Harp of Hyperion

Critical Response: Its a Wonderful Life is a Gnostic Redemption Story

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 22:54:41 GMT

Critical Response:

It’s a Wonderful Life

· Context

This film was made shortly after the end of WWII, and therefore not only reflects this experience in the lives of the characters – there is also, arguably, a certain reflexivity upon the careers of James Stewart and Frank Capra: Both of these gentleman probably felt empowered to make a film about a character who was not allowed to go to war (George Baily is 4f) precisely because they knew their public would have known that the star, James Stewart, had actually put his career on hold to go to war, and the director, Capra, had made a contribution with his “Why We Fight” documentaries. The film, although garnering some Oscar nominations, nevertheless had a rather tepid reception from audiences and critics alike.

· Critical Response

o What information about the making of the film or about the time in which it was produced is important for your interpretation?

There are two items about the time in which this film which was produced which influence my interpretation of it:

· In Capra’s earlier movie “Meet John Doe”, we have another character who is willing to sacrifice himself in order to benefit others. The differences between the responses to this act in the two different films has intriguing implications for the differing spirituality in the two films (which I will address below).

· Being as this film was made shortly after World War II, and the Nag Hammadi library was not discovered until 1945, and not popularly known about at the time, this also has implications on my interpretation of this work – which I will go into below.

· Analysis

Frank Capra directed and co-wrote, and the most prominent stars were James Stewart, Donna Reed, and Lionel Barrymore. The writing is simple and direct; the acting naturalistic. As with many films of the era, the use of the camera and the editing are most noticeable for their lack of notice-ability: there are few startling or disjunctive shots or edits: it is a professional product of Hollywood’s golden age. Besides the use of the Charleston in one pivotal sequence, the repeated use of the song “Buffalo Gals” in various contexts (usually associated with George Bailey’s relationship with Mary), and some Christmas carols which occur in the “present-time” sequences, there is little memorable about the use of music and sound effects.

That being said, the structure of the story is rather unconventional: The story begins in media res with the protagonist, as yet unseen, being prayed for by a number of different people in a number of different sections of the town. We then have a brief sequence in some heavenly pleroma where angelic voices discuss these prayers. This leads to an extended flashback, which takes up about 2/3rds of the movie, while the heavenly beings recount, periodically in voiceover, the major events of George Bailey’s life which have led to his current crisis, and, significantly, to a large number of people being concerned on his behalf. The story returns to the “current” chronology, as George Bailey contemplates jumping off the local bridge. The angel Clarence intervenes, and in the course of the subsequent conversation, decides to provide George Bailey with an experiential insight – which leads to the movies most bravura sequence: a fifteen minute excursion into an alternate reality – whose alterations are given impact by the number of changes to aspects of the town of Bedford Falls which have been established, almost subliminally, in the course of the previous flashback sequence. Finally, there is a return to the continuity apparently a little before the intervention of Clarence, with events leading to a hopeful conclusion.

This complexity of structure, (although not a patch on the complexity of Citizen Kane), might explain something of why the film didn’t fair well on its initial release: to an audience used to films proceeding directly and blandly in chronological sequence, this film, with its flashes forward and back in time, with a parallel-reality side-trip thrown in for good measure, could have been quite disconcerting. Also, since the specific crisis which gives rise to the lengthy flashback isn’t revealed until near its end, the viewer, seeing this movie for the first time, might wonder about the relevance of the various episodes in the flashback – although all these episodes eventually prove to be important exposition for the ultimate crisis and resolution of the narrative. This is truly a movie which improves on subsequent viewings: when one already knows the “Pottersville” sequence, one can more fully appreciate why the various sequences in the extended flashback are necessary – but, without knowing this sequence, the viewer might begin to wonder why things like Zuzu’s petals or Nick the bartender are worthy of screentime.

