speakingcorpse writes:

In case any AmCop readers are trying to figure out whether or not to see Gibson's "Passion" flick, here is a good review of the movie, with some interesting reflections on its cultural significance. It should give you a sense of what you would be signing up for if you bought a ticket. It seems clear that the movie is a ferocious and not-unintelligent appropriation of the most dangerous and unsettling component of orthodox Christian theology--the idea of substitutive sacrifice (the idea that my OWN suffering can't save me, only the suffering of another) and the accompanying tendency of believers to stare google-eyed at images of the suffering of Christ, because subjecting oneself to this guilty/pleasurable pornographic contemplation is the only way to get in touch with the deep and horrible Christian paradox--that I am personally responsible for Christ's death, because I cannot but be GLAD that he was killed in my name.

The author of this review has some interesting things to say, as well, about the film's anti-Semitism. His remarks don't exactly jibe with the ideas of a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine (an avid reader of David Brooks, and a passionate "friend of Israel.") Here's what my fundamentalist friend said:

"Mel's movie wasn't anti-Semitic at all, though I do feel obliged to say that it might have been even LESS anti-Semitic had it tried to represent the story of Jesus' final hours, as that story has been taught to me on the local Christian television network. As I always understood it, Jesus got into trouble with the Pharisaic authorities when, one afternoon, he went to the Temple to explain to them his revised understanding of the meaning of the Mosaic Law. In the middle of the debate, a local Philistine criminal ran into the temple and poured a flammable liquid everywhere, and then quickly set a deadly fire. The Philistine himself was killed, as were many Jews; but Jesus and Caiaphas, and a few others, survived the Philistine's inexplicable murder-suicide. Afterwards, Pilate heard about the crime and set out to destroy the mud house in which the Philistine madman had lived with his parents and family; Pilate wanted to teach other Philistines a necessary lesson about the wages of the sort of arbitrary and terroristic violence that had been perpetrated in the Temple. Jesus was gathering his disciples together to help Pilate take revenge against the Philistine family, when Caiaphas, and a number of other apparently self-hating Jews, intervened. "No!" they exclaimed, "Don't punish unjustly the family of the Philistine madman! He was desperate and crazed, and what he did can't be undone. There's no point in taking this sort of blind collective revenge." Jesus then accused Caiaphas of being a self-hating Jew. Caiaphas in turn spoke to Jesus and to the increasingly large crowd of onlookers: "Perhaps there was some reason the Philistine was driven to desperation," he shouted. "Perhaps it would be best for the community of which we are members if we somehow brought an end to the cycle of violence." At this point, Jesus jumped on Caiaphas' back, threw him to the ground, and tried to strangle him. Pilate, horrified by Jesus' behavior, quickly arrested him. Later that evening, he was crucified."

My fundamentalist friend points out that this version of the Gospel very clearly foreshadows recent events, and it forces us to reckon with the "anti-Semitism chic" that has infected today's liberal intelligentsia, just as a plague of self-hatred infected the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day.

Needless to say, I don't agree with my fundamentalist friend.