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Mitch Albom more dangerous than Mel Gibson, says David Brooks
If Mel Gibson is a zealot, he's still not the biggest religious threat to America, says New York Times columnist David Brooks today. For the real danger, he says, look to Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

"I worry about Albom more, because while religious dogmatism is always a danger, it is less of a problem for us today than the soft-core spirituality that is its opposite," Brooks writes. "We do not live in Mel Gibson's fire-and-brimstone universe. Instead, we live in a psychobabble nation. We've got more to fear from the easygoing narcissism that is so much part of the atmosphere nobody even thinks to protest or get angry about it. … Americans in the 21st century are more likely to be divorced from any sense of a creedal order, ignorant of the moral traditions that have come down to us through the ages and detached from the sense that we all owe obligations to a higher authority."

Be sure also to read a similar commentary by David Kuo in the Los Angeles Times. "The biggest problem I have with The Passion, isn't the violence. It is with the protagonist," he writes. "The guy on the screen is nothing like that insipid, tunic-wearing, lamb-carrying, two-dimensional, felt-faced Jesus from Sunday school. That Jesus was easy. He could be molded and crafted like Play-Doh into anything I — or anyone else — wanted from him."

The Passion :

• 'The Passion' soars beyond $200 million | The movie is expected to top $300 million, said Bob Berney, president of Newmarket Films (Associated Press)
  
  
• Mel Gibson forgives us for his sins | If you criticize Gibson's film and the Jew-baiting by which he promoted it, you are persecuting him — all the way to the bank (Frank Rich, The New York Times)
  
  
• Churches give away Gibson tickets | Four English churches are offering free cinema tickets to see Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ in an attempt to boost their congregations (BBC)
  
  
• 'Passion' for a pogrom? | Critics who say the film inspires violent feelings are faking it (Mark Steyn, The Washington Times)
  
  
• A 'Passion' out of proportion | Some of us, in recent times, have come to respect, even welcome, religious enthusiasm—to welcome it in the public square as well as in church. But not if it were to take this form, exploiting violence, ferocity and sadism in the cause of religion. (Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Washington Post)
  
  
• A touchstone of anti-Semitism | Hutton Gibson's comments must be answered (Nat Hentoff, The Washington Times)
  
  

Religion and politics:

• Ties that should bind | Religious conservatives, including black Christians who are also clearly cultural conservatives, will set the stage for the national debate over values and truth (Joseph Evans, The Washington Times)
  
  
• Fly high above the battlefield | America is heading toward an election where voters will be asked to choose between protecting jobs or protecting the family (Stanley B. Greenbergm, The New York Times)
  
  
• Should political candidates talk openly about their religion? | Readers respond (The Washington Post)
  
  
• The value of education | How active a role do you think the government should take in funding one's theological studies? Religious leaders respond (Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Calif.)
  
  
• Big dividends, some risk for Bush on religious right | The president is taking nothing for granted when it comes to courting his political base (Newhouse News Service)
  
  

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March (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48