To understand the lunatic rantings of Mel Gibson you need know only a few core characters of the man, starting with his first name, which comes from Saint Mel (or Moel), a fifth-century Irish saint who worked to evangelize Ireland in the name of the Papacy. Saint Mel is the patron saint of the Roman Catholic diocese of Ardagh, where Mel Gibson’s mother came of religious age.

The young (modern) Mel was brought up by his Traditionalist Catholic father, Hutton Gibson, where the doctrine of “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” (“Outside the Church there is no salvation”) was preached. Of course, what constitutes “the church” determines the circumference of the salvation circle, with religious liberals opting for those who accept Jesus as their savior as eligible for salvation, while religious fundamentalists, literalists, and apparently traditionalists holding to the strict dogma that if you are not Catholic you are not saved. Here is what Mel Gibson once said about his own (apparently long-suffering) wife Robyn, who is an Episcopalian: “There is no salvation for those outside the Church … I believe it. Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s… Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.” The Chair. That’s refreshing. Here’s a bumper sticker for Saint Mel’s car: The Pope Said it, I believe it, That Settles it.

Portrait of Mel Gibson’s Father, Hutton Gibson. Photograph by Kylie Melinda Smith, Sun Herald

The intolerance of this dogma cannot be overstated, but to be fair the Papacy is merely channeling the gospel, in this case John 14:5-6: “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” And this means what for the Jews?

Speaking of the blood libel against the Jews, Saint Mel’s filmic opus, The Passion of the Christ, was one long argument (amplified with copious blood and raw flesh) for the justification of two millennia of anti-Semitism: the Jews killed our Lord. In point of fact it was the Romans who killed Jesus who, let’s not forget, was Jewish, so if the Jews were the perpetrators this would only mean that Jesus was killed by his own clan. (Do people really need to be reminded that before Christ there was no Christianity and there were no Christians? Apparently so.) And in any case, if the life of Jesus had to unfold as it did in order for him to transmogrify into the Christ (the Messiah)—which we are told had to happen for the atonement of original sin that would otherwise condemn all of us to eternity without God—then shouldn’t Christians be thanking the Jews for doing what, after all, they had to do? In any case, here is what the best extra-biblical source, the Roman historian Tacitus, said about it in chapter 15 of his Annals of Imperial Rome:

film still from The Passion of the Christ

Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started), but even in Rome. All degraded and shameful practices collect and flourish in the capitol.

Skeptic magazine’s religion editor, Tim Callahan, concludes:

Here Tacitus, showing the same antagonism for Christianity evidenced in the Talmudic writers, says that it was temporarily checked when Pontius Pilate—not the Jewish authorities—executed Jesus. In summation, the trial before Ciaphas, the Barabbas episode, the reluctance of Pilate to condemn Jesus, and the Jewish mob demanding his death are, like every other aspect of the Passion and Resurrection narratives, pure fiction. The bare bones of the historical core of what is essentially grand myth is that Jesus was put to death by the Romans—not the Jews—for sedition.

Anti-Semitism has roots running deep, and Mel’s go back to his father. Although today we do not hold to the moral precept that the son should suffer for the sins of the father, the Ten Commandments insists otherwise: “I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. III. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Unfortunately for Mel, who claims to believe in all of the good book’s moral principles, his father had lots of doubts about the Holocaust but few doubts about the nefarious actions of the Learned Elders of Zion. Christopher Hitchens has read the Old Man’s anti-Semitic screeds, noting this gem from Hutton’s self-published book The Enemy is Still Here (the sequel to The Enemy is Here, just in case you didn’t get it the first time): “Our ‘civilization’ tolerates open sodomy and condones murder of the unborn, but shrinks in horror from burning incorrigible heretics—essentially a charitable act.” When Pope John Paul II said of the Jews in a conciliatory outreach across the theological divide, “You are our predilect brothers and, in a certain way, one could say our oldest brothers,” Gibson Senior penned this rejoinder: “Abel had an older brother.” Was he suggesting siblicide writ large?

