All the news I wish to print

There are all kinds of stories out there. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Some will make you shrug, some will make you scream. Read any daily paper or listen to any newscast and your emotions can go from happy to sad to disbelief to fear to incredulity to horror to anger in very short order.
As we go along, there will be stories, as Paul Harvey used to say, to "wash your ears out with." There will be others that will make you feel like you need to be deloused simply by virtue of having heard or read them. Some posts will be religious, some secular and for some I expect will defy easy classification in either category. I hope you will join me in this journey and please feel free to comment along the way.
For my part I pledge not to remove any posts unless they are vulgar, libelous, threatening or otherwise in violation of the standards of civil discussion. I will not remove any post simply because I disagree with it but I will reserve the right to respond to any challenges that come my way.
God bless you and welcome to my blog.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Liberation theology, not Calvinism, is behind Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto | CatholicHerald.co.uk

I remember seeing Apocalypto some time ago and I agree with the author here that Giles Frasier is completely off base and frankly I am not sure where these comparisons that imply antisemitism in the movie come from. Also Frasier's confusion of Gibson's conservative brand of Catholicism and Calvinism shows a fundamental misunderstanding the theology of each.

The one redeeming feature about the recent spate of Bank Holidays and the fact that it gets dark so early is that one can find time for the guilty pleasure of watching DVDs. Over New Year I hunkered down with Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, which I think is an absolutely brilliant film. Others disagree. One such is Dr Giles Fraser , who took the film to task in the Guardian for theological error and anti-Semitism, among other things. I strongly disagree with what Dr Fraser has to say about the film’s supposed anti-Semitism, and I think his reading of it as an allegory where the Mayan priests stand in for the Jews is simply wrong. I also strongly disagree with what he implies in the following:

"What’s more sinister is the connection Gibson is always forging between salvation and violence. The root cause is a theology associated particularly with Anselm and Calvin. Human beings are wicked and can only make it to heaven if they are punished for their sin, thus righting the scales of justice and wiping clean the slate. The problem is, human wickedness is so deep that the required punishment would be too much for us to bear. So Christ offers to take our place, accepting our punishment in the form of an excruciating crucifixion. It’s the story of salvation, as read by the religious right. All sin must be paid for with pain."


Read more here:Liberation theology, not Calvinism, is behind Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto | CatholicHerald.co.uk:

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