The Passion of Christ" - Update about Mel Gibson's film about Jesus
Update, October 22, 2003 -- Mel Gibson has changed the title of his upcoming movie from "The Passion" to "The Passion of Christ." The reason given is that the rights to the title "The Passion" are owned by another movie company.
After a private screening of the film with Gibson, evangelical Dr. Larry Poland (Mastermedia) declared The Passion of Christ "will bring millions to Christ. I couldn't be more optimistic about the film's spiritual impact on everyone who sees it," he said. Focus on the Family's president Don Hodel has said, "It’s certainly the most powerful portrayal of the passion I’ve ever seen or heard about. The movie is historically and theologically accurate."
Despite this, 20th Century Fox has now refused to distribute actor/producer Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ - a film about the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life. The decision was disclosed during a rally against the film headed by New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is demanding that all other film companies reject the movie. He claims that The Passion of Christ is antisemitism and "unhealthy for Jews all over the world."
Jewish film critic and columnist Michael Medved has viewed the film and says, "No, it isn't. And I think that the charge is ludicrous, and it's unfair, and it's inappropriate." Medved is a former synagogue president. In a Washington Post interview he stated that the film is "intense, persuasive, believable. ...Mel Gibson...has gone to some lengths to stress that Jesus and his disciples, as well as his primary accusers, were Jewish. ...Mel is trying to make the greatest film he can, with uncompromised and uncompromising integrity."
Gibson strongly denies all charges of antisemitism, "This is not a Christian versus Jewish thing. '(Jesus) came into the world, and it knew him not.' Looking at Christ's crucifixion, I look first at my own culpability in that." Gibson is a devout Catholic and "belongs to a conservative Catholic group that rejects the modern papacy and Vatican II, including its overtures to non-Catholics and Jews" (according the Religious News Service).
The largest evangelical group in the United States, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), has publicly thrown its support behind The Passion of Christ. In a news release they stated their affirmation of "the importance of the authentic retelling of the New Testament accounts in Mel Gibson's latest film". In interviews on CNN and various radio networks, NAE president Ted Haggard has described The Passion of Christ as, "a beautiful, wonderful account of the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ. It is consistent with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
CNN questioned Haggard on specific claims from the story, including Jewish leaders' offering blood money for Jesus' betrayal and Jewish people's inciting hatred toward Jesus, leading to his crucifixion. Haggard responded,
"The movie portrays historical accounts realistically, but the Body of Christ worldwide does not blame Jewish people for the crucifixion. Evangelicals believe that our sins are responsible for creating the situation that required the crucifixion of Christ. Christ did not die because of the political and religious powers of the day, but for a far greater purpose. We are all responsible. This is why evangelicals view The Passion of Christ as a love story. It demonstrates the profound love Christ has for all people."
Haggard emphasized that evangelical Christians--who have a high view of the historical accounts in the Bible as shown in the film--are some of the most ardent supporters of Israel and defenders of Jewish people worldwide.
The Weekly Standard published an August 25 article pointing out that...
"The hero of this movie is Jewish, his mother is Jewish, his apostles and followers are Jewish. But one misses the whole point of the Passion of Jesus unless one sees that he submitted to his suffering for all of us".
According to separate reports, during the filming, Gibson attended Mass every morning because "we had to be squeaky clean just working on this." "I'm not a preacher, and I'm not a pastor," he said. "But I really feel my career was leading me to make this. The Holy Spirit was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic. I hope the film has the power to evangelize." He claims that "everyone who worked on this movie was changed. There were agnostics and Muslims on the set converting to Christianity... (and) people being healed of diseases."
In an August 17th (2003) article, it was reported that the director, "under heavy fire from Jewish groups for his $25 million movie on the death of Jesus, has 'softened the story' and made changes to make 'The Passion of Christ' more palatable to [Jewish] critics, according to a spokesman. Paul Lauer, marketing director for Gibson's Icon Productions company, said Gibson has edited the film to show more 'sympathetic' Jewish characters who were not calling for Jesus to be crucified."
"'We believe we have softened the story compared to the way the Gospel has told it,' Lauer said in an interview. He pointed to Matthew 27:25, in which the Jewish mob calls for Jesus' blood 'to be on us and on our children.' 'That's in the Gospel,' he said. 'It's not in our film.'"
See previous article on this film. The movie is scheduled for release during March 2004. There is a fan Web site for the film at www.passion-movie.com and another unofficial Web site for "The Passion of Christ" at www.sassiweb.it/thepassion .
A lot of this article has been spliced into others. The part that simply amazes me are the "usual suspects" that poke their head out any time religion or God is mentioned. They act taken back and deride others beliefs or are insulted that their lack of faith is more of an issue. The very same cast go out of their way to defend freedom of speech for NAMBLA, but fail in their convictions when freedom of speech pertains to God. All of a sudden they're mute and want God ripped down. My personal favorite now is the WWJD arguement. WWJD stands for What Would Jesus Do?, and is a guide for people to make moral judgements on what they're about to say or do. What would Jesus do? He would love us, but most that don't have Christ in their heart don't know this. Jesus was God on earth, to show that the laws of the Old Testament weren't God's end-all-be-all to eternal life and salvation. To think for one second that I could comprehend God's thinking process makes God smaller than he is. While Jesus was here on earth he spent the bulk of his time with prostitutes,corrupt businessmen and people that needed to hear his message and see the miracles of God firsthand. Jesus spent very little time with religious leaders.
The mere fact that Christianity spread to the world during Roman rule(before newspapers,tv,internet) is testament enough for me that God is real, and his word is real. The fact that Roman logs document what they did to Christ and the writings of Jocephus only back up the assertions that Jesus was real. Now, I say If Jesus was real then his message was real.
