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Recalling the time local Christians took on Hollywood
A new book recounts how Martin Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ' made O.C. a hotbed of protests in 1988.
By PETER LARSEN
The Orange County Register
TAKE OUR POLL ON MOVIES OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS
The handmade signs they carried made clear the reasons why hundreds of protestors descended on the MainPlace mall in Santa Ana on a Friday afternoon 20 years ago.
"Don't Be Led Into Temptation."
"Jesus is Not a Wimp."
"The Bible, Not the Movie!"
On Aug. 19, 1988, "The Last Temptation Of Christ," opened in Orange County one week after premiering in Los Angeles, New York and a few other cities.
Director Martin Scorsese's film project had become over the course of the '80s one of the most controversial movies ever developed.
Its fictional account of the final hours of the life of Jesus angered many Christians, leading them to fight to stop the movie from being released by Universal Pictures and its parent company MCA. In turn, the entertainment industry defended the film under the First Amendment guarantees for free artistic expression.
A new book, "Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars," tells the story of that time and how it changed the country in ways that continue to be felt.
To understand the furor over the film – and especially how it played in Orange County – we talked to Thomas R. Lindlof, the University of Kentucky professor who wrote the book, as well three Orange County residents involved in the debate at that time.
A SCHOLAR'S VIEW
"The context is important," Lindlof says, describing how the film became such a cultural flashpoint.
"Last Temptation" arrived when Christian activists had garnered political strength throughout the '80s, focusing some of their attention on the entertainment industry and its products, says Lindlof, whose specialty is cultural analysis of the media. Groups such as Moral Majority and the National Federation of Decency spoke out against TV shows and movies they found general distasteful.
"And 'Last Temptation' was perceived as the most egregious yet," Lindlof says. "I think it was perceived as out of sync with religious values, and almost deliberately so."
The movie and the book portrayed the final hours of Jesus, including a long sequence in which author Nikos Kazantzakis describes a final temptation in which Christ see how his life might be if he lived: marriage, children and perhaps most upsetting to many who opposed the film, sex.
"'Last Temptation' gave the leaders of the Christian movement a target," Lindlof says, noting how the scandals within the movement such as the falls of televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart had created a loss of confidence.
"And by opposing the film, they hoped to rally their membership, get a new sense of identity and also rebuild their membership and fundraising."
In Orange County, Lindlof says that the Kazantzakis book had been opposed by a handful of cities in the 1960s, giving it a familiarity to Christians living here. The county's proximity to Hollywood also made it easy to get there for protests seeking to block the release of the film.
While those failed to stop "Last Temptation' from reaching theaters, the events of the summer of 1988 continued to reverberate in the culture.
Hollywood stayed away from controversial religious themes for a few years, Lindlof says. And religious groups backed away from big national protests to focus on grass-roots activism in local communities and neighborhoods.
A RADIO LEADER
"I'd heard some rumors about this film that was coming out," says John Stewart, now a lawyer from Villa Park, who in 1988 was a talk-show host on Christian radio station KKLA-FM/99.5. "And it's going to portray Jesus as different than he is in the gospels, and a lot of people feel it's blasphemous."
And so from a studio about a mile away from Universal City, Stewart started to talk about the film more and more that spring. In July, members of a Calvary Chapel congregation asked Stewart to mention a rally at Universal on the air, he did, and 2,500 people showed up.
That, Stewart says, made him start to think that an even bigger demonstration should be organized. He contacted Rich Buhler – another Orange County-based Christian radio host, currently on KBRT-AM/740 – and they laid plans for a bigger, more broad-based, protest.
"Everyone was appealing to (Universal) not to make this thing that was disrespectful, unhistorical," he says. "I just happened to be in the right place, right in their backyard, with a big audience. So I decided to be the bandleader of this thing."
Aug. 11, 1988 – a day chosen several weeks before Universal announced it would release the movie on Aug. 12, instead of late September – as many as 25,000 people filled the streets outside Universal's headquarters for the rally.
"It looked like every other person had a sign, too," Stewart says. "It looked like thousands of signs out there."
