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04/02/2004: "Say what?"
Just got a look at the newsletter for the ECUSA's Washington diocese. Full of unintentional funniness, including this prize quote from the Rev. Bob Carlson, former canon of clergy development, talking about his qualms over The Passion:
I was embarrassed by this film. I think the fault of this film to me is the liberalism....It set up the good guys and the bad guys as the Jews and the Christians...which I totally reject.
Whatever you say, Bob.
Bob wasn't the only one with a, shall we say, novel reaction to the movie. The Rev. Andrew Walton of the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church said,
I feel like this movie is a great disservice to progressive theology. In many ways it drags us back to pre-Reformation days.
Uh, Mel's a conservative Catholic, Andy. Why do you think he gives a rat's tail for "progressive theology"?
Meanwhile, the Rev. Clark Lobenstine of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington demonstrated that he fell asleep during the credits:
There are more sympathetic Romans in this movie than Jews, which is crazy historically.
Clark, there's exactly one sympathetic Roman in this movie: Claudia, Pilate's wife. Sympathetic Jews: Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, John, Simon of Cyrene, Veronica (the woman who wipes Jesus' face on the Via Dolorosa), etc. You do remember that these individuals were Jewish, don't you Clark?
If you'd like some laughs, you can find the whole newsletter here (it's a PDF file, so you'll need Adobe Acrobat or some other PDF reader).
