Saturday, December 6, 2008

Jack Black, Jesus, and Prop 8


by Frank Pastore
Thursday, December 04, 2008

This week, the creative minds behind “Hairspray,” composer Marc Shaiman and director Adam Shankman, opened their “Prop 8: The Musical” with an all-star studded cast that includes Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris and John C. Reilly at Sacramento Community College.

You can watch it here: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones

The point of the production is to shame the voting public for passing Proposition 8 a month ago, which simply defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman. The musical is clearly intended to spark more “public outrage.” No doubt, more protests, more storming of Mormon temples and Catholic churches and more vandalism against churches will follow. Beyond that, it is likely that more church services will be crashed by same-sex activists—all in the name of “tolerance,” “love,” and “mutual understanding.”

The strategy behind this shaming-of-the-public production is simple: lampoon the supporters of the constitutional amendment into embarrassment so that the next time same-sex marriage shows up on the ballot, they’ll do the “loving thing,” and support it rather than reject it, which is the only one true path to social penance, cultural redemption and liberal forgiveness—at least in the mind of the same-sex marriage crowd.

What’s new about all this is their overt play, albeit erroneously, of the Jesus card. Yes, even the “No on 8” crowd can “get religion.”

At the pivotal moment of the musical, Jesus (played by Jack Black) confronts the “Yes on 8” supporters for their belief that homosexuality is an “abomination,” and lifts a shrimp cocktail to them and says that Leviticus also says eating shellfish likewise is an “abomination.”

He then goes on to say the Bible also teaches that you can “stone your wife,” or “sell your daughter into slavery,” as evidence that you really can’t trust everything the Bible teaches. Or, as in the language of that oft-repeated favorite locution from our skeptical friends, “you can’t take the Bible literally.”
So much for the doctrine of inerrancy. I guess the Word made flesh really didn’t mean everything He said in the Word. Maybe we should put our trust in a non-believer to divine the “good” words from the “bad” words, huh?

Before leaving, Jesus even goes on to affirm, of all things, the “separation of church and state.”

Now these are delightful challenges! As a teacher, I wish more students had the courage to ask them.

Here are a few answers:
The whole point of Leviticus and Deuteronomy was to teach Israel how to separate and become distinct from all they had learned while in Egyptian captivity. They are books of contrast and separation, distinctions and differences. For example, Egypt worshipped death, Israel was called to worship life. The Ten Commandments of Exodus 20 are instructions of how to become different. Holy items shall be “sanctified”—literally, “set apart”—that is, distinct from non-holy items. Jews themselves, and later Christians, are likewise to be “set apart” for God.

Men and women were created different and distinct, therefore their roles, behavior and even dress should not be confused as the Egyptians did (and many pagan cultures still do).

For example, Deuteronomy 22:11 says, “You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.” The whole reason being “don’t confuse plant and animal products, they’re different categories, remember that.” There’s painful detail throughout the Bible pounding this meta-theme home.

God created different “kinds” of things, and we must honor His distinctions and not confuse them, for it is an “abomination,” exactly the very thing advocates for same-sex marriage are guilty of.

What about the shellfish? If you read the context of Leviticus 11:9-12, it too is talking about honoring distinctions. God is simply saying, in my paraphrase, “Eat fish, don’t eat bugs. Fish have fins and swim, bugs have legs and crawl. Even if you find things in the water that aren’t crawling, if they have legs, they can crawl—so they’re bugs, don’t eat them. Fish, good; sea-bugs, bad. Honor the distinction.”
The Bible’s statements prohibiting homosexual behavior are rooted in this need to recognize and honor the distinctions—here between men and women.

As far as the eating of shrimp, Jesus permits the eating of shellfish under what he says in Matthew 15:11: “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” And Paul emphasized in Romans 14:14 that it’s all about personal conscience anyway.

As far as the “stoning your wife” and “selling your daughter into slavery” claims go, they too have a simple answer. In 1400 B.C., before the law was given to Moses by the hand of God at Mt. Sinai, no nation had any moral code that prohibited a man from killing his wife, wives, or children for any reason. Pagans sacrificed their children to Baal and Moloch, Israel would not. Pagans could kill their families, Israel would not. So, the Old Testament improved the extant moral order by requiring men to go before the elders before any child was to be stoned (Deuteronomy 21:19). And, in all of the rabbinic writings to my knowledge there’s not one instance of the elders ever approving of a single stoning of a child.

Lastly, when you read the full context of Exodus 21:7-11, the “selling your daughter into slavery” slur, it too was an improvement over the ancient moral order. My paraphrase again, “If you sell your daughter off to a man and he becomes unhappy with her, he must give you a chance to redeem her and buy her back, he may not sell her off to foreigners. And if the man bought her for his son, she must not be treated as a slave, but as a daughter.” Like all the other teachings in the Old Testament, this was a big improvement over what was going on among the peoples around Israel.

Come to think of it, it still is—we still have “honor killings” of wayward daughters and wives today throughout the Muslim world.
Like Michelle Malkin, I too am waiting for the “other” Prop 8 musical to come out, as she says, “the one with angry activists storming restaurants and Mormon temples, hectoring elderly people over their signs, and hounding donors large and small until they pay off their tormentors in the name of tolerance. Anyone?”

I’ll bet the “Hairspray” boys won’t be doing that one any time soon.

12 comments:

  1. So you're basically saying one should read the Bible contextually according to the socio/political circumstances of the times. This begs the question: why stop with shrimps?

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  2. Reading it this way will give us direct revelation. Of course the Bible is for all generations though some texts may mean for the people of the times.

    Stop with shrimps? No. The author is able to speak on if he wants.

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  3. You misunderstand. My point is, why contextualize certain parts of the Bible and not the others? How do you decide that the Biblical ban on shrimps does not apply to us, yet the ban on homosexuality does?

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  4. The author quotes Matthew 15:11: “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.”

    "Shrimps" is physical, whether you eat or not does not affect your soul. Remember Peter's vision in Acts? Both clean and unclean food, God told him to slaughter and eat! So if God lifts the ban of certain food, it is not fatal. Paul syas give thanks and eat. NT is the age of faith.

    "Homosexuality" is moral and it contaminates the soul. Just like J. Lee Grady says, moral law sticks to God's characters. Therefore it is unchangeable.

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  5. But Jesus didn't say, "From now on all dietary laws are null and void and you can eat whatever the hell you want." In fact, he said, ""Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. {19} Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. {20} For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Which sounds pretty strict to me. The distinction between physical and moral simply does not exist in Jewish law. Eating shrimps makes you unclean. Homosexuality makes you equally unclean. They are very clear about that. It's only after Jesus' death, when Christianity spread to the Gentiles, did they start to make distinctions between dietary and 'ceremonial' laws and 'moral' laws.

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  6. If God was so clear in his instructions, then why the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, which still bounds Gentiles to certain dietary observations? Surely the spirit would have been guiding the apostles in that council?

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  7. It was the wisdom of God that Jesus didn't abolish the law (OT), but instead fulfilling it. Jesus is the NT. OT is by works and the people observed the laws in fears. Now what were shadows in OT has become reality int the person fo Jesus. It is the age of salvation by faith and not by works. It is not Jesus wants if we fear punishment for eating the so-called "banned food".

    So Peter's vision in Acts would mean that by faith you can eat anything. In Christ there is no Jews nor gentiles. We are all christians. Except those Jews who refused to convert and they will continue to stick to the OT laws. So actually there is no need of literal declaration of what you can eat and what cannot.

    So we don't live in fear over dietary matters. We should fear over what our soul and spirit feed on.

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  8. Why is having sex with members of the same sex more corrupting than eating shrimps? This is a decidedly modern conception that Jesus himself would have found very odd indeed. By the way, in Matt 15:11, it's very clear in the context that Jesus was talking about whether eating with unclean hands makes food un-kosher.

    Peter's vision in Acts is meant metaphorically. The vision corresponds to him meeting two Gentile visitors the next day.

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  9. "It was the wisdom of God that Jesus didn't abolish the law (OT), but instead fulfilling it. Jesus is the NT. OT is by works and the people observed the laws in fears. Now what were shadows in OT has become reality int the person fo Jesus. It is the age of salvation by faith and not by works. It is not Jesus wants if we fear punishment for eating the so-called "banned food"."

    What you find so clear cut (OT vs NT) in fact gradually evolved over 100 years after Jesus death. When exactly does the age of NT begin? With Jesus birth? Death? That announciation in Matt 15? If it was so clear cut, why the Jerusalem council? If Jesus believed that the Old Laws do not have to be observed, then why did he simply say so to the Pharisees on the many occasions that he was challenged/accused by them (in fact he did just the opposite--by affirming those laws)? Why did Peter and gang continued to observe Jewish ceremonial laws long after Jesus' death? Why did Paul quarrel so much with the Jerusalem church over precisely these matters?

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  10. "So Peter's vision in Acts would mean that by faith you can eat anything. In Christ there is no Jews nor gentiles. We are all christians. Except those Jews who refused to convert and they will continue to stick to the OT laws. So actually there is no need of literal declaration of what you can eat and what cannot."

    Again you are reading the Bible in the modern light. In the NT, it is precisely the opposite. Followers of Jesus who still kept kosher laws had no doubt that they will be saved, because they were doing exactly what Jesus was doing when he was with them. The issue that comes up again and again in Paul's letters and in Acts is whether Gentile converts to the nascent Christianity can be saved, and whether they have to be circumcised, eat kosher food, etc.

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  11. If Peter's vision in Acts 10 really mean "you can eat whatever the hell you want from now on", then the Jerusalem council 5 chapters later does not make any sense, don't you think?

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  12. Acts 10: "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. "

    It's pretty clear that Peter's vision had nothing to do with dinner!

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