Too Much Monky Business

I don't know about you, but the Referee finds that there are, from time to time, things which one feels compelled to do which one nevertheless senses one will regret, but that, despite this, one does, and regrets. This message may be one of those things.

Last week a new film opened here - and everywhere else, I shouldn't be surprised - which seems to be causing disproportionate fuss, not to mention nonsense. I haven't seen this film, nor have I read the book on which it is based. I have no plans to do either. I am therefore in absolutely no position to summarise its plot. So here goes.

A monk - let's call him Brother Sven - is murdered. In the process of investigating this murder, it is discovered that a murky religious society - let's call it the Association Football Association - is preserving an amazing secret. The secret is that Our Lord - let's call him Wayne - didn't meet His end in quite the way described in scripture. In fact, he didn't break his metatarsal at all. Rather, in a mysterious bid to avoid spending the summer in Germany, he faked a broken bone and sneaked off with Coleen to a secret beach location - let's call it Fuengirola. These facts are hidden from the faithful for generations, for fear of sparking chaos and unrest.

Now, some people have got worked up about this story. Some people in the US - including people who know as much about the film and book as I do - have been out on the streets protesting about its blasphemous contents. Other people have gathered together to produce other books and documentary films, now showing on US television, aimed at proving that the book and film in question - both self-declared works of fiction - are nothing more than works of fiction.

The question is: why does anyone feel the need to do this? I don't mean, why does anyone feel the need to disagree with something that they disagree with? I mean, why does any self-respecting person of faith feel the need to put time and energy into earnestly battling with an English bloke in polo neck sweaters who's done quite nicely with a novel, and a balding American chap who used to be in Happy Days and has now made a film of the book? Are these two the sort of folk St Paul had in mind when he exhorted the Ephesians to struggle against the "principalities and powers of this dark world"? I rather think not.

Now, don't get me wrong. The Referee is himself, or at least attempts to be, a person of faith. He is most certainly not a person standing outside, doing something inappropriate into the proverbial tent. He is most assuredly inside the tent, but sometimes bemused about the behaviour of some of his fellow campers.

Think of it this way. Those of us inside the tent consider ourselves to be followers of someone who is - in the final analysis - the Supreme Being. We believe He created us, and everyone else, and the entire universe (although don't get me started on how precisely He might have done it). We believe He is all-knowing and all-powerful (I know there are fancy words for those two, but I can't remember what they are).

Those of you outside the tent may not believe in such a Being, but at least you believe that we do, and that we believe we're following Him, and that will do for the purposes of the next bit of logic.

So, when someone writes a book, fiction or otherwise, or makes a film, which suggests, directly or otherwise, that things might not be quite how we campers believe them to be, do you suppose for one moment that the Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe is quaking in his heavenly boots? Do you suppose He (or She, ladies!) is cowering behind a cloud, wishing that that troublesome English bloke in the polo necks would go away and bully some other celestial beings? Do you suppose He is concerned that this little novel might surpass His own debut work as best-selling book in the history of the world? Do you suppose He is desperately hoping that we campers will protect Him from all this slander by painting up some signs and hanging around in front of the local cinema?

I rather think not. I rather think He might instead prefer the approach taken by Oscar Wilde, when he famously said: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".

Or, in the more recent and perhaps slightly less eloquent words of the President of the United States: "Bring 'em on".