Conservative writer Jonah Goldberg had me laughing out loud today at what I assume is his unintentionally amusing take on something I could care less about — the controversy over Mel Gibson’s film about Christ (now another Lethal Weapon film — that would be an abomination). Goldberg criticizes part of a New Republic story on Gibson’s film, writing,
Still, the New Republic piece suggests Gibson does have a lot to answer for. He claims time and again that he’s simply sticking to the “historical record.” Frederiksen offers some interesting stuff I didn’t know about how mixed the historical record really is. There are major — and often irreconcilable — differences among the various versions of Jesus’ death in the Gospels. More important, Gibson relies on the writings of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich as a “historical” source. But Emmerich, born in 1774, was one of several Nuns who claimed to see visions of the Passion. To use her visions — not her “research” mind you, but her visions — as a historical source isn’t any more legitimate than using Elijah Muhammed’s visions for a film about Mohammed’s life.
Yeah, and then the next thing you know people like this start thinking the visions are from God, and then that they speak for God. Then they attract followers who insist that these are the only true visions from God and before anyone know what happened you’ve got a full-blown religion complete with holidays that have to be neutered for our secular age.