If Liam Neeson converts, I’m going to have to think long and hard about watching the Narnia movies again. Sigh.
Bookworm on Jan 28 2012 at 4:50 pm | Filed under: Hollywood, Islam
Liam Neeson’s flirting with converting to Islam, a religious quest made possible by the fact that the religion has great calls to prayer and everyone does it (at least in Muslim countries) — and, no, I’m not exaggerating when I belittle his expressed motive when he contemplates abandoning the Catholicism of his childhood in exchange for the religion of perpetual outrage:
On filming in Istanbul, Neeson told British rag The Sun: “The call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing… There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”
Just to be clear, Neeson makes no mention of spiritual or doctrinal failings in his childhood faith, nor does he speak in any way of the profound procedural and moral changes he’d have to make to his life if he did indeed convert.
Thinking about it, Neeson may be on to something here, with his shallow belief that he can go on as before, just singing a slightly different song along with the muezzin. As my cousin, who spent years ministering as a prison chaplain, wrote me in connection with prison conversions to Islam:
It is not a contradiction to be a Muslim and a murderer, even a mass murderer. That is one reason why criminals “convert” to Islam in prison. They don’t convert at all; they similarly remain the angry judgmental vicious beings they always have been. They simply add “religious” diatribes to their personal invective. Islam does not inspire a crisis of conscience, just inspirations to outrage.
Prisoners use conversion to justify their rage. Neeson’s admiring little speech indicates that at least one movie star type seems to being using it to justify just how shallow he really, truly is.
The only thing I find disheartening about this piece of idiocy is that it might affect my viewing habits. For example, I never listen to Cat Stevens’ music. It’s not conscious censorship on my part, as in “Everyone should boycott that man because he converted to Islam.” It’s a more informal, visceral response. Every time I hear one of his songs lovey-dovey 1970s pop songs, I get hacked off at the fact that he is now a vocal, proselytzing enthusiast for the whole Muslim package: death to the Jews, death to America, women wrapped in tents, dead gays, etc. My blood pressure shoots up, and then I turn the music off. Fortunately, Snoop Doggs’ conversion doesn’t affect me because I wouldn’t have listened to his songs before conversion, and I’m certainly not going to listen to them now.
But Neeson . . . ummm. You see, I like the Narnia movies. I love the first, like the second, and am looking forward to watching the third (the delay is a Netflix thing, meaning that I put it on the list and Mr. Bookworm takes it off). It was bad enough when Neeson foolishly denied that Aslan was an allegorical Christ. It’s high blood pressure time, though, if the actor who voices the allegorical Christ has converted to a faith antithetical to everything C.S. Lewis intended to convey through those wonderful books.
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11 Responses to “If Liam Neeson converts, I’m going to have to think long and hard about watching the Narnia movies again. Sigh.”
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It only goes to show ya that God works in mysterious ways – maybe sometimes even through Liam Neeson.
I have a hard time watching ANY modern film nowadays because I usually know that the actors are all hardcore progressives. But that’s the nature of Hollywood. Even in the Golden Age of Film, they were still there. They just didn’t spout the drivel that they believed in in public. They knew it would destroy their careers. Now they’re encouraged to do so.
But don’t be discouraged by what Liam believes. Always judge the film on it’s own merits.
‘Taken’ was still a great little action flick, in spite of what Liam now thinks. (Besides, he cashed the check for starring in it, and I don’t hear him saying that he’s gonna give the money back.)
And after all, he’s just an actor.
And an actor is just someone who gets paid to be a LIAR.
I was in Istanbul for the week between Christmas and New Year’s back in 1978. My travel companion and I was frozen in place because of the largest snow storm that had hit since 1944 and Istanbul was covered in snow. In that week, I met and enjoyed the hospitality of many Muslim Turks who showed me and my companion the many sights of their ancient city. The Blue Mosque was being repaired and two of the artisan workmen showed us around the mosque including areas usually not seen in tours. The man at the pastry shop came out every day when we passed to give us fresh pastries free of charge and the leather apparel shop owner invited us in for tea each afternoon. A 12 yr old boy who spoke five languages took us to his family’s various restaurants far off the tourist paths for delicate foods including a fish restaurant under the bridge connecting Europe and Asia for a wonderful candlelit dinner because the power failed. We saw the city’s oldest and smallest mosque in a neighborhood founded when the city was called Constantinople. When all transportation was at a standstill because of the snow and we needed to get back to Italy, but needed official signatures and stamps on our travel documents, the local black market boss got what was needed for just a few dollars and escorted us to the airport, leading us to the front of the line because a cousin worked there.