Did it inadvertently help promote a long, slowly paced art movie? "My response (at the time) was, 'Well, not every day does People magazine call me up and say, "Who is Jesus to you?"'" Stewart says. "It gave a lot of opportunity to talk about what we believe."
Did it create a lasting change even if the protests didn't stop the movie? "It certainly was a seminal moment," Stewart says. "For the first time, a lot of people took to the streets and realized that they could and they weren't averse to doing it again.
Would the reaction be the same if 'Last Temptation' came debuted today? "I don't know whether it would turn out the same," Stewart says.
"That was the perfect storm."
A SINGER'S STAND
At the big Universal rally that summer, one of the speakers who drew the most attention was a 23-year-old from Santa Ana who had recently signed a recording contract with MCA, the parent company of Universal.
Steve Gooden, now of Newport Beach, tore that contract up, saying he did so to take a stand for what he believed.
"I never made my million because I got blackballed," Gooden says, laughing, of how his life changed that day. "Oh, gosh, I'll never forget standing in front of those 30,000 people with all those major Christian broadcasters who said they'd stand with me.
"None of them did, not Jan and Paul (Crouch of Costa Mesa-based Trinity Broadcasting Network), none of them," Gooden says. (The Crouches declined a request for an interview for this story.)
"I almost regret doing what I did," says Gooden, who works in real estate now. "I wonder if I could have done more good if I'd stayed with (MCA) and worked from the inside."
Gooden still believes that the movie was wrong and that he was right to take a stand for his faith. What he doesn't like about that time is the way he believes organizations tried to use the rallies and protests to build up their membership and fundraising.
"I came to believe that I was used," Gooden says. "And I technically didn't mind that I was being used. Because in my heart of hearts, I felt that at least to the world that I would demonstrate that there were things more valuable than silver and gold."
While he never recorded an album as he had hoped to do with MCA, he still makes music, putting it online for anyone to enjoy.
"It was a decision then that I was proud of and I was comfortable with," he says. "Do I regret the outcome? Well, yes and no.
"You think the Christians regret being eaten by the lions?" he says, referring to the biblical story of a group of Christians who chose death instead of renouncing their faith. "Of course they did.
"But did they regret standing up for their faith in Jesus? Of course not."
A MEASURED MINISTER
Like many in Orange County, Terry Cantrell, the administrator of Bethel Baptist Church and school in Santa Ana, participated for a time in the boycott against Universal and MCA that religious groups called for after the movie made its debut, even as he questioned whether that was the best response.
"The boycott, I think, gave more attention to the movie than it deserved, and probably made more money for them than it deserved," Cantrell says. "I saw the movie, or a good portion of it, years later, and it wasn't that good of a movie, just for its entertainment value."
Part of the reason the movie hit many Christians so hard, Cantrell believes, was because the questions it posed were unfamiliar and uncomfortable at that time.
"Today, there is a greater emphasis on the humanizing of Jesus, making him more human," Cantrell says. "There was a time when you would never get asked this question, but now, I think even among evangelicals, you get asked, 'Well, could Jesus have been married?'
"But back then, I think it was such an affront because people did not ask those questions."
Cantrell says that while he doesn't believe the question is wrong to pose, "it's not within the realm of who Jesus was, and so it's not relevant," he says. "It's an interesting fiction story, just like 'The Da Vinci Code' is an interesting fiction story."
The way to respond to fictional or inaccurate accounts, he says, is not by trying to censor them, but by using them to start conversations.
"It's an opportunity," he says of work such as "Last Temptation" and "The Da Vinci Code." "It raises questions for people to ask, and gives an opportunity to tell people what's really going on."
He points to director Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" as proof that stories that hew more closely to the traditional biblical accounts are also more successful at the box office.
Cantrell says that with changes in society – such as a greater openness to asking those questions that were never asked 20 years ago – he doubts "Last Temptation" would have the impact or create the same furor if it was released today.
