A Double-Bladed Axe: The Last Temptation of the Christ Cuts Both Ways

Robin Riley, writing in 2003, fifteen years after the release of Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, alleges that The Last Temptation “serves to sanction the persecution and victimization of religious conservatives.” The present piece finds the movie more enigmatic, contending that it may sit less comfortably with liberal Christian theologies that has been widely assumed. Five areas of tension will be explored. 1. The movie’s insistence on substitutionary atonement and blood sacrifice, an insistence ultimately articulated by a moribund Jesus. 2. Jesus’ explicit self-identification as God 3. The dualism of Jesus’ vision 4. The movie’s mythical purpose and ambiance. 5. Jesus’ encounter with St. Paul and implications for historical Jesus scholarship and progressive ecclesiology. The intention underlying this piece is not to fault the movie for the challenges it poses to the liberal theological commitments of this author but rather to acknowledge its theological complexity and to problematize the suggestion that the movie in itself, as opposed to reactions to it, consistently championed or attacked any clearly identifiable theological ilk.

First, I suggest that the movie endorses a view that the death of Jesus is willed by God. Jesus is a moribund figure whom we first encounter sleeping, in an arguable anticipation of death. Soon-after Jesus lugs the cross he has constructed for the gruesome execution of another man. Indeed, the movie oozes blood and is steeped in a culture or forensic sacrifice. The hand of death, that is, of the resuscitated Lazarus, strains to claim Jesus for the sepulchre. The first death of Lazarus and Jesus’ own eventual death are connected by the same shrill, blood-curdling keening. Jesus is prone to visits from beyond the grave with the master of the monastery, John the Baptist in the desert and Isaiah in Jerusalem. The script is explicit in its insistence upon the necessity of Jesus’ death. Jesus exclaims, “I have to be crucified. I have to be resurrected to save the world. Death is the door”, and in the movie’s final moments, “I want to be crucified.” I contend that the movie advances the position that God wills the passion and death of Jesus. This is conveyed principally through the demonization of the contrary position. When Jesus in his reverie escapes Golgotha, he asks “I don’t have to be sacrificed?”, the angel, who it transpires is Satan, responds “No, you don’t. God gave you life” and then “Your Father is the God of mercy, not of punishment. God stopped Abraham. He doesn’t want your blood.” Hence Satan endorses what a progressive theologian could easily have written. By way of example I point to Kathryn Tanner’s incarnation model of atonement. Tanner argues that the cross is not the will of God. Rather it is the very antithesis: the culmination of resistance to the mission of Jesus. In Tanner’s view, the ultimate impediment to Jesus’ mission has been mistaken for the mission itself. For Tanner, there is nothing of God in the plan to crucify Jesus. Rather, the divine is to be found in Jesus’ utter refusal to compromise his integrity despite the obstacle of the cross. Such as a view finds support in Moltmann’s image of the God who suffers the cross rather than mandating it from some safe vantage point in heaven and in Katherine Keller’s position that not only Jesus’ death but his life and teaching are salvific. Keller reflects upon the Christian creeds such as that espoused at Nicea and notes the emphasis on Jesus death and lack of reference to his salvific life. By way of contrast, in Last Temptation, Jesus’ life and teaching are not enough. Within the world of the movie, Jesus’ death is not an accident of history. It is more than the resistance of systemic evil to Jesus’ call for change. As Jerusalem burns, Judas leaves us in no doubt that Jesus has to die. “It is accomplished” only by the death of Jesus.

Second, the Jesus of Last Temptation, although tortured by a complex love-hate relationship with God, refers explicitly to this divinity in a way the Jesus of the canonical gospels never does. Pre-empting Chalcedon and Nicea, this Jesus roars at a high priest, “When I say ‘I’, Rabbi, I’m saying God!”, and later with reference to the coming of God, “He’s already here. I’m here.” The Jesus of the synoptic Gospels never makes such an explicit self-identification with God, preferring the ambiguous title, Son of Man. Even John’s Gospel with its high Christology and I-statements stops of such a direct claim. While Last Temptation undoubtedly portrays a human, carnal Jesus, its Christology is complex and enigmatic, posing a challenge to progressive Christianity’s claim, exemplified by the position of Marcus Borg, that the assertion of Jesus’ divinity gradually emerged from decades of reflection by the nascent Church upon the Resurrection experience. A further challenge to liberal Christology is evidenced by Jesus’ shift in emphasis from a message of love to the message of the axe. This leads us to the dualism evident in Dafoe turned Jesus.