· Religious and Theological Issues

This film imagines the world to be a balance between the poor and the disenfranchised (the “mob” whom Potter disdains and George Bailey defends), business men of integrity (George Bailey) and powerful interests whose actions are primarily directed by the lust for power, wealth, and acquisition for its own sake (Potter). The film advocates for the virtues of the small businessman, as exemplified by George Bailey, who, instead of seeking always and only to maximize profits, also tries to benefit the less fortunate as well.

Moreover, there is a heavenly sphere which keeps track of the lives of individuals, and sometimes intercedes directly in times of crisis. This heavenly sphere seems to take especial note of the worthy in particular, those whose actions have led to many people requesting just such an intercession …. But, significantly, this intercession does not take the form of the heavenly agent solving the problem by performing a miracle (i.e. making the missing amount of money just instantly appear), but rather, at least in this instance, by providing experiential insight and knowledge which helps the individual understand more fully the context and implications of their own actions.

This worldview is, by on large consistent with my own: my only proviso is that the moral fiber of people is perhaps a little too precisely oriented on socio-economic lines in this film. I have observed that very wealthy people can have moral fiber and good values, just as much as George Bailey – Mr. Potter is not descriptive or typical of all wealthy people. And the George Baileys of the world and his customers are not, alone, the sole bastions of virtue, nor are they, usually, utterly free of vice and cupidity, themselves. Long and short, the values that Bailey and Potter exemplify are, in the real world, just as likely to be embodied by people of any socio-economic level.

As for whether there is a heavenly pleroma who directly intercede in our affairs – such might occur, but, if it does, it never has done so, to my knowledge, within my own experience. That being said, the idea that such an intercession takes the form of experiential insight as opposed to direct working of salvific miracles is entirely compatible with my own cherished value of individual responsibility: ultimately, George Bailey is saved not so much by Clarence as by his own choice, his own decision. This decision is, admittedly, informed by the insight that Clarence has provided of what the world would be like without George Bailey – but, ultimately, George is saved by making the choice to take personal responsibility for his own actions, (and the actions of those whom he is charge of supervising: namely, his uncle’s failure to safeguard the deposit). By taking this responsibility, he opens up the possibility of being saved, in turn, by the townspeople contributing to make up the shortfall. This is the double-sided aspect of personal responsibility: one is answerable for one’s mistakes, but also has the right to the reward for one’s virtues.

o How might you use this film in educational activities?

As a scholar interested in the history of religion and world religions, my interest is primarily oriented to how film can be used as an interface to help explain belief systems which may seem strange or novel to the average layperson, in terms they can relate to.

I think this film can serve this purpose, admirably.

Consider: is this a truly Christian film in its worldview?

One way to address this question is by contrast with the final sequence in Capra’s “Meet John Doe”, in which the protagonist, in order to redeem the cause he has come to stand for, contemplates committing suicide by jumping off city hall on Christmas eve. He is saved from this fate by his love interest giving the following speech:

Please don't give up. We'll start all over again. Just you and I. It isn't too late. The John Doe movement isn't dead yet. You see, John, it isn't dead or they [Norton's group] wouldn't be here. It's alive in them. They kept it alive by being afraid. That's why they came up here. Oh, darling!...We can start clean now. Just you and I. It'll grow John, and it'll grow big because it'll be honest this time. Oh, John, if it's worth dying for, it's worth living for. Oh please, John...You wanna be honest, don't ya? Well, you don't have to die to keep the John Doe ideal alive. Someone already died for that once. The first John Doe. And he's kept that ideal alive for nearly 2,000 years. It was He who kept it alive in them. And He'll go on keeping it alive for ever and always - for every John Doe movement these men kill, a new one will be born. That's why those bells are ringing, John. They're calling to us, not to give up but to keep on fighting, to keep on pitching. Oh, don't you see darling? This is no time to give up. You and I, John, we...Oh, no, no, John. If you die, I want to die too. Oh, oh, I love you.

Clearly, then, we have a very Christian message: it is not necessary to sacrifice our own lives in order to be redeemed; that has already been done by virtue of the sacrifice of Jesus. Salvation is found via vicarious identification with that sacrifice. Consequently, for a Christian, one’s duty, then, is to continue to strive to live by the values that Jesus taught, fully knowing that one will receive opposition as a result.

