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Civil groups protest new anti-Christian film

Comments: 20

Madrid, Spain, Oct 7, 2009 / 10:34 pm (CNA).- Just days before the release of the new movie “Agora” by Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar, civil rights organizations are denouncing the film for promoting hatred of Christians and reinforcing false clichés about the Catholic Church.

The president of the Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory, Antonio Alonso Marcos, has sent an open letter to Amenabar, also know for his pro-euthanasia film “The Sea Inside,” denouncing the film’s anti-Christian bias.

“The reason for my letter is to make you realize something that you already know but have dismissed as unimportant: your film is going to awaken hatred against Christians in today’s society. You present a biased view of the relationship between science and the Church, between faith and reason. It has been pointed out to you directly and indirectly, and you have used a somewhat vague excuse and looked the other way,” Marcos wrote.

Marcos reminded Amenabar of the comments made by people who have already seen a private screening of the film and which Amenabar himself echoed during a television interview.

During the interview he said, “At the end of the film, people sitting near me said Christians are bunch of SOBs.”

“This has been and will be the reaction of the public in general, and you know it,” Marcos said in his letter. “Is that what you were looking for? To throw manure on an institution that today helps millions of human beings to live and enjoy life to the fullest?” he asked the director.

In response to Amenabar’s statements that the film “is not against Christians but rather against those who set off bombs and kill in the name of God, that is, against religious fanatics,” Marcos wondered why the director has not recreated situations like those that take place in the Middle East.

“Agora,” which stars Rachel Weisz, is an epic film that recounts the story of Hipatia, a pagan woman who was killed for her political beliefs. According to some Spanish media, the film has yet to find a distributor in the United States because of its strong anti-Christian bias.

Comments: 20

Subscriber comments:

Published by: mnel
portugal 01/07/2010 08:19 AM EST

By now, i dont really care to know who killed more people, non believers, christians, or muslims, or etc. I would be a bit happy if the catholic church would take back its position on condoms, stem cell research and homossexuality, just to name a few topics.

Published by: Thruxomatic
Canada 01/06/2010 09:59 PM EST

@ Don Dixon "Historians estimate that in the past 2,000 years Christians have killed perhaps 17 million people in the name of their faith. Pagans and "scientific" atheists killed ten times that many in the last century alone. Non-Christians are way ahead." Only if you play really fast and loose with the facts and ignore that the primary motivator for Communism was class and not religion. Stalin starved the Ukrainians because they killed his central planners and kept their food production to themselves during a famine. Pol Pot killed millions because he tried to force everyone into one agrarian class and killed anyone that stuck out. Mao killed millions purging his political enemies and centralizing power into the Communist party. What does any of the above have to do with religion or atheism? Zip.

Published by: Tim
PA 01/06/2010 06:48 PM EST

For those claiming violence against Christians, or the ones claiming that non-Christians have killed more than Christians (as if that somehow makes the millions they've killed invalid), could you provide some proof?

Published by: Antonio
Lisbon 01/03/2010 11:30 AM EST

>Not that there is anything very new or original about this - Hypatia has long been pressed into >service as a martyr for science by those with agendas that have nothing to do with the accurate >presentation of history. Much like the highly mythologized event of the execution of a famous 2000 year old jew, wouldn't you say? I hate it when that happens, people just can't let go. I think you are right, let's just drop the subject. If you stop wailing about Christ every Sunday, I'll stop mentioning Hypatia, how's that, seems fair?

Published by: b.g.
new hampshire 11/03/2009 03:45 PM EST

The behavior of the church is what incites hate against the church, despite all the whiny, victim-playing xtians who refuse to acknowledge that they're the dominant religion in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world. Cry harder.

Published by: Nelson
Lisbon 10/26/2009 10:38 AM EST

Not that there is anything very new or original about this - Hypatia has long been pressed into service as a martyr for science by those with agendas that have nothing to do with the accurate presentation of history. As Maria Dzielska has detailed in her study of Hypatia in history and myth,Hypatia of Alexandria,virtually every age since her death that has heard her story has appropriated it and forced it to serve some polemical purpose. Ask who Hypatia was and you will probably be told "She was that beautiful young pagan philosopher who was torn to pieces by monks (or, more generally, by Christians) in Alexandria in 415". This pat answer would be based not on ancient sources, but on a mass of belletristic and historical literature .... Most of these works represent Hypatia as an innocent victim of the fanaticism of nascent Christianity, and her murder as marking the banishment of freedom of inquiry along with the Greek gods. (Dzielska, p. 1) Hypatia fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. (Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, VII.15)

Published by: Don Dixon
Long Beach, California 10/14/2009 02:35 AM EST

Rate: Regular

Historians estimate that in the past 2,000 years Christians have killed perhaps 17 million people in the name of their faith. Pagans and "scientific" atheists killed ten times that many in the last century alone. Non-Christians are way ahead.

Published by: Paul C
Germantown, MD 10/12/2009 04:06 AM EST

The voyeurs will enjoy it. The wounded ex- or anti-Christians will love it. The Christians will do their daily best to keep on keeping on, having no desire to rehash sins that Jesus has forgiven. If only the former two groups would ask for, and will receive, forgiveness, they could let go too. What a wonderful world this would be.

