On the last episode of Big Love, there were two very interesting religious themes in the episode.
First theme: ho one religious group believes that another religious group is "cult-like." The second wife, Nikkie no longer wanted her son to attend a Catholic school after the school gave the son a Crucifix and the son played with it like he would any other toy. Rather than try to understand the religion, Nikkie just attacked Catholicism for its pagan rituals and belief structures, which is similar to how other members of the LDS, as well as other religions, view The Compound. This seems to be a problem with almost every religion. If you read the Supreme Court Case Santa Fe Independent School System versus Jane Doe, according to the facts of the case, a teacher in the school system told a Mormon student that the student belonged to a cult and not a religion (and therefore could not attend a Baptist revival.)
Second, and more interesting, Bill thought about taking a fourth wife and inviting her to live the principle. (One of the best lines in the episode was when a male friend of Bill's stated that that you could help it when you were "Sucker Punched by the Holy Spirit.") So far, Bill has not taken the fourth wife.
But this plot device raises an interesting question about divine intervention. The men on big love claim that it is inspiration that causes them to take another wife. However, only the men receive that inspiration. When the youngest wife, Margie finds out about Bill "dating" and meets the women in question, she tries to help Bill pursue the girlfriend because she believes that she is inspired to do so by the Holy Spirit. At first Bill denies that is the case, but Margie establishes that she too could feel the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Bill could not respond to that point in any adequate way. Yet, this confrontation between Bill and Margie seems to call into question the patriarchal society in which the family lives.
This seems to be an interesting discussion of faith, and a better plot device, than has occurred in recent other episodes.
It does leave the viewer with one major question about religion: how do you know when your faith is speaking to you? What are the consequences for the individual and the community in larger society.
This could be problematic for many reasons. Recently, a man from Houston, Texas killed a gay man. The killer stated that he acted after 1,000s of hours studying the Bible. He believed he was doing the right thing and G-D told him to do this.
When I lived in Texas, I heard a story about Jury duty whereby one juror wanted to convict the defendant because the juror prayed about it and G-D told him that the defendant as guilty.
1 comment:
Two comments:
First, I'm really interested in Big Love's emphasis on the patriarchy of religion and its simultaneous highlighting of the (w)omen's relationship as sister (w)ives as being almost more important than each individual (w)ife's relationship (w)ith Bill. Margie is really interesting in this situation because she's not religious. She follo(w)s the principle only because-- as she puts it-- she fell in love (w)ith Bill and his family. She is the perfect person to question the validity of a Holy Spirit that only "sucker punches" men. But, (w)hen Bill tells her ho(w) he kne(w) it (w)as a holy calling (w)hen he met her because of ho(w) much he loved her right a(w)ay, it effectively shuts her up and she gives up the argument. To me, Margie's reaction (w)as entirely realistic but disappointing nonetheless.
Second, it drives me crazy ho(w) the (w) on our laptop sticks and you have to hit it five times to get it to (w)ork!!!
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