Jesus, the Guantanamo Years
What if Jesus showed up today, a bearded Middle-Easterner willing to die as a religious martyr, having walked across the Atlantic to deliver Dad's message? He might be interrogated as a suspected terrorist and sent to Guantanamo.
That's the premise for Irish comic Abie Philbin Bowman's one-man show: "Jesus, the Guantanamo Years" ---a surprise hit in Edinburgh, and now an off-Broadway show in Somerville, MA.
Philbin Bowman's main target is Guantanamo prison, something that is "deeply un-Christian," Bowman says. Bowman uses humor to confront US policies of interrogation at the prison.
Bowman says many Christians have seen the show, and almost no one has objected to it as blasphemy.
"I think telling jokes is not quite as blashpemous as torture, for example," he says.
"So much of what Jesus says is applicable to this situation," Bowman says. "' Turn the other cheek.'---it's not about being a wimp....That to me is about understanding that if you fight back with violence, you just create a cycle of violence."
Bowman is interested in engaging American Christians in thinking about what he sees as the profound hypocrisy of fighting terrorism with torture.
"If you really believe in Jesus, how can you live with this?" he asks.
That's the premise for Irish comic Abie Philbin Bowman's one-man show: "Jesus, the Guantanamo Years" ---a surprise hit in Edinburgh, and now an off-Broadway show in Somerville, MA.
Philbin Bowman's main target is Guantanamo prison, something that is "deeply un-Christian," Bowman says. Bowman uses humor to confront US policies of interrogation at the prison.
Bowman says many Christians have seen the show, and almost no one has objected to it as blasphemy.
"I think telling jokes is not quite as blashpemous as torture, for example," he says.
"So much of what Jesus says is applicable to this situation," Bowman says. "' Turn the other cheek.'---it's not about being a wimp....That to me is about understanding that if you fight back with violence, you just create a cycle of violence."
Bowman is interested in engaging American Christians in thinking about what he sees as the profound hypocrisy of fighting terrorism with torture.
"If you really believe in Jesus, how can you live with this?" he asks.
Visit Abie Philbin Bowman at his My Space site: http://www.MySpace.com/AbieLaughs
Source for this post was the Boston Globe, July 25, 2007 http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/07/25/hes_found_his_calling_comedy/
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