On Eli's Book

Robert Parham, at EthicsDaily, has posted a review of the movie "The Book of of Eli" starring Denzel Washington.  Parham contends that the movie "speaks profoundly to the battle for the Bible in contemporary America."  Evidence for that interpretation is abundant in the film and Parham cites the relevant material before offering his own profound analysis:

For my money, the movie is not really about post-apocalyptic America. The movie is about the Bible in America today.

I've seen this script played out over the past 30 years. Some Christians are so busy carrying their Bibles and doing their daily devotional reading that they bypass the Golden Rule. Some denominations are so obsessed with protecting the Bible that they've forgotten to live the message.

Some politicians of faith know the Bible is a weapon, sharper than a two-edged sword, that can control culture. And some secularists want to ban the Bible and to burn every copy, blaming the Bible for every wrong from the Iraq war to violence against women.

In my mind, the most interesting line in the movie is when Eli reflects:

"All these years, I've been carrying it and reading it every day. I got so caught up with keeping it safe, I forgot to live by what I learned from it ... Do for others more than what you do for yourself."

That is the moment when it becomes apparent that Eli has consciously grown from his experience with Solara. Before Solara entered his life, he was singlemindedly devoted to his book and his mission in life. He was moved by the injustice in the world but remained a bystander. When Solara was attacked, he changed from being a bystander to become a rescuer. Only then, from the moment that he began to apply what he learned from the book and live by it, did he become vulnerable to injury by others.

Eli's quotation of the Golden Rule is arresting. There's no doubt that he could have quoted the verse precisely, instead he offers an interpretation. His interpretation of the Golden Rule makes it more than the principle of symmetrical justice that is common to most faiths and moral philosophies. Eli infuses the Golden Rule with the extravagant self-giving benevolence of the sermon on the mount and the sacrificial love of the gospels. The demand goes beyond doing unto others as you would have them do to you, in Eli's eyes the demand is asymmetrical -- do more for others than you would do for yourself.

That is when the kind of holy book Eli has been reading becomes fully certain.