Here’s an article in which Gibson discusses his wife’s Episcopalianism and is quoted as saying, “There is no salvation for those outside the faith. I believe it.” He does say what a wonderful person his wife is, and how it seems unfair, but that it is “a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.”
This is somewhat different than statements he made to Diane Sawyer last night. Sitting with the Jewish actress who plays Mary the mother of Jesus, he said that people outside the faith still have a chance of making it into heaven, but it’s not definite.
I’m somewhat confused by Gibson’s beliefs on this point, and maybe he is too. But it’s certainly a shock to see someone so devout they would doubt their own spouse’s chances for salvation.
Of course he didn’t claim that it was “definite” that he would make it to heaven, either.
He claimed that being a member of his church made it an “easier” course, so to speak…but specifically said that even non-Christians could “make it to heaven”.
It is a bit hard to reconcile the two statements. He seemed to be implying (and I only caught snippets of the interview, I could be wrong), that his earlier comments were misunderstood.
Is it that difficult to allow someone to mispeak in a fast paced interview regarding the source of Paul’s adventures without impugning his scholastic abilities?
After all, I would suggest that you would find very little of Paul’s adventures in the epistles as you have posted. For that you would have to read the narrative known as the Book of Acts written by the same author who wrote the Gospel according to Luke.
And the elder Mr Gibson is NOT "in union with the Holy See.
Mel is apparently more flexible than his father and claims to have accepted most of what came out of V2 but accepting MOST is not “in union.”
(Banging my head against the wall) As I said, his “gravest sin” would not have been “holding a grudge” but the initial EXTREME anger, which he apparently HAS been holding. And his advertence has been demonstrated by his relish when describing his feelings.
But boy howdy! It’s fun to slap back on the hat of judgement at the expense of a big movie star, even if I’m only doing it for a moment! I haven’t had one of these “Is it Mortal or Venial?” discussions in decades. Next argument:
If “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?” (1 Corinthians, 11:14) then why does Mel’s Jesus have such long hair? I thought he was trying to be historically accurate.
What I found interesting that I didn’t know was the fact that the Vatican flip flopped on what they thought of the film.
The whole thing reguarding his father. He loves his father. He probably does not agree with him, but that is not the point. His father and all his presumed nuttiness has nothing to do with this film. Diane Sawyer had to ask because it is her job.But she cannot be offensive or the interveiwee will shut down and not answer questions. As the interveiwee, Gibson handled right. To the point and not wishy washy. He wants to sell his film and explain why he made it and not come off as some kind of ass. She wants the Big Star so that she can get other Big Names see that she treats them fairly and sell advertizing space to bring a profit to her company.
Gibson and Sawyer both have oodles of experience handling both sides of this particular dance and undertand these unwritten rules.
I wasn’t really being that hard on him, I’m just saying that for a guy making a movie about Jesus Christ based on the gospels, he probably should be a little more fluent with the terms of NT study, at least much more than I myself am as an atheist.
Interesting, I hadn’t read that book and had considered Paul’s letters to be the sole account of his adventures, the churches he set up and in what way. (An atheist with Xian friends will likely have had 2nd Corinthians on his plate at some point as an introduction to Paul, at least down here in the south where some folks still take that “unequally yoked” business out of context regularly.) What exactly is the Book of Acts considered as? The OT splits nice and even into categories, I had thought the NT did the same. At any rate, Paul is not in the gospels, even I knew that much even if I didn’t know the whole of the story.
Are you sure? The only reference I remember to Paul was when he was questioned about his pre-Vatican II mass. IIRC he replied something like (paraphrasing): “The Catholic church is in turmoil, and in such times Paul said to ‘hold fast to tradition.’” I don’t recall anything specifically about Paul in the gospels.
I also thought Gibson looked a bit uneven in the interview, but keep in mind it was an edited interview–and jump cuts were evident. At one point they cut from Gibson to Sawyer and then back and Gibson’s arms were completely in a different position (from being in his lap to held out and moving while he was talking). It’s quite likely that the order of questions (or even the questions themselves–edits and voiceovers are common in such interviews) weren’t as they were in the actual interview. I’d love to see it unedited.
Yeah, that would have been even worse, only Protestants do that.
As for Baby Fish Mouth’s quote…AFAIK, there’s no ex cathedra proclamation that those outside the faith are going to hell. After all, isn’t it an official Catholic belief that Muslims are first among those non-Christians, in their recognition of a single god, who are eligible for heaven? I don’t understand the full nuance of Mel’s pre-VatII Catholicism, but by “a pronouncement from the chair” he couldn’t mean anything but an ex cathedra pronouncement.
