Passion Chic
March 31, 2004 | 24 Comments
The film is the “most graphic portrayal of the beating and crucifixion of Jesus to date.” Indeed, some of its scenes are “graphic to the point of being gruesome” — showing “exactly how Jesus must have looked after being beaten, bloodied and broken, his beard plucked and his flesh hanging in ribbons from being whipped.” And yet it’s being marketed to youth groups, Sunday school classes and even elementary school students. Notwithstanding its violence the faithful are &”moved to tears&” by it, and its gore-caked message of “love” is so inspirational that this New York Press reviewer actually called it” the feel-good movie of the year.”
No, I’m not talking about The Passion. I’m talking about The Light of the World, by cranky comic book fundamentalist crackpot Jack Chick.
There are some superficial differences between Chick’s product and Gibson’s. Chick’s Light is not so much a movie as an art slide show. There’s no live action, just Ken Burns-style narration over a series of 360 oil paintings — fewer frames than there are in a single minute of the The Passion. But that’s where the dissimilarities end. Both movies preach that belief in Christ’s resurrection is the sole path to salvation, and that damnation awaits those who disagree. And while Chick’s rendering of the story has a Grimm’s fairy tale lunacy about it, Gibson’s Passion is chock-full of the same crazy magical comic book creatures: The Serpent, Mrs. Satan, and a Christ-avenging crow. If Chick painted the inside of Gibson’s head, it would look just like this:
Yet Jack Chick is regarded as a joke; he is, after all, cranky comic book fundamentalist crackpot hiding out in a Rancho Cucamonga basement churning out a zealous, fiery message of exclusion and hate. Part of it, I think, is that Chick has a particularized animus against Catholics and other groups which he expresses in colorful, politically incorrect terms. But Gibson’s view of the post-Vatican II is about the same and he thinks his own Protestant wife (and the Jews) are going to hell.
In sum, there is no difference between either message or either messenger. One is a cranky comic book fundamentalist crackpot, and the other is Jack Chick.
REMINDER: Don’t forget to enter the Atheist Jesus Poetry Contest! (Deadline for entries: Friday, April 2, 2004, 11:59 p.m. EST)
March 31st, 2004 @ 2:33 pm
Does Jack Chic have a pamphlet about Gibson’s Passion movie?
My favorite Chic pamphlet is the one where the Muslim guy gets converted to Christianity! He makes it look so easy to convert people…
I think its real unfortunate that, upon their death, Christians don’t consciously discover that their God is bullshit. They simply die; they dont actually realize that they are by that point non-existent, because by definition of non-existence, they cannot realize anything at that point.
March 31st, 2004 @ 7:15 pm
Cosmically ironic!!
March 31st, 2004 @ 8:52 pm
These Things I Half-Heartedly Believe
1. It probably wasn’t a good day for Bush the Elder to whine about intellectuals ruining our ongoing success in Iraq. 2. Department of Defense staffers are not cyborgs, because they need coffee. Coffee would corrode a cyborg’s vital circuitry….
March 31st, 2004 @ 11:10 pm
“most graphic portrayal of the beating and crucifixion of Jesus to date.” Indeed, some of its scenes are “graphic to the point of being gruesome” — showing “exactly how Jesus must have looked after being beaten, bloodied and broken, his beard plucked and his flesh hanging in ribbons from being whipped.”
The message is ‘believe in our god or this is what we’ll do to you’. Make people afraid and you can tell them anything.
April 1st, 2004 @ 9:51 am
ARGH! Landover Baptists has been shut down! Not only that, the bastards got Whitehouse.org, the official whitehouse parody site, and GeorgeWBush.org, the official campaign parody site!
These damned fascists are trying to control what we see and hear. So what if Landover Baptists were the first thing you saw if you looked up, “Church,” on google. They were lots of fun! Same with the other two sites, though they weren’t quite as popular. THIS IS CENSORSHIP!
Where will it stop? Will they take out Jesus’ General next?
April 1st, 2004 @ 10:05 am
Kevin!!
What the fuck…..? How did this happen?? anybody got details??
landover was one of my favorite pages…..and the whitehouse……
fucking shit! this is war! (where do i sign up??)
April 1st, 2004 @ 10:25 am
T’was all prophesied . . .
April 1st, 2004 @ 10:40 am
“Danger Will Robinson. Danger”
There are a lot of theists out there that would like to roll back the clock, and as Weird Al says,
April 1st, 2004 @ 11:06 am
Your tax dollars at work.