This brings us to the Holocaust, which deniers publicly deny ever happened while privately wishing that it had (as in “Hitler didn’t implement the Holocaust but he should have”). Mel Gibson’s flirtations with Holocaust “revisionism” also stem from the Patriarch Hutton, who expressed his skepticism in a March, 2003 New York Times magazine article as to how the Nazis could have logistically exterminated six million Jews. “Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body. It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million?” From where did the six million figure come? “The entire catastrophe was manufactured” in a deal between Hitler and “financiers” to move Jews out of the Reich. Hitler “had this deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they would all get out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to fight the Arabs.” Hutton’s wife added parenthetically: “There weren’t even that many Jews in all of Europe.” Hutton punctuated the point: “Anyway, there were more after the war than before.”

Here is what actually happened. In the 1930s the Nazis did try to get rid of the Jews by eliminating their civil liberties, then banning them from professions, then confiscating their property, then rounding them up into ghettos, then locking them up in concentration camps. In the early and successful (for the Nazis) years of the Second World War, the Third Reich grew in size with each territorial conquest, which meant that the number of Jews grew, along with the measures the Nazis were willing to take to reach their ultimate goal, which by 1942 had morphed from elimination to extermination.

To this combustionable cocktail of wrong-headed ideas and evil intent, add three more characteristics to bring Saint Mel into full light: a hot head temper with a hair trigger mouth and a propensity to drink.

This post originally appeared at TRUE/SLANT.

Newberg is a neuroscience specializing in “neurotheology”, or the study of what happens to your brain when you do religious things, like pray, or think spiritual thoughts, or read scripture, or listen to a sermon. Newberg begins by recounting that in high school he had a Christian girlfriend (he is Jewish) whose family called themselves “born-again Christians”. Although they were always pleasant to him, “they were quite clear that in their view I had deeply sinned by not turning to Jesus. Oh, and because of this, I was going to hell.” That’s nice.

What are the consequences of hearing such negative ideas? Newberg concludes:

There seems to be little question that when people view God as loving, forgiving, compassionate and supportive, this more likely results in a very positive view of themselves, and of the world around them. But when God is viewed as dispassionate, vengeful and unforgiving, this can have deleterious effects on one’s physical and mental health. Again, the research is clear: If you ruminate on negative emotions, they activate the areas of the brain that are involved in anger, fear and stress. This can ultimately damage important parts of the brain and the body. What’s worse, negative emotions can spill over into outward behaviors that generate fear, distrust, hatred, animosity and violence toward people who hold different or opposing beliefs. Thus, it becomes more easy to believe that “I, and my religion, is right and you, and your religion, are wrong.”

Newberg goes on to explain that most Christians are not so judgmental and negative. In fact, he says, it is maybe only one percent. “Unfortunately,” he explains, “this minority often attracts the greatest amount of camera time and ink, too. But what is truly frightening is the fact that 1% translates into 3 million potentially violent citizens in our country alone. And this certainly plays out on the global stage, as beliefs conflict and terrorism fosters fear, hatred and ultimately violence.”

Indeed, in Sharlet’s investigative piece we learn that a good number of these 1% are armed and dangerous — they’re in the military. According to Sharlet, there is a movement afoot to Christianize the military, and they are truly soldiers for Christ — the title of his article comes from an inscription in large red letters painted on the side of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that reads in Arabic script: “Jesus Killed Mohammed.” Yesserie, that should endear our troops to the Muslim countries, whose own signs signaling their attitude toward Americans often feature “Death to” on them.

That is more than a little unfortunate, because the military has actually lagged behind the general population in religiosity, with 20% of the roughly 1.4 million active-duty personnel telling the Department of Defense that they have “no religious preference,” which is higher than the 16.1% of the American public who tick the same box on similar surveys conducted by Gallup and others (although among active military only .5% — one half of one percent — call themselves “atheist” or “agnostic”, whereas around 8% of the general public does). The other 80% identify with evangelical or Pentecostal (22%), Catholic (19%), another 20% as “Christian” (incorporating other Christian sects), and assorted other religions, but next to no Jews (1/300) or Muslims (1/400).

None of this would matter were it not for the fact that soldiers are sworn into the military to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the holy book of their religion. This is what it means to be a secular nation: not that the majority of its citizens are secular, but that its government favors no religion and, in fact, separates church and state. That is not a problem for most religious soldiers, but for evangelicals, by definition they are suppose to evangelize (or else they wouldn’t be evangelicals), and that means trying to convert those around them to evangelical Christianity. And those around them are either fellow soldiers or citizens of an occupied country. Enter the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF), with 15,000 members in 80% of military bases, and growing 3% per annum. Sharlet quotes OCF director Lieutenant General Bruce L. Fister, who equated the “global war on terror” to “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.” The Muslims have their jihad and the Christians have their spiritual battle. Onward Christian Soldiers.

