rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (10/24/84)
I was watching Fanny and Alexander last night (an excellent film!) when an interesting thought came to mind. I recall during the early days of this newsgroup that someone (I believe it was Gary Samuelson; please correct me if I'm wrong) was complaining about the lack of Christian emphasis in the media and the negative portrayal of religious believers and clergy, depicting such people as hypocritical or evil. (The part of the Bishop who marries the mother of the two children and raises them with a cruel iron hand, imprisoning all of them under his reign of terror, reminded me of this.) It would seem that this flurry of negative portrayals that manifested itself in the '70s and '80s had its roots in an equally unwarranted depiction that had been the norm: that of religious people and clergymen being always good and always right and better than everyone else who didn't belong/adhere. The pendulum swung in the other direction, with many portrayals depicting such people as hypocritical, malicious, holier-than-thou, bigoted; a somewhat accurate depiction of a large number (not all and maybe not most) of the religious people. It would also seem that nowadays the pendulum has stopped near the middle, with portrayals of good religious people balanced out with those of not-so-good religious people. Yet it seems that some people feel this is not enough; they would like to see the pendulum brought back to their side, depicting an ideal view of what they would like to believe rather than letting people see that religion doesn't automatically make one "good", nor does being an authority make one "good". Comments? -- "Come with me now to that secret place where the eyes of man have never set foot." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr