WaPo 'On Faith': Mel Gibson: Religion And The Troubled Artist

The Washington Post:

Indiscretions and worse often color the lives of Hollywood celebrities. But how many become notorious after making a globally-distributed testimony to their religious faith? O.K., the latest material is mainly allegations. But as it's presented in the news, the Gibson story eschews the typical conversion narrative, where the messy behavior comes first.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post

Comments

[mjeffn]

01:49 PM on 07/19/2010

What's so hard to understand about the things Mel Gibson says. He is an artist and he is only doing what artists do. From an artists perspective he is being totally rational. Artists reflect back the zeitgeist of what they focus on back to their audience. Mel is reflecting our society back to us and being condemned by us for doing it. We are the ones who can't stand what our reflections in this mirror look like so, instead of changing our appearance we throw rocks at the mirror then replace it hoping the reflection will be different. Mel Gibson is us.

[robwriter]

02:39 AM on 07/18/2010

A previous post got deleted so this will be my "goodbye" to Huffington Post.

[Athena123]

01:41 PM on 07/19/2010

Actually, there is another post by you. Maybe it wasn't deleted?

[robwriter]

10:43 PM on 07/17/2010

Could Mel just be reflecting the same attitude toward women as the Vatican which recently voiced the opinion that the ordination of women is as offensive to God as child rape?

[Athena123]

01:50 PM on 07/19/2010

Anti-semitism & mysogeny are the cornerstones of christianity. Although the jews are the "chosen people", they have "rejected christ" and are therefore, sadly, "unsaved". Women are second or third-class, at best...they are presented in the bible as whores, temptresses, workhorses, or breeders. None of these groups are respected as fully human. Certain branches of christianity have an extremely anti-semetic foundation - Martin Luther is one such example (ie - he wrote a book called On the Jews and their Lies). And the reason child rape if not "really" a sin? Because the bible doesn't mention it - not once. It does actively encourage parents to beat their children - but never does it say you can't have sex with them. Whereas the bible is very clear that ordination of women, or women having a voice, is very saddening to god.

[PMJ79]

03:26 AM on 07/21/2010

I disagree with the Vatican on that one. How could organized pedophilia be less offensive to God than women priests?

Vatican =/= God

[Jannella]

08:02 PM on 07/17/2010

I've found sometimes people very involved in religion to become almost zealots and in their warped mind use it to their own ends, and, shockingly enough, have not much remorse for their unChristianlike behavior. No all religious people. I was raised in a very religious family and community. But I had a friend who taught Sunday School, very religious, and had us all feeling sorry for him with his wife, who had an affair on him. But he had an affair and got a divorce. The woman he had the affair with, my friend, then saw the dark side to him, very controlling, verbally abusive at times. When she went to Happy Hour once, he told her she was in Sodom and Gomorrah. She left him and wouldn't marry him. He married someone else. And he was caught cheating on her, all the while teaching Sunday School. LOL

[mjeffn]

01:51 PM on 07/19/2010

So what exactly is "christian like behavior" if this isn't it? After all, Mel is a christian.

[gal416]

08:01 PM on 07/17/2010

Mel's problem is that he has too much religion and not enough Christ.

[mjeffn]

01:52 PM on 07/19/2010

equivalency does not equate to distinction

[PMJ79]

03:28 AM on 07/21/2010

"Mel's problem is that he has too much religion and not enough Christ.`

Bingo!

That is the malady of most churchgoers today. I`m glad you identified it, gal416.

[researcher]

07:42 PM on 07/17/2010

the inner conflict of his rigid religoious beliefs and the desires he has as a human.

this conflict is driving him insane.

of course if we were created perfect there would be no us just isness.

complete stillness.

our imperfections is the very thing that makes us unique and feelings of separate.

imperfections are the stuff of life

but as we reduce those imperfections we find more joy and bliss and peace in life.

mel is unable to accept his imperfections and this is good

this means he needs to change something about his life.

rigid religious beliefs will drive a person insane indeed a whole nation insane

one only has to look to america for proof of this

two unwinnable wars, corp controlled congress, prisons overflowing, supreme court calling corporations people, corp money is free speech, huge debts, borrow from the communists after losing 58,000 troops to the communists, education in shambles, universities on the take with the industrial military complex for research grants, bankruptcy for medica bills, pre existing conditions to enhance CEO bonuses, need I say more.

the only thing we are good at is wars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr7ePrCAqzo

why the ignorance?

what is the origin of that ignorance?

