannot be justified by appealing to his official duties. Then he joins two other guards in roughly approaching Jesus as if he were resisting arrest. He is stationary, yet the guards grab him as if he were a violent criminal trying to evade capture or even attack them after healing another guard! One of the guards even puts a rope around Jesus’ neck and yanks back severely on the rope in an aggressive fit that can only stem from personal, unsanctioned anger. On the way to the Temple, besides punching Jesus, the guards even throw Jesus off a bridge on the way to the Temple. Jesus is literally hanging by a rope when he sees Judas who is near the small bridge. I submit that Gibson goes overboard with the violence here, for throwing someone off a bridge is quite a leap from violently subduing and hitting a person under arrest. Yet considering how aggressive contemporary police at least in the U.S. can be in arresting people still presumed innocent, we should not minimize by imposing our normal sense of normalcy on the pathologically violent.

On July 4, 2023, a police patrol employee in Ohio released a K-9 dog on a driver who was standing with his hands up. The man had been pulled over after an admittedly too-long chase because of a missing “dirt tag” on his truck on a highway. The employee ignored another police employee who shouted for the dog not to be released. According to NBC News, Rose, the Black truckdriver, “can be seen on video . . . standing in front of troopers with his hands in the air. A Circleville police officer who has a dog can be heard telling Rose to ‘go on the ground or you’re gonna get bit.’”[1] This sounds more like punishment than anything practically necessary in making an arrest. The police employee primped himself up as judge and jury, as well as executioner. It is then that a trooper can be heard yelling multiple times to the trooper with the dog, “Do not release the dog with his hands up!” The trooper with the dog let it go after Rose anyway.

It is interesting, therefore, that the police employee who felt the need to punish Rose for not complying on a minor point did not feel the need to comply. Clearly, releasing the dog could not be legitimated by procedure, but, rather, pointed to a psychologically pathological intolerance for being disobeyed. Anyone who is or has been a parent knows that losing one’s temper just because a child does not immediately comply is pathological. Perhaps Rose was afraid out of his mind precisely because of the sordid, well-deserved reputation that too many police departments in America have of a thirst for inflicting violence and a lack of accountability in a sort of “brotherhood” of what are actually city employees.

Also in 2023, an off-duty Chicago policeman in Illinois violently subdued and put a knee into the back of a child whom the aggressive “adult” assumed had stolen his son’s bicycle. The kid was innocent, and the policeman’s personal anger clearly motivated the attack. It is ironic that such a man would assume so infallibly that a kid walking by a bike had stolen it. God-like powers of omniscience would hardly be deposited in a thug.

In the film, once Jesus is brought before the Sanhedrin (i.e., the religious council of the Jews), a Temple guard takes it upon himself to judge Jesus as arrogant and disrespectful towards the high priest, Caiaphas, and, furthermore, the guard takes it upon himself to punish Jesus by hitting him in the face. Jesus asks why the Temple policeman hit him even though Jesus had not done or said anything evil in suggesting that the council members ask people what Jesus had taught rather than ask Jesus himself. Tightening fingers into a fist to hit a person in the face is typically done in “street fighting” by thugs and bullies, rather than being indicative of any police policy that would justify the tactic, so Jesus asks the guard why he hit Jesus. Earlier, when a Temple guard tied Jesus’ hands behind his back in arresting him, Jesus did not ask why precisely because tying hands together is procedure (both in the story and in our world). Jesus could have asked why another guard almost strangled Jesus with another rope, as such an action is not procedure and thus points to personal anger and perhaps even sadism.

Back to 2023 in the U.S., a sheriff deputy angered because an elderly black woman was recording another deputy being rough in arresting her husband for stealing a cake from a grocery store was not following procedures when he slapped the woman’s phone out of her outstretched hand, put an arm around her neck to throw her down to the pavement, and then asked her if she wanted to be hit in the face. She was not resisting the attack; she was merely telling him not to hurt her because she had cancer. His official badge and position should not blind us to the man’s motive: In first reaching to slap the phone out of the woman’s outstretched hand, it is clear that he was angry at the woman for recording the other policeman, who was also being violent in arresting a non-violent man.

At the very least, the man who threw the elderly woman to the pavement just for recording clearly had a pathological anger problem (and thus should never have been hired). He also presumably believed that he was above being held accountable, especially by the wife of a shoplifter recording the arrest of her husband.  