However, when we look at “It’s a Wonderful Life”, in a parallel sequence, when George Bailey contemplates suicide, Clarence stems this impulse by using George’s tendency towards self sacrifice by jumping in the river himself: He saves George by creating the appearance that it is Clarence who is most in need of immediate salvation. (That being said, did Clarence really need to be saved? When the bridge attendant fishes them out of the drink, Clarence seems to be doing just as good a job of treading water as George).

Having thus stirred George out of his immediate self-absorption, Clarence effects his salvation, not so much by offering to be the stand-in for George – whereas John Doe accepts Jesus sacrifice as obviating his obligation to make a similar sacrifice. Nor does Clarence work up a miracle to give George the missing money.

What does he provide? He provides George a mystical, experiential insight into how good his life has been, and how considerably poorer the world would be without him. In other words, salvation is found, in this movie, not so much by direct miraculous intercession, not by some other person coming forward to sacrifice themselves (or having done so in the past), but rather, through mystical, experiential knowledge. And what is the Greek word for that? Gnosis.

According to Prof. Greg Riley, the key elements of Gnosticism are the idea of a heavenly pleroma, the motif of the journey of the soul, and salvation through mystical experiential knowledge. I think all of these elements are evident in this film:

We definitely have a pleroma – the heavenly dialogue sequence indicates a hierarchically arranged group of semi-divine powers, who take an interest in human affairs.

An example of the Gnostic idea of journey of the soul and salvation through knowledge are found in the “Hymn of the Pearl”, in which a prince is sent to save a pearl, stolen from his kingdom. He becomes enmeshed in the material world, but is saved when a messenger arrives, reminding him of his true nature. He is redeemed by this knowledge, or gnosis, and then is able to redeem the missing pearl.

Similarly, George Bailey, has spurned the efforts and temptations of Potter (a man enmeshed by the material, as evidenced by his greed) to either bring an end to the Saving & Loan, or, later, to co-opt George Bailey by putting him on his payroll. However, George is finally about to succumb to Potter’s observation that George is worth more dead than alive, when heavenly forces decide to intervene. Clarence acts as a messenger, giving George Bailey experiential knowledge of the quality of his life and of how important he has been to others in Bedford Falls, by showing him how the world would be different without him. George is empowered by this knowledge to resist this final temptation of Potter’s.

And what is the “pearl” in this narrative? I think it is the sense of community. The key characteristic of Pottersville is that everyone is looking out for themselves. As contrasted to this, George Bailey, in his own life, has always put other’s well-being and dreams ahead of his own … but the result of this sacrifice is that he has been instrumental in making Bedford Falls a true community. This is exemplified when all the people whom he has benefited pitch in to save him from the problems caused by his shortfall.

Therefore, I think that using clips from the key scenes from this movie, one could show that the narrative line of the story is George Bailey’s nearly succumbing to the forces of materialism and greed (when Potter offers him a job, and again, when George nearly commits suicide), and his salvation from this fate by knowledge. Presenting these, along with a reading of relevant passages from the “Hymn of the Pearl” would be, I think, an effective way of introducing students to the essential ideas of Gnosticism.

As for the importance of “Meet John Doe” and the date of the Nag Hammadi find to my interpretation: “Meet John Doe” gives a clear example of how the narrative could have gone if it was, indeed, based on a Christian soteriology. And the date of the Nag Hammadi find indicates that it is unlikely that Frank Capra had direct knowledge of Gnosticism when he co-wrote the screenplay. Therefore, these Gnostic elements in this story must exist either because they are truly archetypal in nature (as the Jungians would argue), and/or because certain aspects of Gnosticism have never really entirely faded away from out culture.

Either way, “It’s a Wonderful Life” would be an accessible and relatable way of introducing a lay audience to the essential ideas of Gnosticism.

