Saturday, 13 March 2004 11:07 pm
Tempering Passion?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineFeeling better now. Hard to tell if my verboten obsession is slowly dying, but at least my school-related stress is. I'm doing better in courses than I thought I was, and the upcoming work looks easier than it did on Wednesday. There is a slight chance that my unusually high stress was influenced by my study of anxiety disorders and the like.
More sinful than my obsession, I'd say, is my lack of care for the deaths in the news. (Another 20 down in the Middle East, whoopdeedoo. Hundreds in Spain? Hm, impressive, I'll pass it on.) Neither commonality nor distance should jade me to the events; neither -- especially not the former -- reduces the tragedy. The least I could do is pray in silence, which I have now done but should get in the habit of doing more promptly.
Regarding Passion, I'm hearing more viable negative criticisms lately. One complains that the focus on the suffering is excessive -- it's not like about 100 fewer lashes wouldn't have gotten the job done. This is true, and my pastor suspects that others have suffered worse physically, tho Jesus had the most burdened soul by accepting responsibility for all sins. The physical injustice had to be great, but that's hardly the most important aspect to Christians.
Colbert I. King of the Washington Post actually quoted Richard Cohen as an example of someone with the wrong idea. King sees the movie's Jewish villains as embodiments of very old stereotypes against Jews, and he believes Gibson must have made a conscious decision on that part, but he does not extend the blame to the Gospels. Cohen, and the others who do, say that parts of the New Testament fueled, if not led to, the Holocaust. King has examined the Holocaust well enough to know better.
Thank you for clearing that up, King, tho I still dunno about Gibson. The disciples seemed pretty Jewish to me. I just hope someday to see a dark-skinned actor of Jesus.
More sinful than my obsession, I'd say, is my lack of care for the deaths in the news. (Another 20 down in the Middle East, whoopdeedoo. Hundreds in Spain? Hm, impressive, I'll pass it on.) Neither commonality nor distance should jade me to the events; neither -- especially not the former -- reduces the tragedy. The least I could do is pray in silence, which I have now done but should get in the habit of doing more promptly.
Regarding Passion, I'm hearing more viable negative criticisms lately. One complains that the focus on the suffering is excessive -- it's not like about 100 fewer lashes wouldn't have gotten the job done. This is true, and my pastor suspects that others have suffered worse physically, tho Jesus had the most burdened soul by accepting responsibility for all sins. The physical injustice had to be great, but that's hardly the most important aspect to Christians.
Colbert I. King of the Washington Post actually quoted Richard Cohen as an example of someone with the wrong idea. King sees the movie's Jewish villains as embodiments of very old stereotypes against Jews, and he believes Gibson must have made a conscious decision on that part, but he does not extend the blame to the Gospels. Cohen, and the others who do, say that parts of the New Testament fueled, if not led to, the Holocaust. King has examined the Holocaust well enough to know better.
Thank you for clearing that up, King, tho I still dunno about Gibson. The disciples seemed pretty Jewish to me. I just hope someday to see a dark-skinned actor of Jesus.