The woman was smart, and justified in recording the arrest of her husband. Lest it be assumed that the cameras that police in the U.S. must wear on their chests are sufficient to keep the holders from taking advantage of their weaponized position, such footage can conveniently go missing, or be blocked by other police at a scene. In 2023, for example, a police employee's camera was conveniently blocked from showing another employee hitting a Black woman in her face while she was holding her three-weeks-old baby. Her crime? She had been a passenger in a car that had a tail-light out. The police unreasonably demanded that she give her baby to them. Given the aggressiveness of those police employees, the woman's maternal instinct was appropriate. 

The arrogance of the police is evident even in the attempt to hide their own bully from view as he hits a defenseless mother because she would not give up her baby to people shouting at her. If the bully, or the two deputies who took down the elderly Black couple, thought of themselves as Christians, such a fanciful delusion itself would be enough to furnish a glaring example of cognitive distortion and dissidence and thus psychological pathology.

The police can be viewed through the prism of Gibson’s movie as attacking Jesus because of how similar the attacks by the police are to those of the Temple guards in the film in attacking Jesus who is has, as Pontius Pilate tells the Sanhedrin, has done nothing to deserve the brutality. It is not necessary to the similitude between the actual world and the story-world of the film that only in the latter is the innocent victim the Son of God. Such an equivalence is not necessary for the point that I’m making.  The dynamic of the respective brutalities is the same, crossing between screen and the world in which we live. 

The sadism of the Roman soldiers who are to whip Jesus yet do much more is on display in the film, as is the sadism of the members of the Sanhedrin who are watching. The extreme lengths to which the centurions go and the presence of supposedly pious clerics raises the question of how much punishment should be met out to someone judged by fallible human beings to be a blasphemer.

In his pontificate, Pope Francis said to journalists, “Who am I to judge” regarding gay couples. This infuriated more conservative Roman Catholic bishops and priests. Even a vicar of Christ is a human being, so any claim of infallibility can only be impious and presumptuous; the Holy Spirit works through not apart from human nature, even in the selection of a pope. Similarly, police employees are human beings, and thus not infallible in judging guilt, so doing so and then pronouncing a punishment and executing it themselves is toxic, given human nature. Such employees are not divine, and thus omniscient and omnipotent. In the film, Jesus tells Pilate that he has no power over Jesus that has not been given from above. Jesus then says that the real sinners are the members of the Sanhedrin, who sent Jesus to Pilate. These two sentences constitute an interesting idea: that the Jewish clerics went too far out in personal anger whereas Pilate is acting within a governing authority, which God establishes according to Jewish theology. It took me quite a while to understand how the two lines go together.

Caiaphas, the chief Jewish priest, is visibly enraged by Jesus’ admission that he is the Messiah and Son of the living God. Even in viewing Jesus as arrogant and impious—a perspective that assumes infallibility in knowing whether Jesus’s identity-statement is true or false—Caiaphas considers the Roman brutality in ripping Jesus’ skin to the point of him being covered with his own blood to be justified. Both the infallibility and judgement of the high priest belie any presumption he might have that he is worthy of being cleric, let alone the high priest. It is ironic that the sanctimonious, presumably divine chief priest is so angry at Jesus for claiming a divine nature along with human nature; perhaps Caiaphas is so angry at Jesus’ claim in part because he knows deep down that his own presumption is not only arrogant, but also impious, given that he is sordid, manipulative, and angry, blocks him even from asking Jesus what he means when he says he is the Son of God.

In the Gospels, the Pharisees similarly have a petty perspective in which they are fixated on quibbling over Jewish laws while missing the salience of the sort of love that is (in) God. People were not made for the laws; rather, the latter were instituted for us, Jesus says. Is helping someone, especially someone who is weak or an enemy, so bad just because the action is done on the Sabbath? In fact, such helping even on the Sabbath brings one closer to God, (by metaphor to the Kingdom of God). Similarly, does the law against blasphemy, assuming Jesus is blasphemous in claiming to be the Son of God as Caiaphas (omnisciently) concludes, justify such cruelty as is depicted in the film? In not believing that Jesus is divine, Caiaphas may think that Jesus is delusional in thinking he is the Son of God, will come on clouds to judge the living and the dead, and will sit at the right hand of the Father. Watching, and perhaps even getting satisfaction out of someone with delusions (even religious ones) being tortured can be deemed to be not only petty and vengeful, but also sadistic.