[ilovedessert]

11:45 AM on 07/17/2010

IN A PERFECT WORLD...I WOULD EVER HEAR THE NAME MEL GIBSON AGAIN!

[AnnGenue]

10:12 AM on 07/17/2010

I doubt that Mr Gibson is a real Christian.
The good thing is that God can use people to do good things, even if they aren't god Christians.
Like He used Mr. Gibson to make His wonderful movie the Passion of the Christ.

[The Ghoul]

11:46 PM on 07/18/2010

Mel is the perfect Christian
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/mel-gibson-is-biblically_b_641756.html

He's the kind of guy that is perfect for a god that likes killing and knocking up 15 year old Jewish girls.

[PMJ79]

03:30 AM on 07/21/2010

Do you think that MG has a demon riding him?

[eileenflemingWAWA]

09:20 AM on 07/17/2010

The article also recommends Thomas Merton, Trappist monk who listened to Bob Dylan and was the first religious voice to rise up against the war on Vietnam. After he spoke at a rally about it, a nun accosted him wanting to know why he didn't mention Jesus.

Merton replied:

"What we are asked to do at present is not so much to speak of Christ as to let him live in us, so that people may find him by feeling how he lives in us."

He also said:

"The duty of the Christian at this time is to do the one task God has imposed upon us in this world today. The task is to work for the total abolition of war. There can be no question that unless war is abolished; the world will remain constantly in a state of madness. The church [meaning all Christians] must lead the way on the road to the abolition of war. Peace is to be preached and nonviolence is to be explained and practiced."

[eileenflemingWAWA]

09:16 AM on 07/17/2010

The article offers edifying fare, such as 20th century Christian Anarchist Dorothy Day-who is the 'patron saint' of my website http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Day knew God was LOVE and "Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers."

She understood that, "Writing is hard, because you are 'giving yourself away.' But if you love, you want to give yourself. You write as you are impelled to write, about man and his problems, his relation to God and his fellows. You write about yourself because in the long run all man's problems are the same, his sustenance and love."

"People have so great a need to reverence, to worship, to adore; it is a psychological necessity of human nature that must be taken into account. We do not like to admit how people fail us. Even those most loved show their frailty and their weaknesses and no matter how we may will to see only the best in others, their strength rather than their weakness, we are all too conscious of our own failings and recognize them in others."

[julbar]

09:18 PM on 07/16/2010

O dear, Mel is more like the policitcians of today..

Let's see, we have: Family values, the old standby "christianity", then.... the sex film of the pregnant girlfriend, the foot under the men's room partitions, the BJs, and dirty text msgs to the young guys in the capitol, hiking trips (er girlfriends) in Brazil, the beating and knocking out of the teeth of the mother of the baby and then the very funny cover ups we all look forward to .

Wow, talk what entertainment. Mel, this is your best original work, Kid.

[ChristopherAtom]

09:17 PM on 07/16/2010

What's the matter Melvin? Didn't yer daddy give you enough love?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Gibson

[BadBadKitty]

08:16 PM on 07/16/2010

The Pope supports Mel

[julbar]

09:20 PM on 07/16/2010

Which pope? The pope who pleaded ignorance to accusations of abuse in the church or the pope our boy, Mel, doesn't believe in.

[Forester]

08:10 PM on 07/16/2010

The Passion was closer to po rno than religious doctrine. But a quick glance around a catholic church at the iconography will make you think twice.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

05:24 PM on 07/16/2010

THE GUY IS NOT AT ALL TROUBLED....................HE'S BEYOND INSANE.