THE HONOUR OF GOD
Christians should get 'fussed' about 'The Last Temptation
of Christ', argues William Oddie CERTAIN aspects of The Last Temptation of Christ, said the Archbishop of Canter- bury before its release last week, 'cause great offence and distress' to Christians. So much is generally agreed by the Churches at the official level. Both Archbishop Runcie and Cardinal Hume have advised Christians not to see it. There, in general, the protests have stopped; the Cardinal, indeed, has advised people not to protest against the film or picket it. There has been no official call for the film to be banned. The general feeling seems to be that the mature thing to do is not to get too excited: in the words of the Rt Revd Thomas Butler, Anglican Bishop of Willesden, 'I don't think we need to get too fussed about it.' The editorial line in the Catholic Herald was that 'Christians have nothing to fear' from such films; 'they can make a protest by simply ignoring their existence'.
Certainly, there would, in any case, have been small likelihood of the organs of the state rushing to the Churches' defence had they come out with any harder line than this. The director of the British Board of Film Classification, Mr James Ferman, passing it for showing to audiences over 18, said that there was `no possibility that a jury would find it blasphemous'. It certain- ly seemed blasphemous to me and in the legal sense it surely was. It is a 'blasphe- mous libel' to 'reduce in stature' or 'de- grade' the person of Christ. But Mr Fer- man is probably right about the difficulty of getting a conviction. You can imagine the trial; there would be a long line of `expert witnesses' queuing up to agree with the critic of the Times that the film was 'serious, thoughtful, intelligent, reveren- tial' (shades of Lady Chatterley), and with that great theological luminary Sheridan Morley that 'it would require a mind so narrow as to be technically closed to through traffic to accuse Scorsese of cri- minal, or any other kind of blasphemy'.
The rejoinder that the first judgment is idiotic, the second itself open to accusa- tions of 'narrow-mindedness' would cut little ice in a court of law, particularly since there seems to be no consensus on the matter of blasphemy among Christians themselves. 'Blasphemy', said the Tablet, `presumes malice ,and there is no malice in this film.' As evidence for this, the Tablet adduces the fact that Scorsese once wanted to be a priest. I am not so sure; there is sometimes nobody more malicious towards his former beliefs than the renegade Catholic who has turned against the ortho- doxy of his childhood.
In any case, whether the film is malicious or reverential in its intention is irrelevant to the question of whether it is legally blasphemous or not. The real question is whether or not there ought to be any such offence as 'blasphemous libel' in law, and if there ought, whether that law should be invoked in this case. It is surely perverted reasoning to say that in a modern pluriform democracy there should be freedom of speech irrespective of other people's feel- ings. It was, indeed, precisely the need for safeguarding such feelings in a pluralist society that led Lord Justice Scarman to declare after Mrs Whitehouse's famous prosecution of Gay News that:
I do not subscribe to the view that the common law offence of blasphemous libel serves no useful purpose in the modern law. On the contrary, I think there is a case for legislation extending it to protect the reli- gious beliefs and feeling of non-Christians. The offence belongs to a group of criminal offences designed to safeguard the internal tranquillity of the kingdom.
'The religious beliefs and feelings of non-Christians' are probably, paradoxical- ly, currently better protected than those of Christians, simply by the existence of a general feeling that Moslems, say, actually take their religion seriously enough to make any attempt to insult that religion a risky business. In contrast, Christians, though theoretically better protected, are generally thought to be more apathetic. The reaction of the Churches has been interesting. Here is a film which without doubt causes 'offence and distress' to Christians; which portrays Christ as weak, inconsistent, mendacious ('I am a liar') and neurotic; and about which an Anglican bishop can nevertheless say on television, with smiling urbanity, 'I don't think we need to get too fussed about it.'
It seems to me that we need to try to understand that reaction far more than we need to understand Scorsese or Kazant- zakis. For, having seen the film. I find it difficult to imagine the mentality of a Christian who would not get 'fussed' about it. It might be that, having given the matter prayer and reflection, he would decide that Christian maturity enjoined calm. But for him to be able simply to say that it is a matter of indifference to him whether such things are propagated or not is a phe- nomenon of our times requiring some attention.
There are probably two reasons why the level of official outrage is so low. The first one is that nobody likes, especially these days, to be thought moralistic or censo- rious. Christian leaders have got it into their heads that they need to look 'posi- tive', and to avoid any appearance of telling people not to do things.
The second reason goes deeper. It has to do with a revolution within Western Christianity that has been going on for at least a hundred years, a symptom of which is a decay of the sense of the holy, of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of God. Despite many notable pockets of resist- ance, this decay has probably proceeded farthest within Anglicanism (though it exists everywhere); and it can be seen most obviously in a widespread trivialisation of the liturgy. The sense of God's immanence has grown (a good thing); but it has been at the expense of His transcendence. There may have been a decline in unhealthy pietism; but there has also been a decline of healthy piety. And it is surely a natural part of such a piety that it will fight for the things it holds sacred. Archbishop Thomas is made to say, in the film Becket, that in fighting the King he is fighting for 'the honour of God'. It is surely not to be a mindless fundamentalist to say that it is a deeply dispiriting thing that his modern descendants have so little stomach for such a battle.
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