Published by: JF
Victoria 10/10/2009 05:14 PM EST

you can't just cover an atrocety up and hope it will go away. If anyone was to suggest we did this for the Holocaust, the 9/11 attacks or the bali bombings, all reasonable people would denouce it right off the bat. If the christians ever want me to forgive their actions, they need to learn from and not repeat them, not hide them away from the public. That Hypatia's story is not well-known is a sad thing, and this movie should help ensure that her sacrifice was not in vain, always assuming, of course, it gets shown anywhere without fundamentalists chaining themselves to the cinema doors... we'll have to wait and see.

Published by: Jennifer
Canada 10/10/2009 10:18 AM EST

Nobody's history is squeaky clean. If Christians would acknowledge their bloody past more often, there really would be less reason to point it out, especially when they often have no problem criticizing other religions for the same thing. People would more readily empathize and relate to them if the majority of them admitted to this instead of hiding or making excuses for their group's past.

Published by: reddog
Huntington Beach 10/10/2009 03:34 AM EST

Sounds like a great movie. They should show it in Church basements. Christians should embrace the shortcomings of historical Christianity so that they may avoid making the same mistakes. The biggest mistake Catholics continue to make is allowing the sexually perverted and homosexually dominated celibate priesthood to direct the practice of the faith. If they continue this Catholicism will be destroyed.

Published by: Corie
Fl USA 10/09/2009 06:34 PM EST

To truly believe in a religion and to follow it, you must accept the good and the bad, the light and the dark. To boycott it and to pretend it's not there, is simply saying that you are too afraid to know the truth of things as they are and to accept them. It's everyone's choice whether to see a movie and, because of a different perspective, it should not be banned but understood with the knowledge that maybe all those who aren't Christian aren't ignorant and good in them as well.

Published by: betsi
sebring,fl, usa 10/09/2009 12:45 PM EST

i do hope and pray that this movie comes to the USA and soon. it is time someone plucked up the courage to show how brutle & cruel the early days of 'church' were to pagan men & woman. for the simple reason of NOT accepting the 'one god' concept. their attitude toward pagans today is still hostel and they are considered evil and servents of the devil. which is rediculious because pagans do not believe in the devil!

Published by: Cheryl
Newark, DE 10/09/2009 07:48 AM EST

The truth will out, won't it? Instead of agreeing that her murder was wrong and that Christians are more tolerant today, Christians are upset that the incident is being dragged out from under the rug so people can learn about it. I wonder what else is under there?

Published by: realshanti
USA 10/09/2009 01:53 AM EST

To Ray Ingles: "From Wikipedia: "...her chariot was waylaid on her route home by a Christian mob [who] stripped her naked and dragged her through the streets to the newly Christianised Caesareum church, where she was brutally killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostraca (potsherds) and set ablaze while still alive, though other accounts suggest those actions happened after her death..." If this weren't actual history, if this were completely invented, that'd be worthy of ire. But it, y'know, happened." Ahh yes Wikipedia is such a reliable factotum - could you please site some other sources? I wouldn't rely on Wiki to give the correct date as of yesterday let alone information from two thousand years ago - and no I don't "y'know" if it happened - however the persecution of the early church is extremely well documented both from sources inside and outside of the church...and continues to be persecuted in places like Iran, North Africa, Malaysia, China, and the list goes on - and these events are also well documented and "y'know" they actually are happening right now as I write this.

Published by: Cindy Wilson
Roswell, NM, USA 10/08/2009 05:28 PM EST

I look forward to seeing the movie in the US. History should not be silenced simply to keep ignorance intact. The movie as I understand it is not an attack on any particular religious organization, but rather the mob mentality which used religion as the excuse and right to murder and destroy. Surely that message is worthy of repeating again so we can learn and not suffer through it again - regardless of religious preference.

Published by: Nancy Heise
Parkland, FL, USA 10/08/2009 12:50 PM EST

Rate: Regular

I am surprised that anyone would make a film critical of Christians when there is so much violence being perpetrated against Christians by non-Christians - not the other way around. It sounds like a failure to educate people on the fact that more people are helped by the Church in the world than any other organization. The Church in Europe needs lay people to accentuate these facts. Right now, people are just being poisoned by misinformation instead of learning the truth about the good done by the Church both in the past and present.

Published by: Ray Ingles
Detroit, MI USA 10/08/2009 11:40 AM EST

From Wikipedia: "...her chariot was waylaid on her route home by a Christian mob [who] stripped her naked and dragged her through the streets to the newly Christianised Caesareum church, where she was brutally killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostraca (potsherds) and set ablaze while still alive, though other accounts suggest those actions happened after her death..." If this weren't actual history, if this were completely invented, that'd be worthy of ire. But it, y'know, happened.

Published by: Catholic Defender
Qatar 10/08/2009 04:33 AM EST

If this film will be available in cinemas nearby, I will boycott.

Published by: jim
austin, TX 10/08/2009 01:04 AM EST

Rate: Good

Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life, our Sweetness, and our hope. To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then most gracious advocate, Thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us, the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us O Holy Mother of God, That we may be worthy of the promises of Christ.

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