In researching his story, Sharlet met with Lieutenant General John Regni, who was brought into the Air Force Academy to straighten out the religious conflict brewing there between evangelicals and others. According to Sharlet:

I began our phone conversation with what I thought was a softball, an opportunity for the general to wax constitutional about First Amendment freedoms. “How do you see the balance between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause?” I asked.

There was a long pause. Civilians might reasonably plead ignorance, but not a general who has sworn on his life to defend these words: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“I have to write those things down,” Regni finally answered. “What did you say those constitutional things were again?”

If that were not embarrassing enough, Sharlet documents how copies of Pastor Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life were distributed to high ranking officers by a superior officer, who instructed them to read it and live it. Why? Because, unbelievably (given the above statistics), the evangelicals in the military believe, according to Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William McCoy, author of Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel (endorsed by General David Petraeus when he commanded our troops in Iraq), “Under the rubric of free speech and the twisted idea of separation of church and state, there has evolved more and more an anti-Christian bias in this country.”

The rest of Sharlet’s article focuses on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, started by Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, whom the three-star General William “Jerry” Boykin called demon possessed, and who was denounced by Ted Haggard, whom Weinstein challenged to a boxing match, never accepted. If Andrew Newberg would like to investigate the brain waves of religious extremists, he need go no further than the evangelical Christians who write Weinstein letters:

“You are costing lives by dividing military personnel and undermining troops,” reads one missive. “Their blood is on your hands.” Much of it is juvenile: “you little bald-headed fag,” reads an email Mikey received after an appearance on CNN, “what the fuck are you doing with an organization of this title when the purpose of your group is not to encourage religious freedom, but to DENY religious freedom?” Quite a bit of it is anti-Semitic: “Once again, the Oy Vey! crowd whines. This jew used to be an Air Force lawyer and got the email” — a solicitation by Air Force General Jack Catton for campaign donations to put “more Christian men” in Congress, which Mikey made public — ”just one more example of why filthy, hook-nosed jews should be purged from our society.”

And that’s just the letters. Weinstein: “We’ve had dead animals on the porch. Beer bottles, feces thrown at the house. I don’t even think about it. I view it as if I was Barry Bonds about to go to bat in Dodger Stadium and people are booing. You want a piece of me? Get in line, buddy. Pack a lunch.”

Newberg is right, of course, when he says that most Christians do not behave this way, but for those who do it is the logic of their beliefs that lead them to condemn those who do not accept Christ as their savior, for according to the New Testament that is the only way into heaven and thus the only path to salvation and eternal life. If you really believe that, you also have to believe that you are right and everyone who believes differently is wrong, and being an evangelical, it is your duty — your mission — to tell them so in no uncertain terms. Now, fortunately, most people are nice and mind their own business, and many Christians also share that temperament, but that’s just the luck of the genetic draw (temperament being roughly 50% heritable). We need a higher moral and legal principle to protect all the rest of us from those who do not happen to believe in the principle of tolerance and “to each his own.”

That higher moral and legal principle is freedom. Freedom is at the core of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and it is there to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority, the deepest flaw in democracy. The freedom to believe whatever you want, and to keep government out of the religion business is, counter-intuitively, the best thing that ever happened to religion. Religions thrive in America because the secular government of these United States allows them to. Of course anyone in the majority religion would like their government to give them special privileges — that’s just human nature. But once you establish a precedent for the government to grant special privileges of the majority religion, how will you feel if, say, in 50 or 100 years from now Islam is the dominant religion of America? (It could happen. It is already happening in Europe.) Still want that special arrangement now that your religion is in the minority? I don’t think so. As Thomas Moore explained in A Man for All Seasons:

Roper: Now you give the Devil benefit of law!
Moore: Yes, what would you do? Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: Yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that.
Moore: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you … where would you hide? I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.

Amen brother!

