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February 14, 2004
On Ash Wednesday (February 25. 2004), Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ will be released to the public. We are providing here, courtesy of the Leadership University, a Christian website, some information about the film so you can make up your own mind whether or not all the controversy is justified. You might also want to read Rabbi Daniel Lapin's article about the film which appears on The Academy website: Why Mel Gibson Owes One To The Jews, by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
No celluloid-based account of Christ, however, has created the whirlwind of controversy that Mel Gibson's, The Passion of Christ has -- save perhaps The Last Temptation of Christ, but negative response to that film arose from Christian quarters. Some Jewish (and a handful of liberal Christian) observers have objected to a supposedly anti-semitic tone and message in The Passion of the Christ. This charge surprises many, including actor and director Gibson himself. Much of the conversation, centered on the reaction of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other critics, began far in advance even of preview screenings of the movie. In fact several critics, among them ADL President Abe Foxman, had still not seen the film at this writing, according to widely respected Jewish movie critic Michael Medved. Medved, along with evangelical-friendly Rabbi Daniel Lapin, have called the Jewish community to account for the unwarranted "hysteria" surrounding The Passion of the Christ. They also criticize what they see as the moral illegitimacy of those Jews who decry all things perceived as anti-Jewish but who have remained mute when Christians -- particularly Catholics, like Gibson -- faced the kind of victimization by Hollywood that they now claim for themselves. In fact, Gibson has made numerous attempts to include Jewish religious leaders in the process of reviewing and even rewriting the script. However, this is not to imply that such fear of anti-semitism arises out of a vacuum or has been manufactured by overly sensitive Jewish religionists. In the words of Larry Poland, "Over the centuries, no other ethnic group on the planet has been more consistently and viciously persecuted." And renditions of Christ's passion were, at times, used against Jews. Hitler leveraged the world-famous passion play at Oberammergau, Germany to rally popular opinion against the "Christ-killers." As Poland and others point out, an out-of-context reading of the Gospel of John can easily be misconstrued as blaming the entire ethnicity ("the Jews") for Christ's death, when in fact, along with some power-hungry Jewish religious leaders, the Romans were complicit in Jesus' death. More to the point, Christ claimed to lay down His own life only to "take it up again" in that same Gospel of John, and "no one takes it from Me," he added. The Jewish Messiah Himself didn't want the act held against the ones of all ethnicities who, to paraphrase, knew not what they did. And, as Christians believe, it was ultimately each individual's sins that sentenced the willing Savior to death. The clash of opinion has accomplished one important coup for the film: normally, it is rare for awareness of yet unreleased movies to top three to four percent. Public awareness of The Passion of the Christ recently surpassed 38 percent. The buzz is hard to miss. -- Courtesy of Byron Barlowe, Editor and Webmaster, Leadership University General Information
Responses to Charge of Anti-Semitism in the Film The Passion of the Christ
Jewish Jesus of History. Who was this Jesus who started a spiritual movement that thrives today on every continent with millions of followers around the world? We sample a few historical perspectives.
The Radical Academy thanks Leadership University for providing the above information to us. You can visit its website at http://www.leaderu.com and/or subscribe to its newsletter at http://www.leaderu.com/subscribe. Enrich your life with a book about religion... Enrich your life with a religion magazine...
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