Blog Archive for 3.28.04 - 4.4.04

Reflection: Passion Items Worth Noting
Posted at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 28, 2004

I’ll get back to the question of how the kingdom of God is coming soon. But I thought I’d blog today on four items related to The Passion of the Christ. The first of these items has received a fair amount of attention, but it involves an ironic twist that you may not have heard much about. The other three items have been underreported in the press.

The Passion Motivates Murder Confession

Dan Leach was so moved after seeing The Passion of the Christ that he went to the local police and confessed to having committed a murder – a murder that had been officially classified up to that point as a suicide. All by itself, this would be a fascinating story. But what makes it all so much more interesting is the fact that, according to Dan, the woman he killed was pregnant with his child. If this turns out to be true, Dan may be the first person to be prosecuted under a new Texas state law that defines a fetus as a person.

Was the Violence in The Passion too Extreme? An Expert Weighs in

One of the most common criticisms of The Passion from secular and some Christians was that the violence, especially the flogging of Jesus, was far too extreme. The movie has more to do with Mel Gibson’s sadism, we’ve been told, than what really happened to Jesus. Now an internationally-renowned expert weighs in on the matter. Dr. Alex Metherell, who earned a Ph.D. in engineering in addition to an M.D., is best known for his contribution to The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel. Metherell concludes that, among other things, “Gibson’s depiction of [the flogging of Jesus], as gruesome as it was, was not as horrible as the reality.”

Poll Finds The Passion Movie Makes Christians Less Anti-Semitic

In my in-depth review of The Passion of the Christ, I suggested that this movie, “far from instilling anti-Semitic feelings, might actually bode well for Jewish people today.” A recent survey by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research indicates that I may have been right. Demographer Gary Tobin concludes that “In general, people are less inclined to see Jews as responsible for killing Christ” after seeing the movie. Although the number of people sampled by Tobin’s group seems rather small to me, I’m still encouraged by what his research shows. It’s not that I particular care about being right. But I care deeply about erasing lies Christians believe about Jews and about eliminating anti-Semitism.

Rabbis Warn that Passion Film Might Entice Jews toward Jesus

Several weeks ago I found a fascinating story in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. (It’s now available from Haaretz for a fee, but you can find a free copy online.) According to this story, the Orthodox Union, an American Jewish body, issued a warning to Jews that seeing The Passion of the Christ might actually weaken their faith. The portrayal of Jesus in the movie is so compelling, the Orthodox Union believes, that Jewish people might feel drawn to identify with Jesus. Talk about a back-handed compliment to Mel Gibson! Unfortunately, this story received almost no coverage in the United States. I wonder why. . . .

Tomorrow I’ll return to my series, “What Was the Message of Jesus?” I’ll be addressing the crucial question of how the death of Jesus was related to the coming of the kingdom of God.