In the film, Pilate does not consider Jesus to be a threat even as a king, for the Kingdom about which Jesus preaches is not of this world. Perhaps Pilate views Jesus as a harmless dreamer, and maybe even delusional. Pilate is displeased that his soldiers have tortured Jesus so much, and pleads with the Jews that Jesus has not deserved to suffer so much. Caiaphas’ attempt to manipulate Pilate by presenting Jesus’ offense as a claim to being a king (rather than the Son of God) not having worked, the hardened heart the chief priest insists that Pilate have Jesus crucified anyway; Jesus’ suffering has not been enough!

So too, witnesses to the savage beatings of black men by police in the U.S. might say, how much suffering is enough to satisfy your lust for blood? How many bullets are needed in the body of a man who did not resist arrest? Such beatings demonstrate the endurance of primitive human nature, which, I submit, is inconsistent and incompatible with the legal power that governments at least in the U.S. give to their police employees. Only a delusional city executive or legislator would rely on Internal Affair offices in police departments, as can be seen by how flagrant the abuses are and likely were before the advent of phone cameras. Viewing the primal acts of aggression through the prism of The Passion of the Christ demonstrates just how contrary to Jesus’ example and preaching such “modern” police employees are who take advantage of their positions and society’s indifference and even enabling. The arrogant bullies will be surprised to learn that repentant innates still in prison are closer to the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, as Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the film, it “is superficial in terms of the surrounding message . . . we get only a few passing references to the teachings of Jesus.”[2] To be sure, a focus on the “central event in the Christian religion”[3] has benefits, including in being able to see police even in the twenty-first century as vicariously attacking Jesus. Actually entering the Kingdom of Jesus’ Father requires more, as another Christian film, Mary Magdalene (2018), makes clear in making that kingdom, rather than an event, the focus. Police who take advantage of societal slippages of accountability and the enabling pro-police ideology to inflict pain on others for petty, ego-bruising “insults” and yet are certain of being saved by having faith in Jesus should ponder Paul’s point that faith without love is for naught. Furthermore, faith with aggression can only be hypocrisy. Blindness might excuse such bullies, but they see and so their sin remains.

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[1] Mirna Alsharif and Ava Kelley, “’Do Not Release the Dog With His Hands Up!’ Black Man Mauled By Police Canine After Ohio Pursuit,” NBCNews.com, July 23. 2023 (accessed July 24, 2023)
[2] Roger Ebert, “The Passion of the Christ,” RogerEbert.com, February 24, 2004 (accessed July 24, 2023).
[3] Ibid.

Agora vs. Fatima: Contending Christianities

The films Agora (2009) and Fatima (2020) contain very different depictions of Christianity. By depictions, I mean ways in which Christianity can be interpreted and lived. This is not to say that all of the interpretations are equally valid, for only those that contain internal contradictions evince hypocrisy. The sheer extent of the distance between the depictions shown in the two films demonstrates not only the huge extent of latitude that religious interpretation can have, but also just how easy it is even for self-identifying Christians, whether of the clergy or the laity, not only to fail to grasp Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, but also to violate the two commandments even while believing that Jesus Christ is divine (i.e., the Son of God). The human mind, or brain, can have such stunning blind spots (or cognitive dissidence) when it comes to religion that even awareness of this systemic vulnerability and efforts to counter it are typically conveniently ignored or dismissed outright. This is nearly universal, in spite of claims of humility and fallibility more generally, so I contend that the human mind is blind to its own weakness or vulnerability in the religious sphere of thought, sentiment, and action. Augustine’s contention that revelation must pass through a smoky stained window before reaching us is lost on the religious among us who insist that their religious beliefs constitute knowledge. I contend that this fallacy as well as the larger vulnerability to hypocrisy should be a salient part both of Sunday School and adult religious education. For the vulnerability is correctable, but this probably requires ongoing vigilance. That is, the problem is not that the divine goes beyond the limits of human cognition (as well as perception and emotion) as Pseudodionysus pointed out to deaf ears in the 6^th century; the human brain is fully capable of spotting and countering its own lapses in the religious domain. In other words, the problem here is not that of the human mind being able to understand the contents of revelation because must travel through a darkened window before reaching us; rather, the problem lies in grasping what Jesus preaches in the Gospels and putting the spiritual principles into practice, rather than doing the opposite and being completely oblivious to the contradiction, which is otherwise known as cognitive dissidence. The two films provide us with the means both to grasp this problem and realize how much it differs from a healthy faith that has the innocence of a child’s wonder.

