Why the film Heretic? Why Heretic Humanism?

Sam has asked me to write a paragraph on this question because persons are troubled by horror. It is the same conventional reaction to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is a film directed by Kenneth Branagh. Horror disturbs conventional thinking. To be a heretic is to be a proponent of heresy, which is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. Heretic Humanism is a humanism, which is a commitment to values of humanity, whereby belief and disbelief demonstrates that the values of humanity are not sufficiently located in orthodoxy belief and practice.

I would contend, like most contemporary theologians, cultural and conventional Christianity is not orthodoxy. It is controlled as an orthodox devise, but it is not actually orthodoxy, as a Christian doctrine, which says the core beliefs of faith have not changed over millennia. That is simply not true, for the very reason, that biblical and liberal hermeneutics (rules of interpretation) have both changed significantly over the centuries.

Most educated Christians are more heretics than the ancient Christians of Rome. The uneducated Christians are just idiots. The same can be said of all believers, including atheists, agnostics, materialists, and all ignorant persons who think they know more by not being educated (learning), including those who think this sentence means rejecting a believer for the act of believing. Education, Learning, Knowledge, all requires belief, and doubt-“unbelief” is only another form of belief.

A heretic has the opportunity to find their own humanity. This is the message of the film. Heretic is an intense, chilling, and frighteningly sincere discussion about the horror of ideas.

Invitation: https://www.meetup.com/humanists-brisbane/events/304037981/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events

Heretic Humanism. Friday | November 08, Elizabeth Street Theatre

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Erdozain, Dominic (2016). The Soul of Doubt : the religious roots of unbelief from Luther to Marx. Oxford University Press

Davis, N. J., & Robinson, R. V. (1996). Are the Rumors of War Exaggerated? Religious Orthodoxy and Moral Progressivism in America. American Journal of Sociology, 102(3), 756–787. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2782462

Henderson, John B. (1998). The Construction of Orthodoxy and Hersey, State University of New York Press.

Hilliard, David (2005). Unorthodox Christianity in South Australia, History Australia, 2:2, 38-1-38-10, DOI: 10.2104/ha050038

Kim, David W. and Duncan Wright (2024). Socio-Anthropological Approaches to Religion: Environmental Hope (Rowman & Littlefield).

Myers, B. (2008). “Following the Way Which Is Called Heresy”: Milton and the Heretical Imperative. Journal of the History of Ideas, 69(3), 375-393. Retrieved May 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/40208030

O’Connor, B. (2011). Implications of Catholic-Orthodox Engagement. Angelicum, 88(3), 741-750. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44616352

Struckmeyer, Kurt (2017). An Unorthodox Faith, Resource Publications (CA).

Vine, M., & Carey, M. (2017). Mimesis and Conspiracy: Bureaucracy, New Media and the Infrastructural Forms of Doubt. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 35(2), 47–64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26877569

Featured Image: The Heretic Yeah

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Neville Buch

Professional Historian at Professional Historians Association (Queensland) Inc.

Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association’s electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.

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