"If 'Last Temptation' were released today, I don't think anybody would care," he says.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@ocregister.com
A new book recounts how Martin Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ' made O.C. a hotbed of protests in 1988.
By PETER LARSEN
The Orange County Register
TAKE OUR POLL ON MOVIES OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS
The handmade signs they carried made clear the reasons why hundreds of protestors descended on the MainPlace mall in Santa Ana on a Friday afternoon 20 years ago.
"Don't Be Led Into Temptation."
"Jesus is Not a Wimp."
"The Bible, Not the Movie!"
On Aug. 19, 1988, "The Last Temptation Of Christ," opened in Orange County one week after premiering in Los Angeles, New York and a few other cities.
Director Martin Scorsese's film project had become over the course of the '80s one of the most controversial movies ever developed.
Its fictional account of the final hours of the life of Jesus angered many Christians, leading them to fight to stop the movie from being released by Universal Pictures and its parent company MCA. In turn, the entertainment industry defended the film under the First Amendment guarantees for free artistic expression.
A new book, "Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars," tells the story of that time and how it changed the country in ways that continue to be felt.
To understand the furor over the film – and especially how it played in Orange County – we talked to Thomas R. Lindlof, the University of Kentucky professor who wrote the book, as well three Orange County residents involved in the debate at that time.
A SCHOLAR'S VIEW
"The context is important," Lindlof says, describing how the film became such a cultural flashpoint.
"Last Temptation" arrived when Christian activists had garnered political strength throughout the '80s, focusing some of their attention on the entertainment industry and its products, says Lindlof, whose specialty is cultural analysis of the media. Groups such as Moral Majority and the National Federation of Decency spoke out against TV shows and movies they found general distasteful.
"And 'Last Temptation' was perceived as the most egregious yet," Lindlof says. "I think it was perceived as out of sync with religious values, and almost deliberately so."
The movie and the book portrayed the final hours of Jesus, including a long sequence in which author Nikos Kazantzakis describes a final temptation in which Christ see how his life might be if he lived: marriage, children and perhaps most upsetting to many who opposed the film, sex.
"'Last Temptation' gave the leaders of the Christian movement a target," Lindlof says, noting how the scandals within the movement such as the falls of televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart had created a loss of confidence.
"And by opposing the film, they hoped to rally their membership, get a new sense of identity and also rebuild their membership and fundraising."
In Orange County, Lindlof says that the Kazantzakis book had been opposed by a handful of cities in the 1960s, giving it a familiarity to Christians living here. The county's proximity to Hollywood also made it easy to get there for protests seeking to block the release of the film.
While those failed to stop "Last Temptation' from reaching theaters, the events of the summer of 1988 continued to reverberate in the culture.
Hollywood stayed away from controversial religious themes for a few years, Lindlof says. And religious groups backed away from big national protests to focus on grass-roots activism in local communities and neighborhoods.
A RADIO LEADER
"I'd heard some rumors about this film that was coming out," says John Stewart, now a lawyer from Villa Park, who in 1988 was a talk-show host on Christian radio station KKLA-FM/99.5. "And it's going to portray Jesus as different than he is in the gospels, and a lot of people feel it's blasphemous."
And so from a studio about a mile away from Universal City, Stewart started to talk about the film more and more that spring. In July, members of a Calvary Chapel congregation asked Stewart to mention a rally at Universal on the air, he did, and 2,500 people showed up.
That, Stewart says, made him start to think that an even bigger demonstration should be organized. He contacted Rich Buhler – another Orange County-based Christian radio host, currently on KBRT-AM/740 – and they laid plans for a bigger, more broad-based, protest.
"Everyone was appealing to (Universal) not to make this thing that was disrespectful, unhistorical," he says. "I just happened to be in the right place, right in their backyard, with a big audience. So I decided to be the bandleader of this thing."
Aug. 11, 1988 – a day chosen several weeks before Universal announced it would release the movie on Aug. 12, instead of late September – as many as 25,000 people filled the streets outside Universal's headquarters for the rally.
"It looked like every other person had a sign, too," Stewart says. "It looked like thousands of signs out there."