Imbrication of Race and Religion

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 18:18:33 GMT

The Imbrication of Race and Religion in

Christianity and in a Contemporary

New Religious Movement

Q.: Isolate modern historical or contemporary situation that represents some aspect of the imbrication of “race” and “religion”. Describe the situation, including identification of groups involved, the social-cultural setting, historical and ongoing issues and dynamics. Focus on one or two poignant issues. Address implication for study of “religion.” Enter into critical conversation with assigned writers. Begin with an analysis of the networks you are part of.

When one is expected to address concepts such as these in the context of one’s own network, one is, then, presumably allowed, for the ambit of that aspect of the discussion anyway, to address these concerns directly, anecdotally, in the first-person. If that is so, though, I must say that the idea that race and religion are constructions, one of the other is, to someone who practices the religion that I and the people in my immediate network all practice, somewhat counter-intuitive. After all, the word “imbrication” originally comes from arts of shingling and masonry: “1. the state of being imbricate; particularly, a real or apparent overlapping as of shingles 2. in masonry, a structure, as tiling, wall or the like, laid so as to break joints.”[1] But shingles and masonry are rigid, and each piece, regardless of an apparent overlap, remains distinct, the one from the other. As contrasted to this, the religion of myself and my co-religionists is marked, if by anything, by its fluidity – categories such as race and religion don’t so much overlap as interpenetrate or coalesce: True, there is a basic, general, agreement on the time and significance of the major festivals, the basic structure and method of conducting the rituals attendant on each festival, and one or two ethical norms which members of the community commonly espouse.[2] But beyond that, our religion is amorphous, pluralistic, pan-global -- people of different ethnicities, races, ages and classes all practice together.[3] Moreover, and one of the things I most appreciate about this religion, there is a similar fluidity, and interpenetration of beliefs and spirituality in practice: at the same festival, you can have people who are pantheists, or atheists, or polytheists worshiping together. And, among the polytheists, there may be individuals working with any of dozens of pantheons of god-forms: Irish, Celtic, Norse – even the somewhat disreputable, rather obstreperous triune god of the Christians. Moreover, there is no necessary correlation between race and ethnicity and the pantheon of the practitioner: I know a woman who is half-hispanic/half-polynesian who works with the Norse pantheon, another who is an African-American woman and works with the Christian trinity, and I myself, in spite of an Anglo/Celtic/German background, am drawn to the gods of the Indian subcontinent.

And yet – in a number of the readings we have considered in the course of this module, there does seem to be something to the idea of the imbrication of race and religion – the idea that “race”, as a concept, is a creation of religion, and that religion is, itself, as a concept, the creation of “race”. For example, Paul Harvey, in A Servant of Servants Shall He Be[4] observes that “religious myth, originating from interpretations of biblical stories as well as speculations about God’s Providence, played an important role in the formation, revision and reconstruction of racial categories in the modern world. Christianity necessarily was central to the process of racializing peoples.”[5] He proceeds to explain how the coincidence that the reformation and counter-reformations occurred at the dawn of the slave trade led European people to seek a biblical rationalization for slavery – which they eventually did on the basis of their perception of the ethnicity of the enslaved people combined with rather idiosyncratic readings of certain, select, biblical passages.[6] On the other side of the equation, African Americans also used Biblical stories – particularly the story of Exodus – to define their own identity.[7] Similarly, white supremacist groups often justify their position by a conflation of their putative whiteness with Christianity: they depict themselves as descendents of the lost tribes of Israel, the fated protagonists in an eventual war of light against dark.[8] And, in the Haitian Rara festival, effigies of Jews are dragged through the street, beaten and immolated, in a manner, and as a result of historic forces, which the one authors takes to be emblematic of the fact the “race is inextricably bound together with religion”.[9]

However persuasive these examples may be, they all share a common, salient characteristic: Christianity. This makes sense when you consider that, at least from the reign of Theodosius, Christianity has been defined as a exclusionistic monotheistic religion – not only does it have only one god, but it also claims to have the only god.[10] With such a mindset, it is apparent why such instances of imbrication occur: when you believe that you have the one and only true god, then anyone who has an alternate spirituality is, at best, wrong and ignorant, and, at worst, evil. Such exclusionism does not lend itself to mingling.

