The Passion

The UK Telegraph's take on 'The Passion':'

A committed Christian like Mel Gibson does not make films about the central core of his belief to engender hatred against the Jews any more than Jews create memorials to the Holocaust - a central fact of Jewish existence - to create hatred of Gentiles or even Germans. Jews create museums and memorials of the Holocaust to reinforce the memory of a great human tragedy and celebrate their survival as a people. A philanthropist who gives money to finance a film on Holocaust survivors would be aghast at the suggestion that he was fuelling hatred by commemorating the epochal event of his own modern history.

Groups commit their beliefs to art to try to cheat an Ozymandian fate. Today, Christianity needs all the help it can get. In Britain, the Church of England is vaporising before us as it embraces ever more secular notions. The Christian faith of America, strong as it has been, faces the siege of modernity and fashion.

February 23, 2004 10:04 AM
3 Comments

I'm not sure I like this argument. The Bible is in no danger of disappearing; it's still the number one bestseller world-wide. Gibson's film will not augment its preservation in the annals of history or the long-term conciousness of mankind. I don't see this as a telos in and of itself for the film.

In addition, I would question the arguments position of propriety based on factual grounds. Holocaust films are portraying events as they actually happened, at least in the broader sense (there was a Holocaust, where Germany killed millions of Jews; if this makes you hate Nazi's that might be a good thing). I'm certainly not qualified to decide what is the Church considers fact or not, but I have seen those that are qualified bring to question the accuracy of the film; mainly that Gibson is focusing on the Passion of the death of Jesus as opposed to producing a factual historiography. If such a shift in focus creates the overall impression of something that is not true, for example, that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, and this incites hatred towards Jews, then I think there is a problem.

Furthermore, as the final sentance quoted from the article implies, if the portrayal of Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus is needed to bolster the Christian community world-wide, to act as a common element around which they can coalesce, I would question, from a more universal perspective, the morality of this approach.

If the film is factual, albeit dramatic, recreation of the story, and in so being portrays the Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus, I have no problem with that (I'll have to run out of the theater real quick though). No need to gloss over the truth, if that is the Church's position. But if the truth is being distorted to further some other aims, or is repurposed for ulterior motives, and encites hatred then I think there are issues.

Pondered by Greg at February 23, 2004 10:48 AM

These are good points. Definitely, if Christianity needs a Mel Gibson movie to ensure its survival, it is weak indeed.

In defense of the author of the article, I doubt that she would believe that anti-Semitism is a necessary evil, as she identifies herself as a Jew.

As far as the facticity of the movie, I'm going to hold off on that until I see it.

As far as the "true" meaning of the actual passion ... I've got another entry brewing in my head that maybe I'll get to. For the record, though, I do believe that anti-Semitism is wrong and any attempt to use the sufferings of Jesus as an excuse for anti-Semitism shows that one ultimately has missed the entire point of the passion in a truly abhorrent way.

Pondered by maphet at February 23, 2004 11:43 AM

I'm looking forward to seeing this movie and of course agree with Maphet about "As far as the facticity of the movie, I'm going to hold off on that until I see it." But I have to add the following will be proven true, if indeed Gibson's vision stays true the Gospels.

Mel Gibson from ABCNEWS' Primetime -
"Critics who have a problem with me don't really have a problem with me in this film," Gibson said. "They have a problem with the four Gospels. That's where their problem is."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Primetime/Entertainment/mel_gibson_passion_040216-1.html

Pondered by Jeff Price at February 23, 2004 03:01 PM