The Last Temptation of Christ: thoughts on Blasphemy Day

I thought I'd take time on Blasphemy Day to remember one particular work of art that has often been declared blasphemous, both as a book and a movie:  The Last Temptation of Christ.

I find it, frankly, a telling indictment of modern Christianity that Scorsese's movie, flawed as it was, was pretty much a box office flop --

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it grossed a bit over 8 million domestic (even by 1988 standards, that's not too hot). The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's snuff porn flick? 370 million.
The Last Temptation, both as a novel and a movie, attempted to show a very human Christ coming to terms with his mission. He's real. He has doubts; he's afraid. He's a guy who farts, and has bad moods, and feels pain. He's called to save humanity, and mostly he just wants to kiss the girl. He rebels, running from his mission for as long as he can, until it catches up and he can't escape. His discussions with his friend and eventual betrayer, the Zealot Judas, alone make the book and the movie worth one's time.

He's intensely human, and that makes the whole story beautiful and moving. Even as an atheist, and even as someone who isn't impressed on some levels with the Jesus myth, the story gets me every time. I feel this guy's agony. And no, Mel, it isn't the agony of whips and chains and the cross. He is human, and knows the pain that can come from that. He is more human than the body that Mel Gibson fantasy-beats to shreds could ever hope to be.

Back when the Last Temptation came out, I had a classmate who simply noted that, if it truly represented what Christianity was, she might be tempted to believe. I didn't quite agree, but I understood the feeling.

The book? Frequently banned for its blasphemy. After all, it shows Jesus having carnal thoughts! It's wicked! It suggests Our Lord might have had a hard-on or two!

The movie? Protested. In fact, the anger against the movie was so intense that it actually led to a terrorist attack -- a molotov cocktail attack on a theater in Paris. The movie is still banned in some countries.

I'm tempted to point to that attack and say, "Thus the price of the idea of blasphemy." But mostly I think about how a beautiful story has been reviled and smashed down, and a far uglier one has succeeded on a huge scale. Blasphemy as a concept, and as a subject of laws, is an ugly, thuggish tactic to silence. It's probably not a coincidence that, so often, it serves to uphold ugly, thuggish ideas.