Film Comment: The Twilight Series

The Twilight series of films is based on a highly successful five book young adult romance fantasy series by American author Stephenie Meyer.  The films are:

Twilight (2008)

Twilight: New Moon (2009)

Twilight: Eclipse (2010)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (2011)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (2012)

To date (25 November 2012) the series has grossed over $2,500,000,000 worldwide.  The basic plot is this: Bella, a lonely teenager, displaced by divorce to a boring small town on the United States northwest coast, becomes attracted to a strange but handsome boy at her high school.  She eventually comes to realize just how strange he is.

Edward is a member of a vampire family which lives in one location until it becomes difficult to disguise the fact that they are not aging.  The “family” members are not biologically related but were collected together by the patriarch, whom they recognize as their father.  The family long ago stopped hunting humans for food and lives off the blood of forest animals.

Edward proves to be a sensitive and protective boyfriend for Bella and he strongly holds to his Nineteenth Century values of sexual abstinence and chaste love until marriage.  That presents the problem: a vampire cannot marry a human.  Because he loves her, Edward is reluctant to “turn” Bella though she begs him to.  He realizes that he would be damning her to become a monster like himself.

Stephenie Meyer, the writer of the Twilight novels, is a Mormon and some believe this is the origin of the series’ emphasis on family and chastity.  Feminists have complained that the novels and films present Bella as a helpless female, with her life revolving around her man.  Edward must continually protect Bella from other vampires (and werewolves!) who disapprove of their relationship.  Feminists also object to the relationship’s violence, as Bella is seriously injured when she and Edward eventually do consummate their relationship.

Bella eventually becomes a powerful vampire with a beautiful half-human half-vampire child.

I see all these things, but what I really see is perhaps a message which Meyer did not originally intend.  The message is this:  to succeed, to really get what you want in this world, you must submit.  Adapt to the world.  Adjust what you believe.  Buy into the system, and you may find love, success, wealth, and maybe even power.  The darkness is very seductive.

What Did jesus Look Like?

The Bible says nothing about the physical appearance of the man, Jesus of Nazareth.  I believe that this fact points out an important point.  The Jews were looking for a Messiah who would be an impressive military leader who would throw off Roman rule.  He might even, if successful, have become a king.

Kings, for all the history known up to that time, were massively egotistical self promoters, repeatedly building monuments and cities named for themselves. The king was always touted as a god of a man, handsome, brave, rich, powerful; his queen was the most beautiful woman in the land.  The greatest kings were known for their wealth, power, and military conquests.  How well, or how poorly, they dealt with their subjects was secondary.  This attitude toward kings has been repeated down through the centuries since the time of Christ.

Jesus was a nobody, a carpenter from an ignored small country town.  He probably looked like everyone else, like one of the modern West Bank Palestinians we regularly see on the nightly news.  While He could read and write and was obviously very intelligent (He amazed the Pharisees with His knowledge at age twelve, Luke 2:41-52), He is not mentioned as having specialized theological training or as being recognized as a Pharisee.  That He didn't stand out by his appearance is shown by the fact that the traitor, Judas Iscariot, had to point HIm out to the Roman soldiers who came to arrest Him. (Matthew 26:47-56, Mark 14:43-51, Luke 22:47-53, John 18: 1-11)

The Iconoclastic Controversy arose in the Christian community over whether or not representations of Jesus and the other persons mentioned in the Bible should be allowed within the Christian Church. The issue still causes controversy.  Of the artwork depicting Jesus, possibly the most recognizable in history (known to have been reproduced over 500,000 times) is The Head of Christ  by Warner Sallman.

Other representations of Jesus abound and reflect many different understandings of the same man.  Most appear to be honest attempts to emphasize some particular aspect of the Lord.

In Undefeated by Stephen S. Sawyer, Jesus is seen as a handsome, muscular boxer   The painting is based on Psalm 136:12.

Christ Walking on the Sea , a print by Nathaniel Currier (of Currier & Ives), emphasizes Jesus's gentleness, calmness, and kindness.  Some viewers, me included, feel that this print makes Jesus so gentle that He seems to be effeminate.  The event depicted is recorded in John 6:16-21, Mark 6:45-52, and in Matthew 14:22-33.

