The Exorcist Extrapolated: Ministering to the Devil as "Love Thy Enemies."

One of the most iconic films of the horror-film genre, The Exorcist (1973) focuses on the duality of good and evil that the film’s director, William Friedkin, maintained is in a constant struggle in all of us. The dialogue between the two priests performing the exorcism on the one side and the Devil possessing Regan on the other not only reveal the duality, but also the essence of evil itself. Once this essence is grasped, interesting questions can be asked that are distinctly theological, as distinct from modernity’s trope of evil portrayed in terms of, and even reduced to, supernatural movements of physical objects. The decadent materialist version of the theological domain stems from modernity’s bias in favor of materialism and empiricism. In other words, highlighting supernatural physics as being foremost in representing the religious realm is how secularity sidelines religion, rather than how religion itself is. The bias of modern society is very clear in the film as the “professionals” go through alternative explanations first from the field of medicine, privileging the somatic (physical) and then the psychological domains of medicine. In other words, the narrative establishes (or reflects) a hierarchy of three qualitatively different levels of descending validity: the somatic is primary, and only then the psychological, and, if the first two do not furnish an explanation, then, and only then, are we to turn to the theological as metaphysically (i.e., supernaturally) real primarily shown by physical objects defying the laws of physics. Science, rather than religion, is thus still in the driver’s seat. The bias in favor of materialism is in the assumption that only after feasible hypotheses from modern medicine are nullified can theological explanations be considered (as credible). In this way, the film reflects the hegemony of materialism that has taken hold since the Enlightenment, and the relegation of the theological as “magical” supernaturalism, as in a bed levitating of objects flying around Regan’s bedroom. The essence of evil is instead interior. If religion is a matter of the heart, then how could evil be otherwise?

The full essay is at "The Exorcist."

False Christians as the Power-Elite of a Church: A Case of Human Arrogance

In what begins as a story about Bess, a mentally-ill (or cognitively challenged) woman who marries Jan, an oilman, Breaking the Waves (1996) is a film that ends on a distinctively religious note that is nothing short of miraculous. The viewer is meant to be skeptical concerning the authenticity of Bess's spirituality, especially as seems delusional in having two-way conversations with God. Even as one of her prayerful petitions seems perhaps of having been granted when Jan returns from the oil rig to Bess, albeit with Jan paralyzed from an accident, the overwhelming view of the characters in the story, including Jan, is that, as Bess's physician asks Bess, "Do you really think you have so much power?" Bess is blaming herself for Jan's serious medical condition. She could reply, "It's God's power, not mine," but she is slow. Yet she can love, unconditionally. When Jan urges Bess to sleep with other men then tell him about the experiences so he will have the will to live, Bess complies and is summarily kicked out of her church. Even Bess's mother, with whom Bess lives, locks the door. The church elders and the minister are judgmental hypocrites who presume that they can consign a person to hell. Even so, Bess's trust in God as a matter of faith continues, and she sacrifices her life by willingly submitting herself to a sadistic sailor so that God might then heal Jan. Meanwhile, the unbelievers are trying to get Bess to a mental hospital, given her "delusion." On the morning after Jan and his friends on the rig drop Bess's body into the sea, one of the friends wakes Jan to come outside and hear bells ringing even as radar shows nothing out there. The viewer now knows not only that God performed a miracle on Jan, for he is walking around and even back on the rig, but also that Bess's faith is vindicated as heaven's bells miraculously are chiming. The burial followed by bells ringing at sunrise reflects the story of Jesus' passion. The overall message seems to be that we mortals don't know as much as we think we do about God's ways, even if we do happen to have power in the governance of a church.

The full essay is at "Breaking the Waves."

The Basis of Christian Faith: Beyond Idolatry

I think perhaps the title of the film, Silence (2016) ought to have been “The last Priest” because the main character, Rodrigues, is the last remaining Roman Catholic priest in Japan. His inner struggle is the core of the narrative, and of the theological/ethical dilemma to be resolved. The movie is set in Japan in 1640-1641. A Buddhist inquisitor, Mokichi, is torturing and killing Christians, who must step on a stove carving of Jesus as proof of committing apostasy (i.e., renouncing their faith). Taking it as proof, Father Rodrigues torments over whether to apostasy in order to save the Japanese Christians whom Mokichi is having killed serially until the priest renounces his faith. I submit that the assumption of proof rests on dubious grounds, so Rodrigues is actually faced with a false dichotomy.

The full essay is at "Silence."

Son of God

The 2014 film, Son of God, follows a familiar trajectory well-known to viewers who had seen films such as George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Watching the Passion story yet again, I could not help but take note of the repetitiveness from sheer likeness. Yet one scene sticks out among the usual denouement—that scene in which Jesus in the wilderness, the high priest in the Temple, and the Roman Pontius Pilate with his wife in their chambers pray in their own ways and with differing assumptions about divine intent toward a petitioner. The interplay of petitions plays like a tutorial for the ears and eyes on comparative religion, found here even within a religion.

The entire essay is at “Son of God.”