Gibson's Passion gets an evangelical blessing

Christian Century, July 26, 2003 by John Dart

After threatening to sue a group of Catholic and Jewish scholars who said his self-financed film The Passion could revive anti-Semitic slurs, actor-director Mel Gibson took his movie depicting Jesus' last hours to America's evangelical capital in hopes of a kinder reception. He got it.

"I was very impressed," said Don Hodel, president of Focus on the Family ministries based in Colorado Springs. "The movie is historically and theologically accurate." About 800 evangelical pastors and leaders saw the screening June 26 at the city's New Life Church where Ted Haggard is senior pastor. He is also the new president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

"It conveys, more accurately than any other film, who Jesus was," said Haggard, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. English subtitles appeared on the screen; the actors speak only in Aramaic and Latin.

Gibson, star of such films as Lethal Weapon, Braveheart and, more recently, Signs (in which he played an Episcopal priest), reportedly spent $25 million to make the unusual film starring little-known James Caviezel as Christ. Projecting a March release, Gibson's Icon Productions still has no distributor, but Hollywood insiders say that finding a major studio should be no problem for the high-profile star.

Addressing the clergy attending a leadership conference, Gibson told them he felt his career was leading him in this direction. "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic," he said. "I hope the film has the power to evangelize."

The movie has attracted controversy partly because Gibson has been an adherent of traditionalist Catholicism, which uses a pre-Second Vatican Council Tridentine Latin rite for the mass. Co-writer of the script, Gibson said he relied on the New Testament and the writings of two nuns, Mary of Agreda, a 17th-century aristocrat, and Anne Catherine Emmerich, an early 19th-century stigmatic.

Working with an early script of The Passion, a nine-member group of Catholic and Jewish scholars produced an 18-page report warning that parts of the film would revive charges that Jews collectively were "Christ killers." For some 35 years, the emphasis in Catholic teaching and in mainline Protestant churches has been on the decisive role of the Roman rulers and unruly crowds in the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

Faced by threatened lawsuits by Gibson for critiquing the film based "on an outdated script that has been illegally obtained," the independent group of scholars agreed to return their screenplay copies. In addition, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops publically apologized and distanced itself from the group.

The panel of scholars was convened by Anti-Defamation League Interfaith Director Eugene Korn and Eugene Fisher of the bishops' ecumenical office, said an ADL spokesperson. Other committee members included Mary C. Boys of Union Theological Seminary in New York, Paula Fredriksen of Boston University and Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University.

However, the group's Catholic participants contradicted Gibson, saying the actor and others involved in the film production "were aware that this evaluation was being done and had agreed to receive it," reported A. James Rudin, a longtime interreligious expert, in his Religion News Service column.

Gibson told the trade newspaper Variety in mid-June that the movie was "meant to inspire, not offend." Moreover, "to be certain, neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic." Yet, asked by a television interviewer in January if the film would upset Jews, Gibson said, "It may. It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be truthful as possible." But since Christ suffered for all humans, "really, anyone who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own complicity," he said.

In the Los Angeles Times of June 22, Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center coauthored an opinion piece contending that this should not need saying but does: "The Romans and their procurator, Pontius Pilate, were in control of Jerusalem at the time of Christ's execution--not the Jews. Crucifixion was the preferred Roman method of punishment, not one sanctioned by Jewish law."

The ADL, in a June 24 release, said it still asks if the film's final version will "continue to portray Jews as bloodthirsty, sadistic and money-hungry enemies of Jesus." Some of those images, according to the scholars' analysis, came from story elements absent in Gospel accounts.