c. 1998 Religion News Service
(R. Albert Mohler Jr., a noted author and speaker, is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.)
UNDATED _ The nation’s ongoing process of cultural redefinition has taken another tragic turn with the opening of Terrence McNally’s new play,”Corpus Christi.”The play, which opened last week in New York, has already drawn intense controversyand that controversy is not about to go away.
The play is advertised as a modern retelling of the story of Jesus.”From modern day Corpus Christi, Texas to ancient Jerusalem, we follow a young gay man named Joshua on his spiritual journey, and get to know the 12 disciples who choose to follow him.” Joshua is, of course, a variation on”Jesus,”and”Corpus Christi”refers not merely to the Texas city, but to one of the festivals of the Roman Catholic Church, and means, literally,”body of Christ.”The playwright is not aiming for subtlety. The play is an intentional effort to blaspheme and slander the Christian faith _ and, no doubt, to win the playwright another Tony award.
Terrence McNally is one of the theater world’s most famous artists, having received Tony awards for his plays”Master Class,””Kiss of the Spider Woman,”and”Love! Valour! Compassion!”and another for his interpretation of the musical”Ragtime.” McNally is proud to be known as a”gay playwright,”and his plays often portray homosexual themes. In an interview last year, McNally explained his motivation:”This is a society that sells sex, and I think I’m helping to keep us from being cut short. Gay literature is going through its adolescence. The trouble with it is that everyone just talks about being gay. I think the issues are no longer how unhappy we are or why we exist.” Well, whatever McNally thinks the issues should be, he created some issues of his own with”Corpus Christi,”which presents Jesus Christ as”King of the Queers”and includes off-stage sex scenes between”Joshua”and his disciples.
If McNally was looking for a controversy, he found it when the Manhattan Theater Club, a prominent off-Broadway theater, decided to stage”Corpus Christi.”A public furor ensued when the club announced its intention this past spring. What happened next was all too predictable.
After reporting anonymous phone threats to burn down the theater and kill the staff, top administrators of the club announced in May the play would be canceled. The response of the cultural elite was outrage. In a fit of high humbug The New York Times declared the cancellation threatened our constitutional order.”The practitioners and beneficiaries of religious freedom attack the practitioners of artistic freedom _ freedom of speech _ without seeing that the freedoms they enjoy cannot be defended separately.” Other playwrights declared their solidarity by withdrawing their own plays. The leading lights of the art world invoked the dreaded”c-word”_ censorship.
That was simply too much for the Manhattan Theater Club.”We were outraged by a subsequent outcry which accused the Manhattan Theater Club of censorship,”said Lynne Meadow, the club’s artistic director.”In our 25-year history, we have never censored a play or turned down a play because of content.” As expected, the club quickly announced it had regained its artistic senses and the play is back. Declaring civilization had been saved from a new dark age, luminaries of the theater world voiced their approval. A statement released by 30 playwrights characterized the club’s reinstatement”a brave and honorable decision.” Welcome to post-Christian America, where any effort to scandalize Christian believers _ no matter how outrageous and offensive _ is defended as art. Jesus is portrayed as a homosexual who has sex with his apostles. Are you offended? The artistic world insists we should get used to it.
Michael Scammell, president of the PEN American Center, a group defending literary freedom, calls for reason, rather than rage, in responding to”Corpus Christi.”Along the way, he decided to act as a theologian as well.”The traditional insistence on Christ’s celibacy strikes some people as arbitrary and inherently dubious, while the truth and beauty of Christian teaching do not depend upon the assertion of Christ’s chastity.” Scammell should stick to writing fiction. The fact is that traditional Christianity is the most significant obstacle faced by those pushing for the total legitimization of homosexuality.”Corpus Christi”is just one more effort to reverse the scandal _ to make the defense of homosexuality culturally normative, and to portray the defenders of biblical Christianity as dangerous cranks.
The cultural elite cannot hide the hypocrisy. These same artists would never think of portraying the Dalai Lama as a racist or Martin Luther King as a child molester. At that point you can be certain that the Manhattan Theater Club would find a way to”turn down a play because of content.” G. K. Chesterton once remarked that”art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”The controversy over”Corpus Christi”tells us much about the state of our culture. This play is over the line.
DEA END MOHLER
