this was in my local paper (online edition) today. a group of local clergy (wilmington, NC) went to see the film as a group and then were interviewed about the experience. here's what they had do say about it -- and i have to say, i was expecting a LOT more pro-movie comments from this group.
if you want to read it online, the URL is:
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040226/NEWS/402260320/1015/community04
'Passion'-ate opinions
Local clergy share impressions of film
By Amanda Greene
Staff Writer
[email protected] The Star-News took a group of ministers, rabbis and parishioners to the first Wilmington showing of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ on Wednesday. They already knew how the movie would end. What they didn't know was how it would make them feel.
The group was: Rabbi Ben Romer from Temple of Israel; Rabbi Robert Waxman from B'Nai Israel Synagogue; the Rev. Mark Opgrand, associate pastor at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church; Father John Regis Alexoudis from St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church; the Rev. Mike from Port City Community Church;the Rev. John Gillespie from St. Mary Parish; and Abdul Ali, a member of Tauheed Islamic Center and his wife, Marsha Graham-Ali, a Christian.
After the film, the group discussed the movie with the Star-News. Below are excerpts from that conversation.
Would you tell your congregations, including the children, to see 'The Passion'?
Father Regis: "No, not the children. It's too gruesome. The congregation, yes."
Rev. Opgrand: "I know people will go whether I recommend it or not. But the question I'm having is am I going to take a group because people have asked if I'm going to. I really have mixed feelings about that. But I think if I take a group and we can go and process it afterwards like we're doing here, then that will help."
Rabbi Romer: "Maybe one of these times we can bring our communities together and process it, so instead of worrying about will there be anti-Semitic backlashes, why don't we all talk about it."
Should this movie have caused such a media frenzy?
Rabbi Romer: "The controversy ended up coming from Gibson and the struggle of the Passion stories. - - - He used all the worst Jewish caricatures you could, and he misuses the Scriptures for his purposes. We don't have any witnesses to the trial so everything was interpretation."
Rev. Gillespie: "I don't think it deserved the hype."
Rabbi Romer: "I'll look at it differently because it's not my story. This isn't an issue of truth. It doesn't have to be historically true. It's faith true. It's our faith story. So did it happen, did it not happen, doesn't matter."
Whom did the movie blame for Christ's death?
Father Regis: "The Scripture where he says 'My life has not been taken from me, but I give it of my own accord,' and the way he put it there, I felt like there was no blame. But the Romans really were the brutalizing ones in the movie."
Rev. Ashcraft: "What I walked away with was not who killed him, but what is this all about?"
Father Regis: "Even on the cross, (Gibson) did bring out the forgiveness. Even in the movie, he's trying to say I'm not trying to blame anyone with this movie. I'm simply stating what Jesus said."
Was the gore gratuitous or did it make a point?
Rev. Opgrand: "That was so much in my face that it was hard for me to believe that I killed Christ. It was those evil guys who did it. Do you think that Gibson was trying to press for more divinity in the gore because no mere mortal could withstand such torture?"
Rabbi Romer: "Mel has a gore factor in all his movies."
The actor who plays Jesus is white. Should he have been a different race?
Mrs. Graham-Ali: "If they made Jesus another color, wouldn't that have made the movie more controversial?"
Mr. Ali: "When you begin to show a picture of the divine in a particular color. When you focus on the physical character and not the message, this is when I see a lot of people miss the message. What was the word? This is what will make us better human beings, when you look at the message. I think that's when we go wrong by putting an image of the divine in a particular embodiment."
Rabbi Romer: "I always use a clear crayon to color in God. I tell my kids, use a clear crayon."
Do you think the Gospel message of love and forgiveness was part of the film?
Rev. Gillespie: "It got sort of drowned out through a lot of the violence. If I had to compare this to a symphony, there was a lot of drums and cymbals, and I couldn't hear the violins."
Father Regis: "In one way he did capture it in some of Jesus' looks. It was overpowered but the message was there when Jesus looked at certain people, the look in his eye, you knew that there was forgiveness there."
Rabbi Waxman: "The soldiers, they were touched. Seems like people he looked at seemed to come over to his side."
Rev. Gillespie: "Did you walk out of that movie like rattled emotionally? Like jumbled inside. That wasn't a spiritual experience."
Mrs. Graham-Ali: "You felt jumbled but I felt a spiritual experience that made me feel closer to Jesus. That he was suffering for my sins. I kept looking at him and thinking, 'You did this for me?' "
Overall, did you enjoy the movie?
Rev. Gillespie: "Joy's not the right word."
Father Regis: "It was overly dramatic, overly gruesome and Hollywood at its best. In the early church, the church fathers made a crucifix that was two-dimensional and not gruesome in any way."
Rev. Opgrand: "There was a huge wince factor in this movie that's so manipulative. But the divinity of Jesus didn't come across. What I was drawn into more was Mary. She was totally believable. What wasn't necessarily biblical about her reactions was totally believable."
Mrs. Graham-Ali: "I saw Jesus suffering for our sins, and it showed to me the good that comes from Christ."
Rev. Ashcraft: "I haven't seen a lot of Jesus movies like that with such a portrayal of the bigger picture. To really capture the portrayal of evil like he did, that Satan was lurking at every turn."
What about the shots that show the action through Jesus' eyes? How did that make you feel?
Rabbi Waxman: "Some people might feel that in a split second they are Jesus. Thinking that what if you were up there on the cross."
Mr. Ali: "In this period of time today, it seems as though people are looking for something and are questioning themselves. Who am I; what am I; what is my purpose? I think a lot of people will come out to view that, just trying to find themselves."
Rev. Opgrand: "Maybe the value (of the movie) is for people to dig deeper, then."
What were you thinking during the flogging and crucifixion scenes?
Rev. Ashcraft: "I wanted it to be over," he said. "But I wanted to stay with it, too. The magnitude of my sin, of what God sees, forced me to stay long enough to absorb it all."
Father Regis: "I wanted to walk out at that point."
Mrs. Graham-Ali: "One man who was sitting beside me, when they were hitting Jesus, it was like they were hurting him."