'The Passion' and the controversy

Lutheran, The, Mar 2004 by Favre, Jeff

Not since Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) has a mo vie about Jesus received such a wide release-or such controversy-as MeI Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (www.thepas sionofchrist.com). It opened Feb. 25-Ash Wednesday-in more than 2,000 theaters. It also had the widest release ever for a subtitled movie (the actors speak Latin and Aramaic).

But long before the film depicting the last 12 hours of Jesus' life opened, it created controversy. While some reviled Scorsese's movie for its humanistic portrayal of Jesus, The Passion is being criticized as anti-Semitic.

Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League said: "I think [Gibson is] infected, seriously infected, with some very, very serious anti-Semitic views."

Meanwhile, Gibson reported that Pope John Paul II said the film was an accurate representation-a claim the pope's personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, later refuted.

Gibson, a Roman Catholic, said in an interview for EWTN global Catholic TV network that the film might end his career, but, "I don't care. ... It reflects my beliefs ...."

Much of the controversy stems from Gibson's use of text from John, widely considered the Gospel that is most critical toward Jews. Robert Kysar, author of Preaching John (Fortress Press, 2002; www.fortress press.org; 800-328-4648), cautions Christians who see the movie to recall that many scholars believe Jewish Christians of John's church were expelled from their synagogue just before the Gospel was written, and they were in conflict with the Jews of the area.

"The passion story in general tends to lay the blame on the Jews, so the use of any Gospel will get that same effect," says Kysar, a retired ELCA pastor and emeritus professor of preaching and New Testament at Emory University, Atlanta. "But using John produces the most radically anti-Jewish of the four.

"We must realize that the portrayal is of the Jewish religious leaders-not the whole Jewish people. The earliest Christians responsible for the New Testament were, themselves, Jews.

"The best preparation for viewing the film would be to read the Gospels, especially John. Only in the light of what is there can we say whether or not Gibson was overtly anti-Jewish. What is dangerous is that we take the story out of its historical context and conclude that this hostility between the two religious groups is the last word on the relationship."

Jeff Favre

Favre is a contributing editor of The Lutheran.