However, it is true that there are at least a couple examples in the readings of the imbrication of religion and race that do not, primarily, involve Christianity: Nimachia Hernandez, in Indigenous Identity and Story, discusses how Native American religions contribute to tribal identity, and how tribal identity in turn, is plugged into the beliefs and mythology of the tribal religion.[11] Similarly, Laurie L. Patton finds analogous patterns in the distinctions between arya and dasa, the peoples who now describe themselves as being descended from either Aryan or Dravidian stock in India.[12] However, here, we still have a common pattern: both of these are millennia old religions, which are tied, but dint of long association, to a particular region, and a particular people. They are, in sum, traditional religions. Moreover, both these articles deal with religions, people, and folkways that have been forced to interact precipitously with the religion of an invader: the Native Americans with European Christians, and the Dravidians with the Aryans.

It does, therefore, seem to be true that if one was to postulate that something is only a religion if it is held by a given people in a given locality for, lets say, a minimum of a hundred years or so, then, it would, indeed, appear that the inter-relations between that people and another would necessarily lend itself to an imbrication: because the people would be identified with their religion, and vice versa, the tendency would be to interact with the new people/religion as the “other”, to be denied, or feared, or resisted, or overcome – particularly if the others are cruel invaders.

However, is this, necessarily, what religion is about? Resorting, once more, to the dictionary, we discover that the word “religion” comes from the Latin root “religare”, which means “to bind together”.[13] This implies, then, that a religion is properly understood as a method or tradition that is meant to connect or bind the individual to deity.[14] Perhaps such a broader understanding would be more accurate understanding of what distinguishes religion from other human undertakings?

More to the point, though, have religions necessarily now, or in the past, been necessarily connected with particular localities and peoples?

When we look to the period from the Hellenistic age up through the previously referenced reign of Theodosius, we see that the ruling pattern of spirituality in the ancient world was syncretistic: people from formerly distinct countries and cultures would adopt the gods and rituals of other people, and conflate them with their own, such that Isis, for example, was frequently syncretized with the Divine Mother[15] and Artemis.[16] Under the unifying influence of, first, Alexander the Great, and, later, Rome, the peoples of Rome and Greece and Egypt where, within the context of their geographic awareness, pluralistic and pan-global. Their religions, being free of the exclusionist bent which would later develop in Christianity, had no problem with accepting other gods from other people as being their own gods, under a different guise and name. Therefore, when you have a Goddess such as Isis who absorbs qualities of Hathor and Artemis and many other goddesses[17] and Hermes, Mercury and Thoth join together to become Hermes Trismegistus[18], can you really call this an imbrication? That word would imply an overlap, in which the two constituents remain distinct, but the syncretistic trend in the ancient world resulted in something much closed to a blending or mixture of religions, which made considerations of race and ethnicity irrelevant.[19]

And today, in a number of the so-called “new religious movements”, we find a similar blending occurring. In my own experience, a number of people in my own religion,[20] most of whom have come over to our shared practice partially as a reaction against the perceived narrowness and authoritarian nature of Christianity, experience themselves living in a pluralistic, pan-global society, where we have only to drive in our cars for a half-hour or so to immerse ourselves in other cultures (the various “littles” – “Little India”, “Little Saigon”, Chinatown, etc.), may very well work and socialize with people from any number of races and cultures and nationalities, can communicate easily with people in other countries via the internet, and, for even the moderately prosperous, travel internationally.