From the Landover Baptist Shutdown Webpage
http://zapatopi.net/cads/cads.php
April 1st, 2004 @ 11:27 am
I repeat: T’WAS ALL PROPHESIED.
April 1st, 2004 @ 12:14 pm
Yes, whitehouse.org and georgewbush.org have been taken back, but you could argue that they were deliberately misleading and guilty of ‘trademark’ infringement in the same way that other personalities and companies have taken back web domains based on their names and intended to mislead..
Landover Baptist is still in business – hosted by Objective Ministries!
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/index2.html
April 1st, 2004 @ 12:36 pm
Debbie,
Objective Ministries is a bunch of right-wing fundamentalists. The quote I gave above is from their website.
You could argue that whitehouse.org and georgewbush.org are deliberately misleading, but the argument would have to be that it is misleading only to people too dumb to recognize obvious parody. If these sites can be shut down on the basis that they are misleading then parody and free speech are dead in the US.
April 1st, 2004 @ 12:52 pm
Objective is a spoof.
There is a well established precedent for domain registrars taking domain names away from people who’s intent is to mislead
The content at georgewbush.org could be moved to a new site, say georgewbushisamoron.org, and any attempts to shut that down would be violation of free speech.
However they have shut down a bunch of parody sites for reasons other than the name. chickenhead.com is gone but bettybowers.com is still up. They are all run by the same parody group.
A full version of chickenhead’s home page with graphics is still in the google cache
April 1st, 2004 @ 1:11 pm
Hermesten,
I’m not saying I agree with the domains being taken back, I’ve just seen it done before by the registrars and so there is a precendent.
Interestingly a work colleague who is very right-wing (and a big GWBush fan) is disgusted that they would take these domains away from a parody site.
I hope the media gets hold of this and it may back fire. I’m sure many people had not heard of these sites and as they are such blatant parodies they would be amusing to democrats anyway.
April 1st, 2004 @ 1:23 pm
Heh. This is wonderfully convoluted, RA. I didn’t realize that people had quite that much time on their hands. If I’d had the ads allowed, and seen that Roy Moore for Prez ‘04 banner…
“We’re talking April, May, June, July and August Fool’s. We’re talking Jape of the decade…”
-Holly, Red Dwarf.
April 1st, 2004 @ 1:27 pm
There’s likely some other story behind the
The http://www.gwbush.com parody site is still there and that had the president’s full attention back in 1999. Here’s a WashingtonPost article on it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A55918-1999Nov28¬Found=true
Maybe its another landover/objective stunt that’s just too clever for us!
Debbie
April 1st, 2004 @ 2:14 pm
Ah! So that’s where that “Limits to freedom” quote came from. Thanks, Debbie. Now I can actually respond to people when they ask where he said it!
I can hardly believe anyone who said something like that got elected president, after saying it. Are we really that stupid? Wouldn’t we still be hearing the quote, if Al Gore had said it?
April 1st, 2004 @ 2:25 pm
Proof it’s a spoof from the website itself (those who have eyes, let them see, heh): http://objective.jesussave.us/progress.html#6-8-2000 here and scroll down; I saw this on the original Landover site… and get a load of this picture at http://objective.jesussave.us/babyj.html
this is some sophisticated stuff, you guys…. lol
April 1st, 2004 @ 6:38 pm
Didn’t hear about chickenhead.com. Whats that about?
April 24th, 2004 @ 2:37 pm
For people who think Christianity is bullshit, you people sure do spend a lot of your time bashing it…seriously, get a life.
April 24th, 2004 @ 4:32 pm
I find this funny coming from Derek, who said “true Christians don’t judge atheists”. Guess you aren’t a true Christian, then, are you? Not that I think anyone can be a ‘true Christian’, because they all follow a book riddled with contradictions, and that has requirements that are completely impractical with respect to daily life (see Leviticus and many other books besides). Most brands of Christianity are utter nonsense, and make claims which are illogical and/or can be empirically tested. Christianity HAS BEEN DISPROVED, at least the Protestant creeds. Since Catholics take the Bible allegorically, it’s a bit harder to challenge.
We bash Christianity because as a general belief system, it promotes hatred and intolerance, actively rejects reality and celebrates ignorance, and is used to manipulate people to achieve economic, political, and military power. As such, it is a danger to humanity and has every right to be criticized. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t good, honorable people who are Christian, it means that Christianity as a belief system is a problem. Yes, people should be able to believe what they want, but not when those beliefs include forcing them on everyone else.