My time in Istanbul is one of the precious times in my life, but after all that and the five times a day call to prayer, I never thought converting to Islam was a good idea.
Just five times a day? The book Christian Prayer, also known as the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours calls one to prayer seven times a day, with an optional eighth call. It is used by most Catholic priests and religious and many many laity. I use it now and have a number of laity friends that also use it. It uses many Psalm and other Old and New Testament readings, a variety of standard and custom prayers, and intercessions. It runs on a four week cycle, with variations for the seasons like Advent and Easter.
It also includes a hymn for most of the hours and seasons, and has recommended times for each of the hours. It can be prayed in large or small groups, or privately by an individual.
Obviously Liam Neeson is not even as good a Catholic as the adulterous one he played in Schindler’s List. Many outbound Catholics, including many that I have talked to and listened to, are mostly ignorant of their faith. (Note: I used to be one, too. I came back, and I’m not only glad to be back, I’m sorry that I ever left.)
This is similar to what Bishop (then Monsignor) Fulton Sheen said, “There are millions of people who hate the Catholic Church for what they think it is. There are only a few hundred who hate it for what it actually is.”
But look at the bright side — if he does convert, we may see the next edition of The Phantom Menace include a scene of Qui-Gon using a light sabre to lop off Jar-Jar’s head because he’s so damn gay!
I guess Neeson never heard of the Angelus.
The Chronicles of Narnia books are my favorites and I love the movies – have watched all the versions of “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” over the years. And I used to love Liam Neeson. But it’s true after all – he is only a man and a LIAR, after all (as Elwin points out). When he played Kinsey in the movie that hardly anyone saw, I knew he was a lost soul. He obviously knows nothing about the Christian’s duty to pray unceasingly:
“Let no one think, my Christian Brethren, that only persons in holy orders, or monks, are obliged to pray unceasingly and at all times, but not laymen. No, no! It is the duty of all us Christians to remain always in prayer. For see what His Beatitude the patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheus, writes in the life of St. Gregory of Salonica. That saint had a beloved friend, Job by name, a most simple man, but extremely virtuous. Once, talking with him, the prelate said of prayer that every Christian in general ought always to labor in prayer, and to pray unceasingly, as is commanded by the Apostle Paul to all Christians in general: Pray without ceasing (I Thes. 5:17); and as the Prophet David says of himself, regardless of his being a king and having the care of all his kingdom: I behold the Lord always before me (Ps. 15:8), meaning I always mentally see the Lord before me in my prayer. And Gregory the Theologian teaches all Christians and tells them that we should more often remember the name of God in prayer than inhale air.”
On the Necessity of Constant Prayer for all Christians in General From The Life of St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, the Wonderworker by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain Translation by St Gregory Palamas Monastery, Hayesville,Ohio: http://www.bright.net/~palamas/
Ron19 is right. The Divine Office is a wonderful source of Christian Prayer. I try to pray at least the morning and evening prayers and the Angelus too. If Neeson thinks Catholics don’t pray, he is vastly uninformed. The Carthusian monks pray night office at midnight, and I have been on retreats at Benedictine monasteries where I got up at 5:00 am to pray Morning prayer. It was wonderful.
I wonder if Mr, Neeson realizes that the Hagia Sofia was once the largest Christian church in the world until the muslims took it over?
In most societies in history, actors have had a social standing not very different from prostitutes. This is wise. One of the besetting idiocies of our modern culture is that we pay so much attention not only to the antics but to the ideas of people whose only talent lies in making us believe they are someone they are not.
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