"The Last Templar" or "Destroy a Book For Jesus!"

I shouldn't be writing this. I should be in bed, resting up to face yet another day at the Day Job, for which I need all the strength I can get.

But after stumbling across NBC's made-for-TV movie The Last Templar, I have to rant, lest I toss and turn and keep yelping, "What the f***?!" all night.

I was enjoying down time by flipping between two PBS channels, watching an Independant Lens documentary on children in China electing their Class Monitor (it's disturbing to watch eight year olds who are more politically savvy than Al Franken and Norm Coleman), and an American Experience program about Oppenheimer. I stumbled across The Last Templar (oh ho! or was it meant to be?) somewhere in the middle, and decided to give it five minutes. I ended up not able to wrench myself away. And not because the movie was good.

Now, ever since I was a little kid, I've loved science, journalism, and history. Their common thread is the love of facts. I grew up in a period when people were questioning everything (see my previous post What Did You Learn in School Today?) I am a deep believer that no fact should be suppressed or destroyed, no matter how disturbing it is, no matter how much "History" and "Truth" it shatters.

That said, The Last Templar is about a requisite blond who seemingly has found something Ancient of her daddy's. Requisite Blond is either Agnostic or Atheist. We can tell this because she makes remarks about people praying to God. She and a requisite leading man are being followed by A Guy From "The Church" and his bodyguard/driver (the only black man in the film that I saw) and some Old Guy With a Secret. Old Guy With a Secret convinces Requisite Blond to go with him out into the middle of the ocean to find something Of Great Worth having to do with the Templars. For reasons unknown, Requisite Blond dumped Requisite Leading Man in the desert (they're in Turkey, which has an overabundance of Quaint Local Merchant Stands so they can be run over by the silly Americans in their Rover). Dumped Requisite Leading Man is "rescued" by "Church" Guy and Threatening Sunglass-Wearing Requiste Black "Help," and they all end up on a ship headed out to the middle of the Mediterranean.

Turns out that, sometime in the past, the Last Templars were on a ship that went down during a terrible storm in the Mediterranean, but not before hiding the "True" gospel of Jesus in the ship's figurehead. This "True" Gospel proved that Jesus was a man, not the son of God. "Church" Guy, who is a priest, (and who points out that he is not condoned or approved by The Church) wants to destroy the gospel. Old Guy is revealed to be the Last Templar, and his duty is to rescue the gospel and complete the Templars' duty by revealing it to the world and proving that Jesus was just some carpenter with a lot of P.R. While at gunpoint, Requisite Blond scolds Unauthorized "Church" Guy for wanting to destroy the gospel and depriving the world of the Truth.

SUDDENLY, a terrible storm hits them! (The storm later to be named by the locals, "The Deus ex Machina"). Requisite Blond reaffirms her slightly mocking Unbelief by saying (paraphrasing), "When the storm hit the Templars' ship, I wonder if they prayed to God?" The two sides battle over the recovered figurehead! Requisite Blond is saved from Threatening Sunglass -Wearing Requisite Black "Help" by Requisite Leading Man, and they kiss as the ship is overturned!

But behold! Requisite Blond is found alive on the beach (having floated or swam or flown from the center of the sea, with dress intact). She's taken into the home of a most humble, pious, saintly man (I swear it was Omar Shariff. lord, did he need money that badly?), who keeps encouraging her while gazing at the suncatcher cross in his window. Requisite Leading Man is in the next room, in bed, in a coma, his tiny cross lying on his bare chest.

Requisite Blond meets all the good, pious people of the good, pious village. Omar Shariff tells her she must have been saved for a Reason. (Evidently, the ship's hands must have had no Higher Reason to live, so it was time to die horribly.) She goes out to the beach and weepingly prays for the first time, (paraphrasing), "Gee, God, I haven't talked to you, and I know you might not be there, but if you are, pretty please save (Requisite Leading Man's name), because he's one of the good ones." (Because the only people you kill off are the bad ones, right?)

Just then, Requisite Blond spies the ship's figurehead on the beach! She runs to it! She finds the exact place where the clay vessel holding the gospel is hidden! She takes it out to the sunniest, windiest rocky cliff above the ocean (note: cliff. Later renamed by locals, "The Cliff of Foreshadowing."). Here, without hesitation, without concern about what sun, wind, salt air, and her own handling may do to 2000 year old papyrus, she breaks open the vessel and unwinds the scroll.