At prayer in Gethsemane, Jesus refers to “the world we can see and the world we can’t”. I argue that Jesus’ mission in Last Temptation is more concerned with the invisible world. During the sermon on the mount, Jesus is more concerned with justice than “bread” but never explicates a connection between the two, that is, a concern for distributive justice, as though the justice in question is more eschatological than social. He exclaims that those who mourn will not need the comfort of people because they will have God to comfort them. Again, there is no implication that God might work through the compassion of humanity. This Jesus is not concerned with “freedom for Israel” but with “freedom for the soul”. Indeed, the movie is arguably more concerned with souls than bodies. The funeral prayers for the master of the monastery speak of the liberation of the soul from a redundant body. Lazarus returned from death is not quite possessed of le Joie de vivre and remarks cryptically of the difference between life and death, “Is there much difference?” Arguably, the movie takes a dim view of life, the body and sexuality. The married, widowed Jesus maintains moral stature until his implied tryst with Martha while Mary is away. This adultery is casually implied as though it for one who longed for marriage and children, it is the next logical digression down a slippery slope. The Jesus of “life in abundance” as advocated by Christian humanists such as Richard Rohr or Henri Nouwen is nowhere to be found in Last Temptation.

Stern et al write that “we find Scorsese quietly demythologizing the most important cultural icon in the history of the West.” On the contrary, I argue that Last Temptation is mythical both in ambiance and in purpose. The ambiance is infused with mythical symbols drawn from scripture and from the Catholic tradition: apple trees, serpents, stigmata, the innuendo of wine turning to blood at the last supper, Jesus’ exposition of what is impliedly the “sacred heart”, and Jesus’ miraculous surgery on the ear of the high priests’ servant. Also, the quotation from Kazantzaki’s novel as cited in the opening credits , suggests a mythical purpose for the movie. Claude Levi-Strauss argues that myth reflects a struggle between binaries. In this case, it is a dualistic struggle between spirit and flesh that is at stake. As noted by Paul Ricoeur, myth serves an etiological purpose, exposing in narrative form some existential tension and probing into its origins. In this sense, the movie is a myth. I must concede however that this point is not such a challenge for liberal theology since students of Bultmann have long realized that demythologizing always gives rise to re-mythologizing.

Finally we turn to the encounter with St. Paul in Jesus’ final reverie. Paul is portrayed unsympathetically as a liar whose style of delivery is hammy and impliedly manipulative. He smugly declares, “I created the truth out of what people needed and believed” and later, “Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah - not you! My Jesus is much more important and much more powerful.” This is a second instance in which the movie comes close to caricaturing positions held by progressive theologians and Jesus scholars. The distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith has been emphasized by Adolf von Harnack, Hans Kung, John Dominic Crossan, Walter Kasper and countless other scholarly voices operating both within and without the bounds of ecclesiological orthodoxy. Jesus’ encounter with Paul in Last Temptation casts this distinction is a most cynical light, implying not a gradual and authentic development of doctrine but downright deceit. It is a credit to this enigmatic movie however, that the scene remains sufficiently ambiguous to resist degeneration into outright parody of a position held by liberals that maintains a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Such a parody may have curried some favor with conservative critics of the movie, had it been offered.
In conclusion, it may be a tribute to Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ that, while the movie has widely publicized for its challenges to what be regarded as conservative theology, it is no mere vehicle for what might be regarded as liberal theology. On the contrary, it faces liberal theology with a host of challenges. 1. The movie casts critical light on incarnational theologies that seek to emphasize the value of Jesus life and not only his death. 2. It presents a Jesus who struggles in his relationship with the deity but who openly asserts his own divinity, far exceeding the claims of the canonical gospels. 3. In contrast with creation theology, a sacramental emphasis on the co-presence of the divine in all that is, and a concern for social justice in the here and now, Last Temptation reveals Jesus as a dualist who is more concerned with souls, the invisible world and death. 4. The movie serves the etiological purpose of a myth rehearsing in narrative form the existential struggle between spirit and flesh. In addition, the mise-en-scène is littered with symbolism derived from mythology. 5. The movie casts in a cynical light the distinction between the historical mission of Jesus and post-resurrection developments. Jesus’ encounter with Paul implies that the Christ of faith, when distinguished from biolographical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth, is the product of deceit rather than authentic theological development. The fact that progressive Christians for the most part refrained from protesting may stand as testimony to their openness to challenge and critique.