Sister Wendy Beckett , host of the Public broadcasting System program, "Sister Wendy's Story of Painting," in 1999 chose Jesus of the People  as the winner of the National Catholic Reporter's competition for a new image of Jesus, a peasant Jesus. 

All three of these representations of Jesus are meant in reverence. Some object to them, especially to Jesus of the People, but why?  Jesus is the Lord of every individual on Earth and His Church includes people from every race, nationality and country on the Earth.  None of these pictures above are blasphemous, unlike those detailed below, which are.  The difference is in the intent: to glorify Christ or to show contempt for Him.

Piss Christ 
Christ the Yogi 
The Truth 

Interesting discussions of what Jesus may have looked like are here  and here .  The truth is, no one knows.

Book Comment: The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia

Romans 16:7 says that Junia was "of note among the apostles."  A female apostle?  The early Church Fathers, Jerome and John Chrysostom, thought so.  The Eastern and oriental Orthodox Churches think so.  Desiderus Erasmus thought so.  The majority of textual evidence favors it.  The translators of the King James Version of the Bible thought so.

The name Junia is clearly a female name and was common during the first century.  The male form of the name, Junias, does not occur in the Bible and is only known to have occurred once in the extra-biblical Greek literature.

A female apostle would put a large dent in the world view of many conservative Christians who seem to have forgotten what Paul said in Romans (but they remember his seemingly contradictory statement in Galatians).  The full participation of women in the Church challenged the "order of things" as did many Christian practices.

Pederson points out that many modern commentators feel that Paul, in each of his letters to the churches, was addressing local questions.  The seeming inconsistency between his statements may reflect that fact.

In his letters Paul clearly and often spoke of women who taught and prophesied.  He even sent one woman, Phoebe,  as his official representative, carrying his personal letter, to the leaders of the church in Rome.

Pederson is insistent that this is not some sort of faddish, liberal-feminist reinterpretation of biblical history but a return to the original customs of the churches before an official church hierarchy rose up and imposed, intentionally or unintentionally, the male domination which was the norm in the outside world.

Everything that is possible to be known about the Apostle Junia is tracked down using church traditions, the early Church Fathers, and secular history.  Branching off from this, Pederson chases down whatever information is available on other prominent early female Christian leaders such as Prisca, Lydia, Chloe, Theda, Agnes, and Phoebe.

She is correct in her assertion that, in discarding the veneration of the saints and their relics, protestants have lost some of their connection to their own history.  Pederson calls not for a return to Catholic practice, but for a renewed commitment to studying the lives of the saints.

This is an excellent, well-researched book which is, at the very least, challenging to some very strongly held modern Christian beliefs which may or may not be correct.  Quoting Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage (d. 858), "A custom without Truth is merely an ancient error."
  
Pederson, Rena, The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia (San Francisco: Josse-Bass, 2006)

Quitting Christianity

On 28 July 2010, novelist Anne Rice posted this on her Facebook page, "In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen." She made her decision because she says she refuses to be opposed to homosexuality, feminism, and artificial birth control.

Rice was raised as a Roman Catholic but left the church as an adult. She is best known as a writer of gothic and vampire-themed novels, especially Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned. In 2008, she released her memoir, Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, about her return to Roman Catholicism. She apparently is not renouncing Jesus but organized religion.

News: 27 June 2009

NEWS:  Two of the four major Islamic seminaries in Iran have refused to recognize the disputed election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

NEWS:  French President Nicolas Sarkozy has told the French Parliament at Versailles that there is no place in France for the Islamic burqa (a female garment which covers the entire body, including the head).  Sarkozy says that the burqa is a symbol of the enslavement of women.

France already has a 2004 law which bans crosses, veils, and other religious symbols from public and government buildings.  France's Muslim community is the largest in Europe.

NEWS:  Rabbi Schmuley Boteach, billing himself as Michael Jackson's spiritual advisor, says that Jackson (d. 25 June 2009) told him that he never felt "innocent" even as a small child because of all the grasping, manipulative, and amoral people who constantly swarmed around him.  Boteach believes that Jackson exhibited an extreme self-loathing which led to his misuse of drugs and his extensive plastic surgeries.  The rabbi says that he told Jackson that what he needed was an change within, not a new face, a new album, or another concert tour.