And then, Old Guy shows up! He says he survived! (no kidding?) He says that now the world can be freed from Religion (saying this as if the only religion in the world is Christianity). Blond says it isn't right to reveal this new gospel, it --revealing that Jesus was a brilliant carpenter/philosopher instead of the son of god-- would destroy all hope, all love, and kindness such as the good, pious people of the good, pious village have shown her. Old Athiest Guy mocks her and religion. He tries to take the scroll! Blond dodges! Old Atheist Guy and the scroll plummet off the cliff! Both are destroyed, forever! Oh, she didn't mean to destroy the scroll. It was an accident.

Requisite Blond goes to comatose Requisite Leading Man's bedside. She tells him the gospel is gone. She holds his hand. She cries. He opens his eyes! Glory Alleluia!

Later, Requisite Leading Man is with a priest at some exhibit of some sort of Christian artifacts. The priest says "Church" Guy wasn't under their (the Catholic Church's?) instructions. But, he says, for 2000 years people have tried to use false "historic documents" to destroy their faith, and their hope, but they failed. "Amen," says Requisite Leading Man, with pious earnestness.

And, a flashback, which reveals that the Templars had scribes create a fake gospel, in the hope of ending religious bloodshed! The destroyed papyrus was a fraud, after all! Requisite Blond and Requisite Leading Man get together! The End!

After I stopped yelling at the TV, which had moved on to report the Franken/Coleman continued recount and the unmercifully cold weather, which in and of themselves were reason enought to yell at the TV, I noted the movie's Lessons and Moral.

LESSON: Without faith, specifically Chrisitan faith, you can't have courage, compassion, ethics, and morals.

LESSON: People who mock God will die in nasty ways. ("Church" Guy didn't mock God, but God smote him nastily anyway for working off the clock.)

LESSON: People who believe, or repent and ask God nicely, will have Happy Endings.

LESSON: Black men are scary. (Sorry, President Obama.)

MORAL: Rather than reveal a priceless document to the people, and allow the people to decide for themselves whether to believe it or not, it's better that the document be destroyed, so there's no chance that the people might choose to stop believing in what you want them to believe.

If this movie was meant to be an arguement for Christian faith, the writers didn't think it through very well. Supression of opposing viewpoints has never been a very good tool for the Church. It's led to, oh, I dunno................ burning at the stake, beheading, eviseration, pressing people under stones, banning ideas such as the earth going around the sun, burning crosses on lawns, beating lesbians to death, protecting pedophiles. And good old fashioned destruction of books.

I don't happen to think any of those things are good.

I'm all in favor of accepting any authentic revearsal of what I believe to be true. We would not have light bulbs and vaccines if people didn't say, "Whoa. I was so wrong. Better use this new information." I remember all too well the outrage by some historians at the very idea that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children by Sally Hayes. Some were still in denial after the DNA results came in. But rather than Jefferson being ruined as a Founded Father because of his hypocrisy --and he certainly wasn't the only Founding Father who was a hypocrite-- he became all the more intriguing. Nothing is lost by Jefferson no longer being a demi-god. What's gained is that we can identify with him better, knowing that, even with his genius, he was as inconsistent and messed up as the rest of us.

Irving Wallace flipped this theme in his novel The Word, published back in the "Is God Dead?" time of the 60s. In The Word, a new Bible is discovered, written supposedly by Jesus' brother, saying that, yeah, Bro was indeed the Son of God. The main character is a cynic who gains faith, only to discover a man who claims to have created the new Bible. After disclosing to only the main character that it's all a fraud, the guy is murdered. The main character becomes a Born Again Cynic, and watches as people believe in the fake new Bible.

I refuse to accept the idea that any destruction and suppression of information, no matter how well-meaning, is acceptable. I wouldn't even suppress The Last Templar, even if I believe it's propaganda, and bad propaganda at that. As long as there's a Da Vinci Code for every Last Templar, I'm happy.

Tomorrow after work, I need a good dose of one of my favorite films, National Treasure. I prefer my history/fantasy mash-up movies to be well-written and entertaining.

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