For those of you that do not know, my wife is a non-speaking paster at a very large church here in Cincinnati. She was invited to go see the movie in it's entirety at Willow Creek Church in Chicago several weeks ago. We have talked about it a little bit, she doesn't want to spoil iot for me, but needless to say it was an extroidinary experience for her and the other 6,000 pastors that attended. Mel Gibson showed up and was interview by Bill Heibels, the founding and head pastor of Willow Creek, for a little over an hour. The movie came about a little over twelve years ago when Mel was in his big office hits prime. He had everything in life that he coudl ever want, but was unhappy and something was missing from his life. He started researching his unhappiness and delved into religion. He found his focus and reason for living, to honor his Savior Jesus Christ. While this is happening, he continued to research Christ in both Biblical writings and non-religious writings. It just happened that this research developed into a movie project from his heart, the telling of the ultimate sacrifice ever made on earth the crucifiction of Christ. He financed the movie outof his pocket at a tune of 25 million dollars, he directed it, and has a very small part in it. I won't tell you what it is, but you never see his face only his arm.
As to the controversy of this film, thee are two overlying controversies here. First of all it is due to the graphic violence that is portrayed in this film. Jewish critics have stated that this film portrays Jews as haters, murderers, etc. and secondly that specific Bible verse "the sins of the fathers will come down on the children." Some Jewish scholars that have seen previews of the film say that the verse mentoned above was in the film. This is a huge controversy for the Jewish community, but my wife told me that it was never mentioned in the film at all nor was there a theme or portrayal of this in the film. As to teh violence of the film, when is the last time you have read the last Testament of the Bible? It is purhaps the most violent time on Earth and if the film is to be true it has to be violent. My wife assured me that there is no gratuitous violence in the film, just what was recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.
For more information on the movie see the following links. The first link is very informative and also has endorsement from Billy Graham, James Dobson, Michael Medved, Jewish Film Critic and Radio Show Host, Lee Strobel, Former Atheist & Author "The Case for Christ" & "The Case for Faith" to name a few.
www.thepassionoutreach.com
www.thelife.com
www.passionmovieinfo.com
www.thepassionofthechrist.com
Matt