Agora is set in Alexandria, Egypt from 390 to 410 CE, while Fatima is set in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Both are based on historical events. Agora centers around Hypatia, a pagan mathematician and astronomer whom Bishop Cyril had his Christian brotherhood kill for having refused to convert, especially considering that she had considerable political influence locally. Historically, the brotherhood skinned Hypatia alive; in the film, her ex-slave Davus, who loves her, suffocates her before the brotherhood can stone her to death. He who has not sinned throw the first stone apparently does not apply to the members of the Christian brotherhood, who are no strangers to using violence. Earlier in the film, they throw stones at Jews at a music concert for listening to music and eating sweets, according to Cyril, on the Sabbath. This prompts the Jews to retaliate, and the brotherhood in turn with Cyril saying that even women and children should be killed.  Earlier still, the brotherhood is among the Christians who fight the pagans, who start the violence because Theophilus, the Christian bishop (or patriarch) who precedes Cyril encourages the Christian crowd to throw food at a statue of one of the Egyptian deities. Whereas violence used to “answer the insult” is not an inconsistency in the Egyptian religion, such a response contradicts Jesus’ second commandment, which includes serving rather than insulting one’s neighbor. The presence of God is most of all in love that is not convenient, and thus that goes against the human instinctual urge to retaliate.

In the Gospels, Jesus preaches on how a person can enter the Kingdom of God. In Luke (4:43), Jesus says, “It is necessary for me to proclaim the good news about the kingdom of God . . . because I was sent for this purpose.” Jesus attempts to orient his hearers to the Kingdom of God. The latter should be the focus of a Christian. Peace characterizes that kingdom, and the way to peace is through loving one’s enemies. More concretely, this means turning the other cheek, both literally and proverbially, but this is not enough. A person must go further to help, or serve, one’s detractors, which, incidentally, does not mean staying in an abusive relationship. Serving a person who insults Jesus, rather than retaliating, is an excellent way into the Kingdom of God.

In Agora, both Theophilus and Cyril miss an opportunity due to their hatred and prejudice against other religions. A person being served even as that person insults the helpful person’s ideals is more likely to convert to Christianity by grasping the humble strength that lies in voluntarily serving one’s detractors. The way not to convert is to insult, violently attack, and retaliate. The two Christian bishops are far from being able to enter the Kingdom of God. Like the Pharisees in the Gospels, the two patriarchs of Alexandria evince Jesus’ teaching that many who are first, or presume themselves to be first, are actually last—behind even the poor who suffer from illness (presumed even by Jesus to result from sin).

Humility, as is present in the willingness to serve even jerks and people whose political, social, or religious ideology contradicts one’s own, is shown by the three children who see and hear the Virgin Mary in Fatima. Those children suffer the hostile disbelief of the mayor and even Maria, the mother of Lucia, one of the children. Maria is a character of irony, as she seems so devoted to the Virgin Mary and yet is so hostile. As Paul wrote, faith without love is for naught. In 1 Corinthians (13:2), Paul writes, “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” What sort of love?  Loving your friends and favorable neighbors is not enough. In Matthew (5:43-45), Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” The presence of the divine can be sensed by both the Christian and one’s detractor as the former helps the latter in spite of attitude of the latter toward the former. The Christian lays that aside and instead feels compassion in helping a fellow creature who is existentially so dependent on God. To view one of God’s creatures as such is to take on God’s perspective, and out of the sense of basic vulnerability comes the motive of compassion. A more basic bond between finite creatures can then be felt by both, and the presence of God is this bond because the dependence is so basic to a person’s being. Bringing this presence of God to humanity is Jesus’ task in preaching how to enter the Kingdom of God by loving one’s enemies.

Devotion to a deity or quasi-deity (for Mary is believed by Catholics to be in heaven in body and soul) is of no value and is even hypocritical if the person is not helping, but rather attacking people deemed as bad or as threats or antagonists. In Agora, Maria is convinced that her daughter Lucia is lying, and thus is needlessly and selfishly putting the family at risk of attack and financial ruin. Mobs are not known for their wisdom. Maria is only superficially a Christian. In actuality, she worships herself, as she presumes to be omniscient in knowing that the Virgin is not really visiting Lucia and the other children. That Maria’s devotion is for naught because she is cold rather than loving even to her daughter can be discerned from the fact that the Virgin is not visible to Maria while she is standing behind Lucia during a visitation. The implication is that believing in the Virgin Mary and even sacrificing to her in the misguided belief that doing so will cause Maria’s son to come back from the war alive are for naught if in heart and deed there is not love even and especially where it is difficult. The faith of the three children that the Virgin really is there and the willingness to pass on the Virgin’s messages even after the children are briefly imprisoned by the mayor evinces love that is difficult, and Lucia’s caring for her sick mother is a case of loving one’s detractors can thus be contrasted with Maria’s harsh mentality that is at best heroine worship. Maria imposes on her daughter a severe religious causality that merely supports Hume’s contention that we really don’t understand causation. Maria is consumed by getting the Virgin to keep Maria’s son alive in war, whereas Lucia resists the pressure of the priest, bishop, and mayor to tell them something that the Virgin said not to tell anyone. Far from insulting the Virgin by betraying her, Lucia protects her.

