PORTUGUESE TIMES - New Bedford, Mass.

MEMORANDUM

João Luís de Medeiros

A passional Event
("The Passion of the Christ")

1 - "A page of history is worth a volume of logic."
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Would you be willing to accept an invitation to participate in a very humble
but rejoicing task? Let's start by questioning the "echoes" of the unknown.
Be at peace: you don't have to be, necessarily, a credentialed academic guru
to become aware that human ignorance is an opaque veil which separates us
from Infinitude. Theologians remind us "the larger the island of knowledge,
the longer the shoreline of wonder". Historically, religion continues to be
viewed as the effort of humankind to bring some order (cosmos) into the
universal experience of disorder (chaos).
Is religion free of fear? Who knows? I came here, my friends, just to
compare thoughts, not to display certainties. I tend to believe that
individuals are made not only by what they acquire, but by what they resign.
It seems to be hard to find a solid bond between finitude and freedom. Human
beings still need religion as a necessary spiritual "band-aide", or
psychological aspirin. As long as humankind does not discover the ultimate
answer for its transitional destiny, the religious phenomenon continues
being a favorable ingredient for public alienation.
Personally, I don't feel prepared to responsibly dissect the inevitable
ideological repercussions ignited by "memories" vividly and graphically
portrayed on "The Passion of the Christ". Direct or indirectly, people are
condemned to become participants of a cultural revolution... Needless to
insist that Judaism and Christianity are historically intertwined: Calvary
means to Christians what Mount Sinai and Exodus mean to Jews. The real root
of both faith is Jewish: Jesus was and always remained a Jew; Jesus's
mother, father, the disciples - all Jewish.

2 - Does political messianism represent
a threat to democracy?

Yes, that¹s one of my civic concerns. Meanwhile, I would like to suggest a
brief revisitation to recent history: Thomas Jefferson sought liberty in the
twin formulas of privatizing religion and secularizing politics; based upon
this principle, religious privatization is the bargain we must strike to
attain religious freedom for all. In his famous1802 letter to the Danbury
Baptist Association, Jefferson wrote:
"... religion is a matter which lies solely between a man and his God, that
he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship,that the
legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions (... )
hence I contemplate a wall of separation between church and state."

My friends: we can not rush nature, and truth should not be enforced
because of its relative impact under the umbrella of human uncertainty. It
would certainly be ridiculous to attempt to "westernize" pygmies forcing
them to wear a British tuxedo. I tend to sustain that, when a finite
intelligence tries arrogantly to borrow its share near Infinitude, it is
perhaps acceptable to expect that there is a chance for some sort of
spiritual "blindness".
I was raised as Christian. Christianity teaches us how to appreciate the
nostalgia of the future: present moment is a quasi ignored slave-step
towards the immortality... I would venture to stress that such a type of
pious nostalgia creates a false optimism which could undermine and even
postpone change...(?) Some religions (fanatically zealous of their own
momentum) confidently expect the future to continue as the present.
Have you already decided to see the movie? Would you comparatively be able
to understand the intensity of God's suffering? Are you prepared to
challenge Boston's University Paula Fredriksen, who argued in the New
Republic last fall that not a single Jew, not even the corrupt high priest
and Roman collaborator Caiaphas mentioned in the Gospels, had anything
material to do with Jesus' crucifixion"...?
Here, surrounded by the silent mountains of the CoahellaValley, I keep my
endless fight against the winds of religious intolerance and consented
ignorance. My personal gospel seems different and rather auspicious. If I
may, let me clarify my benign delirium: we do need a New Bill of Rights to
Leisure. The Right to Intimacy; the Right to Travel; the Right to Sexual
Fulfillment; the Right to Peace; and even the Right to be Unique... Why? Why
not?...
Finally, one more question, presented as an intellectual "manna", or "food
for thought": - Is it our first priority to improve what we have already
understood, or are we here (on Earth-Calvary) just continueborrowing outside
powers for our explicable collective failures...?

Rancho Mirage, California - March, 2004

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