April 28th, 2004 @ 5:54 am
I don’t see how Glorian can say that Christianity promotes hatred and is contradictary. Where’d you learn your Christian
doctrine? Oh wait, you didn’t, my bad. Before you rant, make sure you know what you’re talking about. Jesus said, “blessed
are the peace makers” Obviously hating doesn’t bring peace. Could this be one of the contradictions you wrote
about? No. Show me a verse in the bible that exhorts believers to hate and I’ll show you a misinterpreted verse.
Does the phrase “love your enemies” ring a bell? Some Christians are a little tooo zealous, I’ll give you that. But that’s not
because of Christianity, that’s because that particular person is boneheaded.
You want to believe that you’re born, you live, and you die. . .fine, your loss. But before you take shots at Christianity or
Judaism (the Pentateuch) make sure you know your stuff.
In my own opinion, you sound like you’re an extremely jaded person, angry at God for something. . .Maybe you weren’t
breast-fed as a child. Get over it.
April 28th, 2004 @ 12:45 pm
so, Paul……your version of god is all lovey-dovey…
so what?
April 28th, 2004 @ 1:02 pm
“I don’t see how Glorian can say that Christianity promotes hatred and is contradictary. Where’d you learn your Christian
doctrine? Oh wait, you didn’t, my bad.” Not only does this sound a bit petty and childish, but obviously YOU are ignorant of Christian theology. If you read the Old Testament, you would read a book replete with murder and hatred. I suppose you’ve never opened your Bible, have you? What about homosexuals? How could you call the Christian position anything but hateful and intolerant? As for contradictions, why don’t you go here:http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/errancy.shtml
I’ll just note that pi is NOT an even three, even if the bible says so (I Kings 7:23).
“Before you rant, make sure you know what you’re talking about. Jesus said, “blessed
are the peace makers” Obviously hating doesn’t bring peace. Could this be one of the contradictions you wrote
about? No.” It could if you eliminated everyone you hated, which is a fundie Christian goal. Even if you couldn’t read the line that way, I don’t CARE what a verse in the Bible says if everyone ignores it. Been avoiding shellfish lately (Lev 11:10)? What about women in their menstrual cycle (Lev 15:19-24)? No? Then it doesn’t always matter what the Bible says. The fact of the matter is, actual Christian theology is only roughly attached to the Bible in the first place, and I’m only concerned with what people do. Protestant Christian beliefs (I’m speaking generally, there may be exceptions) state that if a person does not accept Christ, they’re going to hell. Since the Christian God is also just, no one could be unfairly condemed, thus non-believers deserve it. Thus do you have your hatred and intolerance. Non-believers are servants of SATAN, who undermine the ‘true faith’. Because of the absolute nature of these beliefs, no one else can be right, so the church moves to convert or eliminate other religions. Even worse, standard doctrine holds that everyone has been offered God, and non-believers have ‘rejected’ him. No reason to feel compassion for people when they had a chance, right? This is all very straightforward, almost every Protestant I’ve met has TOLD me these things, so I’m not making it up. All of this follows, anyway. By the way, people who don’t share those beliefs aren’t Christian, as I’ve been told many times.
“Some Christians are a little tooo zealous, I’ll give you that. But that’s not
because of Christianity, that’s because that particular person is boneheaded.” A LITTLE zealous? Why don’t you read some history? Religion has a blood-stained history of terror, and that speaks volumes about ‘believers’. And I’ve already explained the standard Christian perspective, which follows logically (after a fashion) from their theology.
“In my own opinion, you sound like you’re an extremely jaded person, angry at God for something. . .Maybe you weren’t
breast-fed as a child. Get over it.” A) I didn’t ask for your opinion of me. B) It is completely irrelevant to the discussion how I came to my opinions or what my childhood was like. C) Why, then, would you say this? Is your argument so weak that you can, in the end, do nothing but fall back on insults? This statement seriously undermines your credibility.
To conclude, Protestant Christianity HAS BEEN DISPROVEN (a fact I notice you didn’t comment on). It IS a hateful and intolerant religion, and a threat to all who do not subscribe to it. It leads to a dangerous close-mindedness and an even more dangerous arrogance. Remember that I am not attacking individuals, I am attacking a religion, and the perspective and mindset it leads to. Unless you can provide good evidence to the contrary, I stand by my last post. I have quite a bit more I could say, but I’ll cut it off at that for now.