Whereas in Agora the Christians insult other gods, and then fight rather than serve those whom the Christians have insulted, in Fatima the Virgin Mary tells the children to pass on the message to stop insulting the Abrahamic god by sinning and not being sorry for doing it (i.e., repenting). Even the Christian bishops in Agora not only sin by insulting and attacking their enemies, but also fail to repent. The blind are leading the blind into hypocrisy and sin under the auspices of piety—serving Christ. Contrast the way in which the bishops serve (or defend) Christ with the way in which the three children serve the Virgin.

It is ironic that the Christians in Agora who arrogantly presume to know God’s will even as they violate it destroy the Alexandria’s great library, which a pagan says is “the only thing that remains of the wisdom of man.” Historically, had the Christians not destroyed that library, the world might have not only books written by Aristotle, but also early Christian manuscripts that have been lost. Again, the Christians in Agora are working at cross-purposes—not just given their desire to convert, but also in terms of learning more about Jesus’ preaching on how to enter the Kingdom of God. Pride and prejudice are indeed short-sighted.

Historically, Augustine borrowed from Plato and Aquinas was practically in love with Aristotle, and yet the Christians burned down the library of Alexandria in 410 CE to destroy pagan knowledge—Paul’s “wisdom of Athens.” Similarly, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain forbid her own sister the love of her life because he was divorced, but then allowed her own children to divorce their respective spouses, most notably Princess Diana. Elizabeth refused to give her stamp of approval, which was necessary, on her sister’s marriage to Peter Townsend because one of the queen’s roles is as the head of the Church of England, which did not allow divorces at the time. Where there is no act of love and mercy, however, faith and ecclesiastical position are for naught. In Elizabeth’s son’s coronation, the stultifying arrogance of exclusion evinced in the seating arrangement itself belied the new king’s claim of being a Christian, much less the head of a Christian institution. The invited guests in the farthest pews—those blocked by a screen-wall from being able to see the events in the ritual—sat in humility closer to the Kingdom of God than did the man sitting on King Edward’s throne.

The Kingdom of God is conceptualized differently in the two films. The Christians in Agora are oriented to a political Christendom without pagans, whereas the Virgin and the three children—and the children shall lead them—view the kingdom as a matter of not insulting God (i.e., not sinning). Whereas the former conception is externally oriented, against the pagans and Jews, and thus is earthly, the latter notion is of the interior, of the heart, within a person. The Kingdom of God is within. There’s no need to wait until the Son of Man comes on clouds.  Christendom viewed as a kingdom on earth led to the Crusades in which four popes raised armies to kill rather than love enemies. Alternatively, the popes could have sent Christians to serve the Muslims in the Holy Land. The land would then have been truly holy rather than the site of Christian hypocrisy.

In his tome, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes’s “Kingdom of Darkness” is none other than the Roman Catholic Church on earth—the same institution that has protected priests who have raped children and the bishops such as Cardinal Law who enabled the criminals rather than held them accountable. In doing so, those clerics, whether directly or, as in the case of Joe Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), by knowingly transferring a rapist papist priest to avoid scandal for the universal church, can be viewed as vicariously stomping out the innocent faith of the three children in Fatima. I believe there is a special place in hell for adults who snuff out the innocence of a child, whether or not those adults believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. In The Da Vinci Code (2006), the last living descendent of Jesus tells a monk who murders for God: “Your God burns murderers.” Doubtless the descendent distancing the Christian god from herself is due to all the hypocrisy that often occurs because so many Christians erroneously believe that accepting Jesus as one’s personal lord and savior is sufficient. The Kingdom of Darkness has much to atone for, and transferring accessories to crimes of violence against children to posh Vatican positions (e.g. Cardinal Law) rather than having the corrupt clerics serve the victims who would permit it speaks volumes concerning convenience versus inconvenient love.

