[Mb-civic] Should one be able to joke about The Crucifixion?

[Ian]

Alex et al:

As the resident minister (LOL), I can state unequivocally that any Christian 
who considers any aspect of Christianity "taboo" re humor does not 
understand the faith.  Certainly humor that denigrates a person's faith - or 
their strongest-held belief system - is, or at least can be, more hurtful 
than other types of humor.  This would seem to suggest that such humor be 
kept to a minimum, and not be used in a malicious, spiteful or deliberately 
hurtful manner.  I think there is a line between satiric or irreverent on 
the one hand, and insulting and profane on the other.

But satire is what satire is, and any Christian who gets his/her back up 
over the satirization of any aspect of Christianity, including the 
crucifixion, is one whose has more "doubt in faith" than strength. 
"Humility" alone would preclude a "back up" response.  Add in forgiveness 
and patience, and this would preclude resentment or anger as well.

All of that said, this does not mean that a Christian would not have the 
right to forego any particular comedian's act if the Christian felt that 
such comedian's humor was insulting or profane.

Peace.

P.S.  I loved Life of Brian.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alexander Harper" <harperalexander at mail.com>
To: <MB-Civic at islandlists.com>
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 8:39 AM
Subject: [Mb-civic] Should one be able to joke about The Crucifixion?



Miles Kington: The Crucifixion Considered as a Subject for Humour

If anyone said there was one thing that should never be joked about, it was 
a clear sign that they had secret fears in that particular area

Published: 08 May 2006

The humorous writer George Mikes once wrote a book about humour in which at 
one point he dared to approach the topic that people seem to find so 
alluring without ever being able to solve: are there any subjects which 
should never be joked about? Are there things which are so taboo or so holy 
or so sacrosanct that they are beyond humour?

George was clear in his own mind about this. He said unequivocally that 
nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Nothing should ever be placed in 
quarantine from satire. He went further and said that if anyone ever said to 
you that there was one thing that should never be joked about, it was a 
clear sign that the person who said it had secret fears in that particular 
area.

(Later in the book George Mikes unwittingly and rather unexpectedly breaks 
his own rule, or at least gives himself away, when he says that there is one 
thing you should never joke about: physical deformity. Did that mean that 
George himself had secret fears about his body? He certainly was quite 
small, and slightly hunched, but it never occurred to me on a slight 
acquaintance that there was anything particularly odd about him. Or worth 
being fearful about. But who knows the truth, when it comes to other 
people's secret fears?)

This is by way of a return to a subject I raised last week, which was the 
suitability or otherwise of the Crucifixion as a subject for irreverence. 
(Interesting, by the way, that we always say "the Crucifixion" and not 
"Jesus's Crucifixion", as if nobody else had ever been crucified, just as 
people always say "the Holocaust" and not "the Jewish Holocaust" or "Nazi 
Holocaust", as if there had never been any other holocaust. Yet even on the 
same day as he died, Jesus was not the only victim of this horrible method 
of execution...)

Enough shilly-shallying. Let us face the question squarely. Can you be 
irreverent, or even humorous about the Crucifixion?

And of course the question has already been answered for me by Monty Python, 
in the closing sequence of Life of Brian, where Eric Idle and other 
assembled biblical people on crosses sing the jolly yet utterly banal little 
song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". This is so incongruous and 
so far from the normal austere, pain-ridden image of the Crucifixion that 
you cannot help laughing at the sheer pointlessness of it.

Monty Python was not the first to take the Passion lightly, however. Billy 
Connolly had already aroused controversy years before with a routine about 
Christ's last days on earth, retelling the story as a mighty three-day 
piss-up in Glasgow, with Jesus being portrayed as a local hard man called 
the Big Yin.

And over a hundred years ago the French enfant terrible Alfred Jarry had 
retold the story as a sporting event in: "The Crucifixion Considered as an 
Uphill Bicycle Race", with the opening line: "Barabbas, one of the 
favourites, had scratched from the race just before the start". It's a 
vigorous though muddled tale, because there are in truth not many parallels 
between the Crucifixion and a bicycle race, but it struck J G Ballard enough 
for him to write a pastiche of it called "The Assassination of John 
Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race", which I think is 
actually funnier.

Nor can I get out of my memory a true story which appeared years ago in the 
satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné. They reported that rehearsals had 
been taking place in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for a Passion 
play. Apparently, according to the Canard, the main rehearsal was well under 
way, with the actor playing Jesus already fastened to the Cross, when a 
sudden fierce rainstorm swept across the open ground and sent all the actors 
scurrying for cover. All, of course, except for Jesus, who was trapped on 
the cross in near-nakedness, and could do nothing except shout after them: 
"You bastards! You bastards!"

What an awe-inspiring image.

I hope to return to this subject tomorrow, unless I am struck down by a 
thunderbolt before then. Still, it never happened to Jarry, Connolly or the 
editor of the Canard, so I live in hope.


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