Midwestern Suburban Dad

More Reasons To Hate The French

"They fight with their feet and f**k with their faces." stipulated one classic National Lampoon piece from long ago. "They" were, of course, the French. As well, " . . . their cuisine is based on food in various stages of decomposition." Indeed, I've known many a chef who would leave ingredients out to "assume room temperature" before using them, so that they could give their dishes Froggy-sounding apellations. No names, though - such practices violate most American health codes.

But enough about sex and food. The newest and best reason to hope desperately for a German west coast is this.

Evidently, Pierre et amis are scared of God. Not God-fearing, as in respectful, humble and contrite before the throne of the Almighty, but scared like they're scared of English words, American food, German invasions and not being first to surrender to whoever looks mean this week.

Here in the states - PC fascists and Satan-spawned leftists notwithstanding - we pretty much go with "Live and let live" when it comes to churches and such. It raises no eyebrows to see a Lutheran church, a Catholic parish hall and a Jewish temple all within a half-mile of each other, if not at the same intersection, anywhere there are enough people to go there. Now that we're in the 21st Century, you can add Buddhist temples and Mosques to the mix, in ever-expanding numbers. Big deal. Whoo-pee.

Up until recently (and still today in saner areas), kids wearing crucifixes, yarmulkes or head scarves in class would be inspiration for open and honest conversations, and teachers would use the opportunities to expose their students to other cultures and belief systems. This was called "broadening one's horizons" and it almost always worked really, really well. Prejudice based on ignorance (and when isn't it?) was quashed and amelioration grown. Soon, such differences stopped being differences and started being aspects of the rich and varied stewpot of American society.

But not so in the land of Napoleon, Robespierre and Charles (both The Bald and The Fat). "Mon Dieu!" they cry, ironically. "Sacre Merde!" And other such Frankly horrible puns.

Seriously, though, their reasoning is that in order to preserve a 'secular' society, all religious symbology must be hidden away from children. Avec sa! Common knowledge says that a secular society is one where no religion is foisted upon the people from on high, like it was for centuries back in the bad, old pre-industrial days. A society where religion is banned is not secular, it's atheistic. It is, in fact, no different or better to have an Official Religion than to have Officially No Religion. Same coin, opposite sides.

You want to make religion an issue? Attack it. You want to keep it out of the public policy stream? Let it be. Betcha there wouldn't be thousands marching in the streets if the government had said "Observe your various faiths quietly and with respect to those of others, please." and left it at that.

But that would have taken courage (*choke*) and fortitude (*gag*). From the French. They'll win a war, unassisted, against somebody other than themselves (which they didn't) before that happens.

Twist of Faith

According to widespread account, Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of The Christ" has evidently PO'd some of the more, umm, intense Jewish associations in the land.

The Anti-Defamation League says on its website:

After ADL representatives attended a screening of Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of The Christ”, the League renewed its concerns about the film’s potential to promote anti-Semitism through its “painful portrayal of Jews” as being responsible for the death of Jesus.

While this is an understandable viewpoint, I would say that it stems more from an ironic twist of faith than anything else, including and especially anti-Semitism.

Coming from a Christian background (raised Episcopal, journeyed through everything from lefty-feelgood Disciples of Christ to Bible-thumping Assembly of God, finally arrived at Catholic), I can pretty much state that from a purely historical standpoint, Christ was crucified by Jews. After all, He was one. He preached in what was then Judea and is now Israel (Isr-a-el, "Land of God"). His ministry came to its fruition in Jerusalem (City of Peace) and the first major schism in the early sect was whether or not to require adherence to Mosaic Law in order to become "Christian." (St. Paul v St. James).

But that's History. He was there, at this time, and that stuff happened. Period.

When you look at the theological standpoint, though, it can be stated - because I do - that we have the Jews to THANK for the gift of Emmanuel, "God Among Us." God took a band of nomadic wanderers - people who history tells us were probably the least powerful group of people on the planet, people who had no home, no prowess, no anything - and took an old man and his barren wife and from them created a people whose history and legacy lead to nothing less than The Birth of Christ. Not bad for a bunch of itinerant root-eaters.

To make a 2000-year-long story short, if somebody is a studied, practicing Christian (specifically Roman Catholic, as Mr. Gibson is) then the only conclusion possible is that God chose the Jews to be not His executioners, but to be the machinery of His holy redemption.

To fault the Jews for the sins of all mankind is not a viewpoint rooted in Christian tenet. To hold them as honored, to study their history as the perfect parallel of our faith, and to believe that they are as much a part of our faith as any other group of people is the only logical viewpoint.

The twist is that one must be Christian to believe Christian theology. Duh. It is entirely believeable that, considering Jewish history over the past 1000 or so years, especially at the hands of those who used Christianity the same way Al-Qaeda uses Islam, they're going to be sensitive to anything that paints Jews and Judaism in an interperably bad light. And since Christ, being Jewish, was crucified not by Roman law but by Judaic hubris, an accurate and graphic portrayal of the events of the Passion will be disturbing. (The Roman backdrop is critically important, and Ponitus Pilate is a HUGE metaphor, but there isn't enough bandwidth here to go as deeply into it as necessary.)

To be frank, anybody who believes that the sins of Jesus' contemporary Judaic crucifiers (and hence their sole responsibility for his death) were exclusive to them misses the entire point. God is eternal; He knows no time. His choosing of the where, when, who and how of His greatest gift to us is the essence of what transpired. To examine those aspects per se is to look at the wrapping instead of the gift. We are all sinners. We all share the same shortcomings and failings that Caiaphas and his cohort had. They were instruments, God the composer and the Redemption of Christ the music. One has only to listen. If Mr. Gibson is doing a cover tune, then the truer to the score he keeps, the better.

And anybody who does come away with anti-Semitic sentiments is stone-deaf.