Meaning as a mirror

Debi Riggs Shaw drops a line in response to my review of The Passion:

A Feb. 25 story in the New York Times reported a discussion of the movie amongst clergy of Jewish and Christian denominations. The last sentences of the piece highlight the crucial difference between Christians' apprehensions of the meaning of their religion:

(Father Kantzavelos) and the other Christian clergy members agreed that the movie was based on a "theology of atonement" familiar to evangelicals, one that emphasizes Jesus' suffering and sacrifice over his resurrection. They noted that the movie had opened with a passage from Isaiah: "With his stripes we are healed."

Mr. Blackwell, the Methodist pastor said: "If your theology is blood, and you're washed clean in the blood, then the more blood and suffering the better because the more salvation there is in it. If that's your theology, the more stripes, the more you are healed.

"For me the question is: Is unrelenting violence redemptive?" Mr. Blackwell said. "What happened to the revelatory preaching of Jesus and his love?"

Whether one focuses on a deity of exclusion, violence, rule-making/enforcement, and vengeance, or one of peace, healing, forgiveness, and inclusion depends entirely on the worldview one brings to the religion in the first place. Some types of personalities are drawn to rigid lawmaking, the Old Testament, and to Paul. Other types are drawn to the more thoughtful, peaceful teachings and aspects. And this can be seen not only in Christianity, but in all religions and the interpretations of them that evolve over centuries.

Religions and the gods at their centers say more about the people professing them than any objective truth about the universe.

I'll have a little more to say on the film's theology soon.