Did it inadvertently help promote a long, slowly paced art movie? "My response (at the time) was, 'Well, not every day does People magazine call me up and say, "Who is Jesus to you?"'" Stewart says. "It gave a lot of opportunity to talk about what we believe."
Did it create a lasting change even if the protests didn't stop the movie? "It certainly was a seminal moment," Stewart says. "For the first time, a lot of people took to the streets and realized that they could and they weren't averse to doing it again.
Would the reaction be the same if 'Last Temptation' came debuted today? "I don't know whether it would turn out the same," Stewart says.
"That was the perfect storm."
A SINGER'S STAND
At the big Universal rally that summer, one of the speakers who drew the most attention was a 23-year-old from Santa Ana who had recently signed a recording contract with MCA, the parent company of Universal.
Steve Gooden, now of Newport Beach, tore that contract up, saying he did so to take a stand for what he believed.
"I never made my million because I got blackballed," Gooden says, laughing, of how his life changed that day. "Oh, gosh, I'll never forget standing in front of those 30,000 people with all those major Christian broadcasters who said they'd stand with me.
"None of them did, not Jan and Paul (Crouch of Costa Mesa-based Trinity Broadcasting Network), none of them," Gooden says. (The Crouches declined a request for an interview for this story.)
"I almost regret doing what I did," says Gooden, who works in real estate now. "I wonder if I could have done more good if I'd stayed with (MCA) and worked from the inside."
Gooden still believes that the movie was wrong and that he was right to take a stand for his faith. What he doesn't like about that time is the way he believes organizations tried to use the rallies and protests to build up their membership and fundraising.
"I came to believe that I was used," Gooden says. "And I technically didn't mind that I was being used. Because in my heart of hearts, I felt that at least to the world that I would demonstrate that there were things more valuable than silver and gold."
While he never recorded an album as he had hoped to do with MCA, he still makes music, putting it online for anyone to enjoy.
"It was a decision then that I was proud of and I was comfortable with," he says. "Do I regret the outcome? Well, yes and no.
"You think the Christians regret being eaten by the lions?" he says, referring to the biblical story of a group of Christians who chose death instead of renouncing their faith. "Of course they did.
"But did they regret standing up for their faith in Jesus? Of course not."
A MEASURED MINISTER
Like many in Orange County, Terry Cantrell, the administrator of Bethel Baptist Church and school in Santa Ana, participated for a time in the boycott against Universal and MCA that religious groups called for after the movie made its debut, even as he questioned whether that was the best response.
"The boycott, I think, gave more attention to the movie than it deserved, and probably made more money for them than it deserved," Cantrell says. "I saw the movie, or a good portion of it, years later, and it wasn't that good of a movie, just for its entertainment value."
Part of the reason the movie hit many Christians so hard, Cantrell believes, was because the questions it posed were unfamiliar and uncomfortable at that time.
"Today, there is a greater emphasis on the humanizing of Jesus, making him more human," Cantrell says. "There was a time when you would never get asked this question, but now, I think even among evangelicals, you get asked, 'Well, could Jesus have been married?'
"But back then, I think it was such an affront because people did not ask those questions."
Cantrell says that while he doesn't believe the question is wrong to pose, "it's not within the realm of who Jesus was, and so it's not relevant," he says. "It's an interesting fiction story, just like 'The Da Vinci Code' is an interesting fiction story."
The way to respond to fictional or inaccurate accounts, he says, is not by trying to censor them, but by using them to start conversations.
"It's an opportunity," he says of work such as "Last Temptation" and "The Da Vinci Code." "It raises questions for people to ask, and gives an opportunity to tell people what's really going on."
He points to director Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" as proof that stories that hew more closely to the traditional biblical accounts are also more successful at the box office.
Cantrell says that with changes in society – such as a greater openness to asking those questions that were never asked 20 years ago – he doubts "Last Temptation" would have the impact or create the same furor if it was released today.
"If 'Last Temptation' were released today, I don't think anybody would care," he says.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@ocregister.com