Today voters go to the polls in California to vote for or against Proposition 8, which “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.” If passed, Prop 8 will “change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.” A new section would be added, stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Because of the importance of precedence in the law, and the size and importance of California in American politics, this proposition is historic. The issue of Gay marriage in particular, and homosexuality in general, is a case study in how religion, especially Christianity, has erred egregiously.

The overwhelming evidence from science shows that gender preference is primarily determined by our genetics and prenatal biochemistry, especially embryological hormone balance. Almost everyone is born attracted to members of the opposite sex. A small percentage — perhaps as few as one to two percent (but probably not as high as ten percent, as some estimates have put it) — are attracted to members of the same sex.

Asking a homosexual when he or she chose to become gay is like asking a heterosexual when he or she chose to become straight. The answer you will get (I know because I’ve asked) is “Uh? I didn’t choose. I’ve always felt that way.” And that’s the answer I get from straights as well as gays.

Nevertheless, on this particular issue Christianity remains mired in pre-civil rights, pre-enlightenment, even pre-scientific medieval thinking, basing their beliefs on a few biblical passages, most famously Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” This prohibition is tucked in between other passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy that should be repeated every time someone cites the above passage. (All biblical passages cited within are from the Revised Standard Version.) For example, for professional women thinking of adorning themselves in business attire that may resemble men’s business ware (or for guys who dig cross dressing), Deuteronomy 22:5 does not look kindly on such behaviors: “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

An even worse abomination is a rebellious child. Deuteronomy 21:18–21 offers this parental moral guideline: “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him, will not give heed to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”

If that isn’t jarring enough, here is the Bible’s recommendation on how to deal with women who may or may not have had sex before marriage. According to Deuteronomy 22:13–21, “If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her, and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings an evil name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her the tokens of virginity,’ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate.” (For those not accustomed to reading between the biblical lines, the phrase “goes in to her” should be taken literally, and “the tokens of virginity” means the hymen and the blood on the sheet from a virgin’s first sexual experience.) If the father of the bride can produce the tokens of virginity, then he “shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take the man [the husband] and whip him; and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel; and she shall be his wife.”

However, lo to the woman who has dared to have sex before marriage. “But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.”

To be fair, not all biblical ethics are this antiquated and extreme. There is much to pick and choose from that is useful for our thinking about moral issues. The problem here is consistency, and selecting ethical guidelines that support our particular personal or social prejudices and preferences. When slavery was the social norm, it was simple for pro-slavery defenders to point to passages such as those in Exodus 21, which outlines the rules for the proper handling of slaves, for example, “when you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing,” and “when a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.”

Of course, we no longer endorse slavery, or the death penalty for disobedient children, nonvirginal women, and adulterers, so why pick on the gays? What happened to the ethic of Christian charity and Jesus’ doctrine of love for all humanity? In their stead, we find Christian preachers, writers, and theologians who think nothing of tormenting gays by telling them that their desire to love another person of the same sex is an “abomination,” by telling them that they have a disease that can be “cured” through “treatment,” and by telling them that promiscuity is evil but that the single best prophylactic against it — marriage — is legally banned from them. Worse, some Christians actually believe they are being charitable by proclaiming that they “hate the sin, not the sinner,” which is not dissimilar to what Christians declared just before lighting faggots to burn women to save their souls for allegedly practicing witchcraft, or when Christians called for pogroms against Jews for being Christ-killers.

Mark my words. Here is what is going to happen. Within a decade, maybe two, Christians will come around to treating gays no differently than they now treat members of other groups whom they previously persecuted — women, Jews, blacks — but not because of some new interpretation of a biblical passage, or because of a new revelation from God. These changes will come about the same way that they always do: by the oppressed minority fighting for the right to be treated equally, and by a few enlightened members of the oppressing majority supporting their cause.

Then what will happen is that Christians will take credit for the civil liberation of gays, dig through the historical record and find a few Christian preachers or bloggers who had the courage and the character to stand up for Gay rights when their fellow Christians would not, and then cite those as evidence that were it not for Christianity, gays would not be equal.

Finally, politics and religion aside, are we to believe that the biggest concern of the creator of the universe — that all-knowing, all-powerful all-good deity capable of constructing stars, planets, life, consciousness and love — is what consenting adults do with their sexual organs in the privacy of their bedrooms?