Absent God or Absent-Minded Christians
Film maker Brian Flemming recently released a documentary about Jesus called The God Who Wasn't There. As an independent artist, the film has no distribution program other than word of mouth. However, it is getting some attention in various cities.
Flemming's basic point is that Jesus never existed, that the apostle Paul, writing 30 years later than the proported messiah, apparently made up a figure that played into his writing to various churches. According to to the website, the film will demonstrate that the founders of Christianity knew nothing of a human Jesus.
Hmmmm, I think I've heard this one before (think 1,2, and 3 John).
Most of the psuedo-scholars that Flemming puts up on his website read more like an atheist's who's who, than someone who is actually trained in history. But I must say that I want to see the movie. In fact, I've just ordered my own copy, which, according to the website, I can show publicly and charge admission!
Why would I spend $25?
The thing that I find most interesting about Flemming's work is his conviction that Christians don't really know their stuff. In a quote in yesterday's Kansas City Star, Flemming said: "They say the Bible guides their lives, but they know nothing about how the Bible was created, how those books were chosen to be part of the Bible. Their ignorance of some very basic history is incredible. Almost nothing makes less sense than your average Christian explaining Christianity."
Whether Flemming has anything truthful to have to wait until I see the movie. However, I know that his assertion that Christians are woefully ignorant is painfully true. Flemming and his ilk are growing; revisionist history is a flourishing pasttime (think of Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code). And much that passes for North American Christianity is really just whatever we have been handed by culture and by our churches.
That isn't necessarily bad. But I can assure you, it isn't enough. If the Christian message is going to have something to say to the pagan, pluralistic culture of North America, then we had better get serious about history, about theology, and about the practice of Christian community.
I don't think I will eat popcorn while I watch this one.
Carson Reed
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I guess that's why one of the chapters I'm writing in THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE DA VINCI CODE is simply called Nicaea. Oh, and another chapter is titled Don't Know Much About History.
It's sad to hear how much of this revisionist history people swallow without thinking twice about it.
Hoping I'm not speaking out of turn to change the subject but today is Veterans Day. I worked for a client yesterday who was in WW II and 22 of his 25 cousins were in the military - WACS and WAVES included. On of the most disturbing issues today is the call for others to sacrifice but no call for all of us to sacrifice. I share a poem from Wilfred Owen who died in combat in 1918 a week before the Armistice was signed.
WITH AN IDENTITY DISC
If ever I had dreamed of my dead name
High in the heart of London, unsurpassed
By Time for ever, and the Fugitive, Fame,
There taking a long sanctuary at last,
I better that; and recollect with shame
How once I longed to hide it from life's heats
Under those holy cypresses, the same
That keep in shade the quiet place of Keats.
Now, rather, thank I God there is no risk
Of gravers scoring it with florid screed,
But let my death be memoried on this disc.
Wear it, sweet friend. Inscribe no date nor deed.
But let they heart-beat kiss it night and day,
Until the name grow vague and wear away.
(A British soldier was issued with three identity dics bearing his name and number. They were worn on a cord round his neck and, if he was killed, one was sent to his next of kin.)