Life of Brian Lesson

Several weeks ago I made a comment on a Facebook BBC post about the Life of Brian Monty Python film. See above.  By the time all of the comments had ceased, it had over a hundred comments back and forth, some of them mine, most of them from others. From people from all over the English speaking world.

Here is the back-story. Back in college, on Friday nights, there were free movies in the Student Memorial Center. One Friday Eve I sauntered into the Life of Brian and walked out about 10-15 minutes in. At the time, I thought that character "Brian" was just Jesus by a different name. The Monty Python gang, wink-wink, demurring it was about a fictional would-be reluctant Messiah named "Brian." I was Pre-Christian at the time but considered it unwise to mock God. Or at least not take any chances.

I thought that the film was blasphemous. I didn't realize the clues at the film's opening scenes that gave away the identity of Brian not being Jesus. The clues were fairly easy to miss for a daft 19 year old me not familiar much with the Bible. I knew enough to consider the film to be sketchy but not enough to catch the cinematic sleights-of-hand. Soon after I posted the comment, the firestorm of comments raged. Many questioning my intelligence, lack of sense of humor, and mental health.

I decided that early morning that I should watch the film with my now sound biblical understanding and almost 40 years since cognitive maturity. I caught the clues this time. I posted my thoughts about the film that is was  pretty funny, although certainly the final scene of crucifixion of Brian and other chumps and criminals really shouldn't be considered a laughing matter.  The film did do a masterful job of portraying the whims of the crowd to follow a spiritual leader, the fallibility of humanity, and other aspects of First century Palestine. The humor was biting and sophisticated.

So, I posted on the Facebook post that I was WRONG, that I had mistakenly thought the film was mocking Christ and it wasn't. I found it interesting that only a few people who were making comments about my initial post had taken the time to read the thread from the start. So, I spent an enormous amount of time explaining my error and my updated take on the film. My critics were essentially making the same mistake that I had. Over-reacting and not being informed.

A few people commented that it was very unusual of me to admit that I had been mistaken about my assessment of the film and praised my willingness to be transparent versus doubling-down and taking a scorched social media strategy. They commented how rare this was. I was fine with doing so because I didn't want to intentionally make the thread less than honest. The ensuing three weeks were overall a really interesting experience and I tried to reply to anyone who seemed to making assertions about me that were inaccurate and unfair, while avoiding insulting them back. 

The Book of James states that "we all stumble in many ways." James's point is to not act high and mighty, as if we are flawless. That is just a statement of fact. I think Christians would have a lot more credibility if we could admit that we are wrong sometimes, since doing so is so rare these days. We'd  be a lot better off if we could admit that we all see through the smart phone gorilla glass darkly.