So, what does this imply for the study of religion? I think it calls for a more careful delineation of what we mean by “religion”. Do we mean the word in its root sense, a practice that connects and binds an individual with deity, or the narrower sense of a traditional, institutional and/or organized religion? So long as one is discussing traditional religions, and especially if one is discussing institutional and organized religions of an exclusionist bent, the concept of race and religion as mutually defining terms may, indeed, be applicable within those parameters, and properly characterized as an imbrication. But, especially now, especially in the United States, and especially here in California, there is a ferment of activity in religions which are neither traditional, institutional, nor organized – a creative ferment of such amorphous fluidity, that imbrication is entirely impossible, and one must, more properly and precisely, speak in terms of blending, merging, and combining. To use an analogy from chemistry, in the former case, race and religion relate to one another, rather like a suspension, where two liquids are together, but, like oil and water, remain distinct and quickly define a line between each other. But there are other religions, syncretic, open-minded, globally conscious, in which, like salt and water, the various elements combine into a whole, which still maintains, with heightened piquancy, aspects of its constituents, to form a solution. And such religions may well become as dominant a force in the pan-global, pluralistic world economy of the 21st century as the syncretic religions did in the cosmopolitan, pluralistic world on Hellenic/Roman civilization, and thereby supply, if one may employ something of a play of words, the solution to the religious and ethnic conflicts which, regrettably, so characterized the 20th century.

[1] Jean L. McKechnie, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 2nd Ed. (World Publishing Co., Cleveland and New York 1969) 908

[2] specifically, we are never supposed to impose our wills upon another without their permission (usually phrased archaically as “an ye harm none, do what thou wilt”), and we are abjured to remember that what we do, good or evil, comes back to us threefold

[3] This was especially born in upon me just four days ago, when I attended one of our gatherings, the biennial Long Beach WomanSpirit Fair in Long Beach. There one could find paraphernalia for the worship of every conceivable god or goddess, being purchased by people of most every race and ethnicity.

[4] Paul Harvey, A Servant of Servants Shall He Be in Craig R. Prentiss ed. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity (New York University Press, New York and London 2003) 14

[5] Ibid., 14

[6] Ibid., 17-19

[7] Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Myth and African American Self-Identity in Craig R. Prentiss ed. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity (New York University Press, New York and London 2003) 28

[8] Douglas E. Cowan, Theologizing Race, The Construction of “Christian Identity” in Craig R. Prentiss ed. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity (New York University Press, New York and London 2003) 112

[9] Elizabeth McAlister, The Jew in the Haitian Imagination: A Popular History of Anti-Judaism and Proto-Racism, in Henry Goldschmidt, Elizabeth McAlister Race, Nation and Religion in the Americas (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2004) 62

[10] Jonathan Kirsch, God Against the Gods (Penguin Book, New York 2004)274

[11] Mimachia Hernandez, Indigenous Identity and Story in Craig R. Prentiss ed. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity (New York University Press, New York and London 2003) 61-79

[12] Lauri Patton, Cosmic Men and Fluid Exchanges in Craig R. Prentiss ed. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity (New York University Press, New York and London 2003)

[13] Jean L. McKechnie, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 2nd Ed. (World Publishing Co., Cleveland and New York 1969) 1527

[14] Although, I suppose you could go Marxian on it, and say that religion is a force that is used by the power elite to keep the masses passive – but that would an entirely different debate, for a different time.

[15] R. E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World (John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London 1971) 130- 140

[16] Ibid., 141-151

[17] Ibid., 121

[18] Ibid., 205-6

[19] There is a fresco, for instance, from the wall of the Iseum in Pompey which depicts people of all complexions and genders, worshipping their goddess, Ibid., 117

[20] I have refrained from specifically identifying my religion for a couple reasons. First, since it is a religion which emphasizes a direct, experiential relationship with the divine, my practice is, for me, a very personal matter which I usually only discuss with my co-religionists – if you have not had the experience, you cannot relate, and it gets tiresome explaining away the plethora of misconceptions from outsiders. Secondly, we are a recognized religion which is, however, still subject to some degree of persecution – enough so that people have lost jobs and lost custody of children when their religion was exposed. That being said, if you really must know, you need only google the aforementioned “Long Beach Womanspirit Fair” to find out.