There is a great uproar about the proposed changes to Canada’s tax laws that grant credits to the makers of films in this country. Charles McVety, an evangelical political lobbyist, who also runs a Christian college with tax-exempt status is boasting that it is his influence that led to the proposed changes that many fear will lead to a form of censorship, since the Heritage Minister would be able to reject applications for tax credits if a film’s content does not meet moral standards or in otherwise not in the public interest (see by rather long post on McVety here).
One of the interesting things about the proposed changes to Bill C-10 is that Canadian film makers would have to be VERY PICKY about which biblical stories they wish to depict and how true to the text they would have to make their films.
Here is a bit from the Globe and Mail’s story:
Canadian Heritage officials confirmed yesterday they will be “expanding slightly” the criteria used for denying tax credits to include grounds such as gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group. More details are promised next week.
Would the content of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ have received a passing grade if made in Canada under the proposed new rules?
It’s level of violence goes WAY beyond the level of violence of any of the New Testament gospels. An what of the Bible itself? Loads of gratuitous violence. Check out my slowing coming to completion list of 21 Really Badass Bible Passages. Here is one that will feature in a later installments:
Numbers 31:11-33
And they took all the spoil and all the prey, both of man and of beast. And they brought the captives and the prey and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan opposite Jericho. And Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp. And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. And Moses said to them, “Have you spared all the women? “Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. “But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. “… Now the booty that remained from the spoil which the men of war had plundered was 675,000 sheep, and 72,000 cattle, 34 and 61,000 donkeys, 35 and of human beings, of the women who had not known man intimately, all the persons were 32,000.2.
If a modern author told a story like that in which the heroes did these kinds of things, the religious right would be up in arms! Where the hell is the “educational” content here? What about Hosea 13:16?
Samaria will be held guilty, For she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their little ones will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open.
Does it really have to get into the murder of expectant mothers? Remember, this too, is meant to be a “good” thing, since it is God’s judgment. Examples of this kind of thing can be multiplied ad nauseum.
Judges 21:10-23 And the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there, and commanded them, saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. “This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man.” And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Then the whole congregation sent word and spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them. Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; yet they were not enough for them. And the people were sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. Then the elders of the congregation said, “What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?” They said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel. “But we cannot give them wives of our daughters.” For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying, “Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.” So they said, “Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south side of Lebonah.” And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch; and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards and each of you shall catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. “It shall come about, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we shall say to them, ‘Give them to us voluntarily, because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle, nor did you give them to them, else you would now be guilty.’” The sons of Benjamin did so, and took wives according to their number from those who danced, whom they carried away.
And what about more explicit sex? What is “educational” about this?
Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. The firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed.” They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose. It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed.” They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger arose, and lay with him. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus both of Lot’s daughters were with child by their father. The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. The same is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. The same is the father of the children of Ammon to this day (Gen. 19: 30-37).
So, two girls get pregnant by their father. Besides the sin of incest, the story is linking the eponymous ancestors of two neighboring nations to the offspring of these illicit sexual liaisons. Is this not denigrating identifiable groups, essentially calling their fore mother a “Father-fucker”? Of course, they are no longer identifiable groups today, but the point can still be made. This story is essentially hate literature. And what of the kidnapping and forced marriage of the women of Benjamine in Judges
Ah, it gets smuttier: (Ezekiel 23:13-21)
“So she increased her harlotries. And she saw men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with belts on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, like the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. “When she saw them she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. “The Babylonians came to her to the bed of love and defiled her with their harlotry. And when she had been defiled by them, she became disgusted with them. “She uncovered her harlotries and uncovered her nakedness; then I became disgusted with her, as I had become disgusted with her sister. “Yet she multiplied her harlotries, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. “She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. “Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth.
Is that all prurient voyeurism really necessary to describe the religious apostasy of a city (Jerusalem)?
Dr. Jim is hardly an advocate of censorship, so I won’t advocate banning the Bible by any means. But this book is distributed to kids, and churches get a tax break to preach from it. What good comes from any of this? I think it is time for folks to get a strong voice against censorship, no to mention tax concessions to religious groups that have only their own ideological and political agendas in mind.