Bishop Cyril in Agora believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; this belief works against the bishop, as it had for Theophilus, as both characters use it to justify defending Jesus by violence against the non-Christians who are critical of the insulting Christians. Cyril preaches that Hypatia is a witch, which in turn sets brotherhood on a quest to kill her. It is ironic that the brotherhood had been set up to “safeguard Christian morality,” which ostensibly was needed because the splitting of the Roman Empire in two meant that that the end of the world was nigh. Cyril reads a passage from Paul that woman should keep silent. Hypatia has definitely not been silent; in fact, she has considerable influence on her former student Orestes, who is now the Roman prefect who governs the city. How dare a woman, and a pagan no less, have such influence!, Cyril not doubt feels as he characterizes Paul’s opinion women as “the word of God.” A human opinion in a letter no less is the Word of the living God. To regard an opinion as such is to reckon it as infallible truth. Such truth is immutable, and the role and status of women deemed proper in Paul’s world have changed over time and from place to place. In utter contrast to Cyril in Agora, the three children in Fatima listen to the Virgin’s messages rather than give their own opinions. The children regard the messages as different in kind. Indeed, the children resist considerable pressure in not revealing the Virgin’s message not to tell anyone something about the future. Unfortunately, the human mind has a proclivity to emblazon opinion with the veneer of truth, and then to seek to enforce such truth by imposing it on other people. The arrogance of self-entitlement can be guarded against by keeping in mind that the fallible and limited human mind should not be so sure of itself on religious matters as to regard itself as infallible.

The two films also differ on how the Christians approach forgiveness. Astonishingly, Ammonius, a leader of the brotherhood in Agora, rebuffs Davus, Hypatia’s the ex-slave who suggests that they should forgive rather than retaliate against the Jews. Ammonius declares, “Only Jesus can forgive the Jews.” Wrong! In Matthew (18:21-22), “Peter came up and said to him [i.e., Jesus], ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” Neither Patriarch, Theophilus or Cyril, are in the business of forgiveness, especially to the enemy.

In contrast, Lucia in Fatima forgives her mother after the miracle of the Sun moving around in the sky convinces everyone in the crowd, including Maria, that the children were right all along; the Virgin Mary really is there. Lucia still loves her mother in spite of Maria’s chilly hostility and refusal to trust her daughter even though the Virgin obviously trusts Lucia. But the latter’s faith is not perfect. In asking the Virgin to do a miracle so the crowd would believe the children’s claim that the visitation is real, Lucia succumbs to the sensationalistic undercutting of religious meaning or truth by the assumption that the validity of religious preaching relies on something supernatural happening. The innocent faith of the children is nigh eclipsed by the more sensationalistic need for verification of the Christian adults who gather in the field to personally benefit from the visitations. Pray for this, pray for that; this is human, all too human. 

The salience of the need for a supernatural, metaphysical miracle, even for the viewers of the film, to prove that the Virgin is really there in the story world, and, by fallacious implication in 1917 as a historical event apart from the film, almost eclipses importance of the childlike faith of the children in the film. Only after the miracle has occurred can the movie end; the viewers would not be satisfied otherwise. The need of Maria, the bishop, the priest, and even the mayor to know definitively that the Virgin is really there with the three children is a need that the film’s viewers have as well.  Even Lucia wants a miracle; even she lapses in giving the need to convince the crowd any importance, especially relative to the content of the Virgin’s message. The important thing is to stop insulting God. Cyril and his followers in Agora insult God with their hypocrisy in God’s name.

Interestingly, witness accounts in October, 1917 attest to the miracle of the Sun moving around in the sky and even coming closer as a historical event, which could be seen from as far as 40 km away. It is tempting to let the metaphysical or religious actuality of the Virgin Mary (or the historical or risen Jesus) be the focus; to be sure, such a deviation from the children’s faith and the Virgin’s message is much less damaging than is the violence by the Christians in Agora, for that is antipodal to the way into the spiritual space of God’s “kingdom,” or way of being. For it is God’s presence felt within and between people as love especially when such love is not convenient that is of value in itself. Even religious personages pale in comparison. In the Gospels, Jesus sets the Kingdom of God as that for which he is tasked with orienting people. Within that kingdom, the presence of the divine can be sensed, made possible by an inconvenient love that expands human nature itself such that the human instinctual urge for the divine can be more satisfied and perhaps even be fulfilled.

See: God's Gold