Craig Anderson--On Not Going to See “The Passion of the Christ”

I have wavered and waffled more than a politician in an election year. I have been on again and then off, but I’ve finally decided, at least for now, I’m not going to see “The Passion of the Christ.” That undermines my credibility as a critic, but the film-maker’s publicity blitz and the attending response, has revealed plenty enough to allow me to find several reasons for not going.

First, it is no secret that the movie contains graphic violence. There have been many characterizations of the gore from critics I respect. You’ve read them too. Maybe you’ve even gone to the theater to make up your own mind. I applaud you, but I’m reluctant you join you, because when it comes to suffering and violence, I’m a wimp. I visit hospitals, nursing homes, and dying people for a living. Daily I read the names of our troops killed in Iraq, and try to imagine what an 18 year old Marine private’s life might have been like. I can’t watch the 11 pm local news. I change the radio station when stories of child abuse are reported. I leave the family room at the first sign that a rented video is headed toward mayhem. Daily life, reality, is rough enough. I don’t need extra helpings of violence. I’m not going to “The Passion of the Christ.”

Secondly Mel Gibson has loudly trumpeted his claim that his movie is historically accurate. While I may not know the movie’s details, I do know something about the Bible, the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular. If I have kept pace with any academic field it is with Biblical studies related to the historical Jesus. Church history? Barely a glance. Theology? Enough to get by, but spotty. Homiletics? Weekly practice, but little sign of improvement. But scholarship related to the Gospels is something I have more than a passing acquaintance with. After publicists announced that the Pope had seen the movie and declared that, “It is as it was,” one wag suggested that Gibson had “played the Pope like a cheap lute.” Last I heard, the Vatican was still denying all. But whether the Pope said it or not, even without seeing the movie I can say with some confidence that Mel Gibson has very little chance of being historically accurate, simply because there is very little that we can say with historical precision about any of the events in Jesus’ life, let alone blow by blow accounts of the last twelve hours of his life.

Crucifixion was a barbaric practice, undoubtedly excruciatingly painful, but the many details provided in the Gospels were not derived from video tapes or even eye-witness accounts. The story itself says the disciples fled in fear. Doesn’t that suggest they were in no position to observe the many comings and goings, trials, floggings, and humiliations? The Gospels furthermore, were written 70-90 years after the event, after Jesus’ contemporaries had themselves died. So the question is, who filled in the picture? Where do the details come from? Let me offer one scholarly insight: First Testament parallels can be found for virtually every detail of the crucifixion. Matthew employs extensive imagery from Psalms 22 and 69, which by the way, are accounts of personal suffering but not of an execution. Judas’s 30 pieces of silver are identical to the payment Judah received for selling his brother Joseph to the Egyptians in the book of Genesis. The darkness at noon recalls an event described by Amos in 800 BCE. There are numerous other pieces of the story line directly related to the Holy Scriptures of that period, “Tanak,” the Hebrew Bible.

Biblical literalists will claim that these events had been foretold hundreds of years before and finally came to pass in Jesus’ final 12 hours. That is one way to interpret the data, to explain the similarities, and to insist that the movie is as it was. But another approach, which seems more historically plausible to me, is that after Jesus’ death, those who were literate among his followers went to their Holy Scriptures to find materials which they could weave into the rich and beautiful tapestry of their story. They did not intend to mislead. They were not spinning lies. They were trying to reassure their own later audiences, some of whom were also undergoing persecution and possible death, that Jesus’ final hours resonated with the same themes as the suffering servant in Isaiah, and with the tormented souls in Psalms 22 and 69. Rather than a scandal to be overcome, the cross was a symbol of Jesus’ participation in the ongoing saga of suffering of his people. This was not an historical account. It was not intended to be. More importantly it was a vivid argument that Jesus’ suffering and death had not been a scandal, but events which were rich, full of meaning and significance. I’m not going to see “The Passion of the Christ,” because I don’t accept the forceful assertions that it is an historical account. In my humble opinion, it is not as it was. To me, Mel Gibson sounds like one of those folks who is seldom right, but never in doubt.

Another reason I’m not going is because given what little I do understand about theology, the beliefs expressed about human and divine nature in this movie seem even more barbaric than crucifixion itself. I don’t recognize either the god depicted in this theology or the human beings who supposedly benefit from Jesus’ horrible suffering and death.

I realize that the sources of this theology run deep in the Christian tradition. There are passages in Paul’s letters, which if read selectively, (leaving out the parts about the love of God, the grace of God, and the hope of humanity), can, and in some quarters still do, support the idea that human beings are so dad-blamed bad, and God so gosh-darned angry, that Jesus simply had to die a horrible death, after scourging, beating, and utter humiliation, in order to set things right. First, what kind of god is that? Vengeful. Angry. A god needing to settle scores and extract a pound of precious flesh in order to satisfy his blood lust and fury. The only way for such a god to do that of course, is to sacrifice ones’ child, the child with whom you are “well-pleased.” Does that make any sense? It has only been feminist theologians, who in the last twenty years have named this for what it is: child abuse raised to the level of the divine. I haven’t any interest in worshiping such a blood-thirsty god in either a church or a multi-plex.

In the second instance, I try not to be naive about human nature, nor deny the reality of evil. But the perception that human beings are so corrupt that the only way to compensate is for God to torture her child, does not square with my experience. Evil exists. We all mess up, royally even. But which of your children or grandchildren is a monster? Not a “you-little-monster-you,” but one so utterly degraded that the only hope they have is to be washed pure in the spattered blood of Jesus? In the view of this substitutionary atonement theology, every child, and all the rest of us as well, that’s who! Worm theology is what I call it. We’re all worms, corrupt to the core, beyond redemption, except for the suffering sacrifice of Jesus. Come to think of it I’m not going anywhere, not even a movie house where such views of god and humanity prevail.

Yes, by now I really have made up my mind, no more waffling, but I have one more reason not to see this movie. I take particular note that every review I have read from the Jewish community objects to Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the Jews. Are they being hyper-sensitive? Perhaps. But can you blame them? These last sixty years especially, the chosen people have sometimes prayed to God, “choose somebody else, we’re tired.” Suppose that Mel Gibson does not share his father’s denial of the Holocaust. Okay, but be aware he does minimize it, saying “the Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps.” As Frank Rich points out, isn’t this another way of saying that “the Holocaust was an idle by-product of battle instead of a Third Reich master plan for genocide... Hitler’s extermination of the Jews is diminished by folding their deaths into overall casualty figures.”

Why, for Christ’s sake, would any Christian want to risk fueling anti-Semitism so soon after a nation of Christians exterminated 6 million Jews? That genocide was the culmination of centuries of anti-Semitism, sanctioned by the state; encouraged, if not driven, by the church; expressed in passion plays which portrayed and condemned the Jews as Christ-killers. It will always be too soon for Christians to forget our sordid history of persecution. No one should ever tempt any devil with this Jew-bait. I have not seen the movie, but those among our Jewish neighbors who have, protest. We should join them.

So that’s it. He’s not getting my money. Then again, I guess he won’t be needing it. So far, Mel Gibson’s bloody violence, mangled history, distorted theology, and Jew-baiting has earned him a few hundred million dollars. I guess he won’t miss my seven. Oh well.

Identity: Craig Anderson is a United Church of Christ minister, who serves with the Brookside Community Church in Brookside, New Jersey. 973-543-7229.