The only way to read through those gruesome descriptions of sadistic punishment is to see them as wishful thinking, stuff of the imagination of a people tired of being abused and enslaved. The Old Testament writers are clearly getting back at all those people in power over them symbolically, or metaphorically. It you take them literally, they show a tribal loyalty that not only allows for savage destruction of entire villages and towns, but actually justifies genocide, rape (turning your daughters over to a mob to keep them from sodomizing your house guests), murder and enslavement. One of the greatest jokes ever perpetrated on the human race is the notion that one consults the Bible as a moral code. Sure there are passages that urge one to love one’s neighbor, to forgive one’s enemies and to sell all one has and give the income to the poor, but serious Christian folk, with precious few exceptions, recognize that as hyperbolic excess. The average Christian considers the Bible something to be read figuratively, not literally. To claim it should be read literally is to reveal to the world that you probably ought to be committed to the looney bin. Or at least that you have no clue the extent to which you're lying to yourself.
I was raised in a Christian environment, and most of the people I knew as a kid were decent folk. When you asked them about whether they really believed Lazarus was raised from the dead and Noah had two kangaroos on his ark next to two Tyrannosaurus Rex, they usually muttered that “that was a long time ago and nobody really knows what actually happened,” or “things were different then,” or “God had a different kind of relationship with the ancient Hebrews than he does with us.” Or possibly, “don’t bug me with those dumb questions.” I didn’t know anybody who was a literal fundamentalist. Those people crept into the culture (at least in my part of the country) long after I had left my small New England town.
Except the Catholics. They insisted that when the priest elevated the communion wafer and the goblet of wine they turned into the actual (sic!) body and blood of Jesus Christ. Which we were supposed to then swallow and digest. Yuck. The Lutherans of my youth hastened to inform me that Martin Luther had spotted that as some sort of science fiction, that what actually happened during Communion was that the Holy Spirit (whom we also regularly referred to as a ghost) came in, with and under the wafer and the wine. “This is my body” was not to be taken literally.
But they did. They really did, those Catholics. And they outnumbered the Protestants and the Jews among my closest friends, and I didn’t want to tell them what I really thought of that wacko notion, and held my tongue. Mostly. There were times when a “Are you out of your freakin’ mind?” may have slipped out.
And it wasn’t just the blood-drinking that I found bizarre. The prayers to Michael the Archangel that followed the mass also gave me pause. Asking him to “be our safeguard” against the “snares of the devil.” And - this part really got to me - “cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.” Really? You mean like trolls and leprechauns? What’s the difference between an angel and an evil spirit, by the way? And how does one spot them when one encounters them? Do only angels have wings?
I’m so very glad I tuned in the other night without bothering to read any reviews to Midnight Mass, written for Netflix by Mike Flanagan, just out this last Friday. I figured if it was a religious program I’d find out soon enough and turn it off. It took me a couple episodes to realize it was a friggin horror flick! Not only a horror flick, but a movie about vampires. I hate horror movies, and I have never understood the appeal of ghouls and other scary creatures. The U.S. political scene is enough to keep me awake at night. I don’t need blood and gore.
But it was a mesmerizing streaming experience, one of the most gripping and engrossing films I’ve seen in ages. I’m not sure I would recommend it to everybody. I think you kind of need to have a religious background to appreciate what it’s all about. I don’t think I can come up with anything I’ve ever seen to match it. It’s a cross between a horror film and a treatise on the philosophy of religion, particularly the concepts of morality, redemption and life after death.
I hope I’m not issuing a spoiler here by saying it can also be seen, if you’ve got a perverse sense of humor, as a satire on the way Christianity as a noble pursuit has been hijacked by hypocrites and phonies with non-religious goals, as a means of acquiring power and influence, much as the Republican Party has now hijacked American democracy for similar reasons.
The story takes place on a small island thirty miles from the mainland which has been devastated by an oil spill. Most of the inhabitants have left to seek their fortunes elsewhere, leaving a small closely-knit community whose only social life seems to be centered on the local Catholic Church. When the story begins, two characters, Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) and Erin Greene (Kate Siegel), one-time lovers, each with their own reasons for leaving, were back, Riley after serving four years in prison for killing a young girl after falling asleep at the wheel while drunk, and Erin after a troubled marriage and divorce. The central character, however, is the young priest who shows up with the information that their beloved regular priest, Monsignor Pruitt, has fallen ill on the mainland and he, Father Paul (Hamish Linklater), would be temporarily standing in. Nobody bothers to verify the information.
Three other characters play important roles in advancing the plot - the Muslim sheriff, Hassan (Rahul Kohli) - along with his son Ali (Rahul Abburi), who despite their conspicuously outsider status, are respected and liked except by Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan), a humorless tyrant of a woman who serves as a kind of lay deaconess at the church, an out-and-out anti-Muslim bigot. She is the kind of religious zealot that Saturday Night Live’s church lady (played by Dana Carvey) is meant to satirize.
At some point miracles start happening. First a young girl in a wheelchair gets up and walks. Then an old woman with dementia suddenly becomes her younger charming self again. Riley’s father, who has suffered for years with serious back problems is suddenly pain free.
To share more of the plot line is to ruin the experience of this edge-of-your-seat performance, so I’ll stop; I’ve already said far too much about what goes on. Despite a number of glaring anomalies - the fact that the village is 100% Roman Catholic and that mass includes one old fashioned Protestant hymn after another arranged by the Newton Brothers and sung with what is clearly professional voices - does not detract one whit from the narrative. The other major “anomaly” - if that’s what it is - that should be off-putting, but isn’t - are the long treatises on religion that the characters engage in from time to time, including a defense of Islam by Hassan against Christianity. They are serious topics, and would not be out of place in religious settings - which is why I said that the story would have greater appeal among the religiously informed.
The film is a life-long project of writer/director/producer Mike Flanagan (for background, see the excellent New York Times review by Darryn King from a few days ago here.) Flanagan, who grew up on an island (Governor's Island in New York Harbor), and is clearly working out some of his struggles with alcoholism and the fear that he could kill somebody when drunk and have to live out his life with the guilt - as well as his worldview as a relapsed Catholic. Flanagan is known for his horror films like The Haunting of Hill House, based on Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name and Dr. Sleep and The Shining by Stephen King, also of the same names. I’m still recovering from Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, which I first read many decades ago, and I couldn’t get through Stephen King’s novels on a bet, so Midnight Mass is likely to be my last horror experience for some time.
At least it doesn’t have monsters jumping out at you.
Well, maybe once or twice.
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