For The Love of Dogma

Thank you all for your very persuasive comments on my last post. My sister has either not read my blog this weekend, or is deliberately ignoring our heartfelt pleas. Until I can discern which is the case, let's move on.

Friday night Husband and I caught "Dogma" on one of the movie channels. If you know anything about me, you don't have to extrapolate much to realize that I love that movie. I would like to marry that movie. If I wasn't already married, I would marry Kevin Smith because I love him for making that movie.

Within the first five minutes, two of the main characters touch upon pretty much every issue I have with faith, organized religion and ecclisiastical law.

One of the biggest problems that I have with Christianity, is the whole "washing away of sins" thing.

In the case of Catholicism, this comes in the guise of plenary indulgence. It's an interesting, if somewhat convoluted concept and Kevin Smith runs with it.

In a nutshell, two displaced angels, Loki and Bartelby (played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) have discovered a loophole (plenary indulgence) whereby they can get back into heaven.

The last Scion (played by Linda Fiorentino) is dispatched along with two prophets (played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) and Rufus, the forgotten black 13th apostle (played by Chris Rock and....snort), to stop them and thereby preserve the human race.

They try to persuade Cardinal Glick (played by George Carlin, how funny is that??) not to go through with the ceremony to celebrate the centennial of his church, during which he plans to offer plenary indulgence to anyone who seeks it, as part of a Catholic renaissance and public relations overhaul, in which they are also replacing the crucifix with "Buddy Christ" as the new Catholic icon.



Bartleby and Loki plan to take advantage of that blanket pardon, transform into humans by pulling off their wings and then die to ascend into heaven.

I think that's a fairly inventive plan.

Unfortunately, their success would cause an end to reality as we know it, since it functions on one very important principle, that being; God is infallible. To prove God wrong would subvert the very thing which allows existence in the first place.

You have to admit, it's a pretty interesting premise.

However, the movie is not for the easily offended. There's a lot of foul language, irreverence and questionable behavior on the part of supposedly divine individuals.

If you take those things very seriously, DO NOT watch the movie.

Remember, I warned you. I am not responsible for any indignation, outrage or crises of faith that might arise should you choose to watch this movie.

But if you're able to have a sense of humor about religion, watch it. It's fantastically funny and clever. Kevin Smith is a satirical genius.

I guess the reason this movie resonates with me so much is that it illustrates several very elementary obstacles to faith, all of which have proven completely impossible for me to overcome.

First, one has to believe that just by asking for forgiveness and accepting Jesus as one's savior, one becomes worthy of salvation.

This is something I just cannot wrap my mind around. I find it fundamentally illogical. A horrible person can spend his or her life being wretched and unkind and even murderous, and yet, all they have to do is accept Jesus and they are saved. Presto chango, they are now worthy to walk through the pearly gates. As far as I know, there is no disclaimer that says they have to mean it.

But a person who spends their lives being good and kind and generous will go to hell simply because they can't make that leap of faith? Or because they choose not to believe in a supreme or divine being?

Nope. That does not jive with me, for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that fact that it creates justification for judgementalism and promotes divisiveness among the human race.

Second, one must be willing to suspend belief and accept the Bible as a literal interpretation of historical events.

I just don't have the capacity for that kind of blind certainty. I am a born cynic, I guess. Tales of burning bushes and plagues and parting seas only serve to make me less inclined to put my faith in such a dubious account of theological history. Not to mention the fossil record, which sort of disproves the entire chapter of Genesis.

Third, one must ally one's self with a certain brand of Christianity in order to be embraced by a given denomination and deemed worthy of inclusion and church sanctioned approval. One has to be willing to denounce those who subscribe to different faiths as inferior. Worse...one has to believe in one's heart that they are damned and deserve it.

I think the Crusade thing, the Holocaust thing and the Jihad thing have effectively demonstrated the folly of that kind of bigotry. But still it persists. And Christians divide themselves into little enclaves of self-righteousness and piety when they could be living in harmony with one another. They shun other religions as heretical and condemn their followers as idolators, when they could be learning from one another.

In the movie, Serendipty, a muse, (played by Salma Hayek) says this:

"None of them have gotten it right. Because they have all failed to realize that it doesn't matter what kind of faith you have, as long as you have it."

Amen, I mean, er...Right On, sistah.