You totally missed Crossan’s point. Crossan wasn’t saying that passion plays should show miracles, his argument is that it’s completely implausible that a welcoming mob would suddenly and inexplicibly turn on him and want to kill him. Crossan believes that the passion narratives are complete fictions and that’s only one of the reasons. He’s saying that passions in general, including Gibson’s movie, do not really explain the reason for such a change in public opinion.
Oh, and FTR, even the Gospels don’t say Jesus was arrested for performing “miracles” (which obviously can’t be historical anyway) or warning the Pharisees about hypocrisy (not a crime). He was arrested for causing a disturbance at the Temple and was convicted of “blasphemy” (for statements which, curiously, were not blasphemous under Jewish law).
To be fair, the movie isn’t inspiring anything yet, it has only been seen by a few thousand folks, and I don’t think there have been any reports of backlash. It has inspired the fear of backlash, however. That is not just a semantic point. People say similar things about porn and violence towards women, and films like “Natural Born Killers” and violence in general. So is it the film or the filmgoer who is at fault?
The four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are called collectively the “Narrative Books” of the NT. Revelation is an Apocalypse and the rest of the NT is epistles (letters).
Acts is where you get the story of Paul’s persecution of Christians, his conversion on the road to Damascus (Blinded by the light/ revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night), his conversion and his evangelism. The book ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome, but still preaching to visitors.
Acts is written by the same author who wrote Luke and it’s traditionally thought that Luke was a travelling companion of Paul’s, but that’s nowhere in the text itself.
Implausible? Mobs are dynamic. These 180 degree turnabouts have happened since antiquity. Aeschylus comes to mind. But neither are they inexplicable. In the case of Jesus, they turned on Him because Pilate offered them either Him or a bona-fide hero who had slain a Roman soldier.
There’s much more to Crossan’s thesis than that. It relies more on literary and historical analysis of the Passions than on one offhand impression about the mob. He wrote a whole book called Who Killed Jesus which makes arguments which are entirely unrelated to that one remark.
Ah, thanks for the answer, I had trouble finding that with a few quick Google searches.
:lol:
I always thought Jesus was kind of a guy, but Paul is seriously a “do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the signs” sorta guy (to paraphrase Five Man Electrical Band )
Sorry to (kinda) hijack, but … well, gonna do it anyway!
That’s cool. Welp, I can’t say I’ve ever met any Jews who were intimidated by the cross (my family and I sure ain’t!), but I can’t say it’s all that surprising that some might be. The cross as a symbol has a long, dark history attached to it, even aside from its most famous use during Jesus’s crucifiction. For example, as far back as the first crusades, Jews and Muslims were killed by soldiers who had large painted crosses on their banners, shields and cloaks; the use of the cross in this manner was by order of Constantine, who’d undergone a conversion to Christianity after allegedly dreaming that “by the cross” would he find victory against his enemies.
For this and other fun trivia I heartily recommend the book Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews by James Carroll, a Catholic scholar and former priest. I’m in the middle of reading it now. It’s an extensive and exhaustive (and exhausting, at 750+ pages!) history of the often rocky relationship between Jews and Christians – well, mostly Catholics – from Jesus’s followers to the earliest popes to Constantine & his crusades to the Inquisition to WWII and beyond. Good thoughtful stuff, though controversial since Carroll takes a pretty strong stand against the Church’s actions (or lack of them, depending on the situation).
Anyway, I suspect that for some Jews who look at the cross, knowing that their predecessors spent almost two millennia being blamed and often persecuted by wackos who warped and twisted the cross’s sacred image into a symbol of hatred and impending doom, might make them a bit skittish.
Not me, though. Personally I love going into churches and viewing religious symbols/icons. They fill me with a strange combination of admiration, awe, humility and – kinda – spookiness. What some call a numinous response, I think.
(As far as Mel and his interview? Um … I got nothin’.)
guy, but Paul is seriously a “do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the signs” sorta guy (to paraphrase Five Man Electrical Band 
)
Welp, I can’t say I’ve ever met any Jews who were intimidated by the cross (my family and I sure ain’t!), but I can’t say it’s all that surprising that some might be. The cross as a symbol has a long, dark history attached to it, even aside from its most famous use during Jesus’s crucifiction. For example, as far back as the first crusades, Jews and Muslims were killed by soldiers who had large painted crosses on their banners, shields and cloaks; the use of the cross in this manner was by order of Constantine, who’d undergone a conversion to Christianity after allegedly dreaming that “by the cross” would he find victory against his enemies.