Give me a break...
Just ran across this New York Times theater review of Robert Wilson's The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
The reviewer, Jon Pareles, includes this profound tidbit:
At a time when competing fundamentalist creeds - radical Islam, evangelical Christianity - are struggling for dominance, Mr. Wilson has chosen to adapt a work that presents faith as a willful choice among compelling alternatives.
Give me a break. Now, I'm just guessing here, but I'd be willing to lay a hefty wager that this guy's ignorance of "evangelical Christianity" is eclipsed only by his ignorance of "radical Islam." And I'm not so stupid as to think that this passage serves any purpose except to convey the following: "Flashing light! Flashing light! Fear not, sophisticates of New York, I share your assumptions. I know that people who are deeply committed to particular religious beliefs are, at best, exotic (especially when they sing Gospel songs), and, at worst, really, really dangerous and really, really scary, and ultra-plus-non-good. We all know that the only real difference between Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden is their fashion sense (atrocious, in both cases). So rest assured that even though I am reviewing a show with religious themes, it's only because somebody had to do it, and remember that I stand firmly with the more-enlightened-than-just-about-everyone, and I will continue my brave stand until it becomes personally uncomfortable or unfashionable, whichever happens first."
So, no, I don't expect the passage actually to mean anything, but when I read lines as blatantly stupid as that, I wonder if they don't jar at least a few regular readers of The New York Times out of their complacency. That's probably wishful thinking, since most regular readers of The New York Times have never even met an "evangelical Christian," let alone a proponent of "radical Islam" (though you'd think the gaping hole/burial ground downtown might have given them some idea of the difference between the former and the latter). The attitude that such ignorance fosters is a rather provincial one, in its way, and it results in the absurd suggestion that there is a rough moral equivalence between decreeing that women wear a burkha in public and requiring parental notification for abortion. And it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of "evangelical Christians" in America seek to promote their agenda, not by strapping bomb belts onto their ten year olds and sending them down to the adult bookstore on the corner, but by persuading people -- the horror! the horror! -- to vote their way.
We live in scary times, for any number of reasons that are quite obvious, but our uneasiness can only be exacerbated by a mindset that wishes to portray Osama Bin Laden and Pat Robertson as the "competing" monsters of the age. That kind of smug ignorance combined with an inability to understand the real dangers we face is reason to be very afraid indeed.
The reviewer, Jon Pareles, includes this profound tidbit:
At a time when competing fundamentalist creeds - radical Islam, evangelical Christianity - are struggling for dominance, Mr. Wilson has chosen to adapt a work that presents faith as a willful choice among compelling alternatives.
Give me a break. Now, I'm just guessing here, but I'd be willing to lay a hefty wager that this guy's ignorance of "evangelical Christianity" is eclipsed only by his ignorance of "radical Islam." And I'm not so stupid as to think that this passage serves any purpose except to convey the following: "Flashing light! Flashing light! Fear not, sophisticates of New York, I share your assumptions. I know that people who are deeply committed to particular religious beliefs are, at best, exotic (especially when they sing Gospel songs), and, at worst, really, really dangerous and really, really scary, and ultra-plus-non-good. We all know that the only real difference between Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden is their fashion sense (atrocious, in both cases). So rest assured that even though I am reviewing a show with religious themes, it's only because somebody had to do it, and remember that I stand firmly with the more-enlightened-than-just-about-everyone, and I will continue my brave stand until it becomes personally uncomfortable or unfashionable, whichever happens first."
So, no, I don't expect the passage actually to mean anything, but when I read lines as blatantly stupid as that, I wonder if they don't jar at least a few regular readers of The New York Times out of their complacency. That's probably wishful thinking, since most regular readers of The New York Times have never even met an "evangelical Christian," let alone a proponent of "radical Islam" (though you'd think the gaping hole/burial ground downtown might have given them some idea of the difference between the former and the latter). The attitude that such ignorance fosters is a rather provincial one, in its way, and it results in the absurd suggestion that there is a rough moral equivalence between decreeing that women wear a burkha in public and requiring parental notification for abortion. And it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of "evangelical Christians" in America seek to promote their agenda, not by strapping bomb belts onto their ten year olds and sending them down to the adult bookstore on the corner, but by persuading people -- the horror! the horror! -- to vote their way.
We live in scary times, for any number of reasons that are quite obvious, but our uneasiness can only be exacerbated by a mindset that wishes to portray Osama Bin Laden and Pat Robertson as the "competing" monsters of the age. That kind of smug ignorance combined with an inability to understand the real dangers we face is reason to be very afraid indeed.
posted by Kate Marie | 1:45 PM | Permalink
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4 comments
4 Comments:
Alas, I run into too many people who believe that ALL religion leads to extremism and murder. As if those godless commies never hurt a fly...
Great point, Conservative. Whenever I hear people complaining that religion always -- and uniquely -- leads to violence and war, I bring up the scores of millions in the twentieth century who were slaughtered in the name of an explicitly atheist ideology.
And another thing. Have you ever noticed how Christianity is fascism cloaked as religion unless, of course, that Christian happens to be black? If Pat Robertson praises Jesus, our society recoils and labels him a bible thumping Nazi. If Jesse Jackson praises Jesus, he gets a high five and he's "keeping it real".
I also notice that if a Catholic says it is a sin (not a crime) to vote for a candidate (not Kerry, mind you, but "a candidate") who supports abortion, then the Left cries foul and says "take away their tax exemption."
But if Kerry or Gore or Clinton goes into a black church and the minister tells his congregation to vote Democratic, well, there's not a peep from the separation of church and state crowd. No racism or hypocrisy in that, eh?
Uh, oh. Does that "eh" sound too Canadian?
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