THE PASSION OF THE PASSION

Hey kids, it's time to analyze America's favorite religious movie, Starsky and Hutch! Oops, wrong flick! I guess I got a little confused seeing posters of all the other movies competing for your filmgoing dollars. No, it's not Hellboy either, I want to talk about that lighthearted flick known as The Passion Of The Christ.

You just knew I'd have to put in my two cents on it, didn't you? Well, as your resident agnostic Closet Philosopher it's my duty to have an opinion on it; we don't get religious movies of this caliber very often. Up till now Hollywood's religious output has included glitzy biblical soap operas like Solomon and Sheba in the 60's, or more recently the Omega Code, which hardly qualified as a good action yarn, but occasionally a challenging philosophical treatise like the Last Temptation Of Christ or this movie gets through. Anyway, willingly I took up my burden to see this, er, passionately religious movie, and willingly I now take up my pen to comment on it.

The good news is that there's no way I can give The Passion anything other than high marks. Much has been made of the movie's anti-Semitic overtones, but I found the depiction of the Pharisees clamoring for Jesus's execution to be right in line with the Bible. Plus it's clear that the Romans were his actual torturers and executioners. All told, it's a powerful, heartfelt production and its graphic depiction of Christ's beating, scourging and crucifixion will tear you up with emotion. I'm not going to debate the meaning of his sacrifice here, but at the end of this movie you will know that Jesus died a terrible, agonizing death. Willingly. And that too is right in line with the Bible.

I have to point out a couple spots where Director Mel Gibson let Hollywood intrude though. It's mostly in the way that he keeps having an androgynous Devil-figure pop up, watching Jesus drag his cross, exulting in the Christ's death and such. Even more questionable is the snarling gargoyle thing that suddenly appears before Judas and the digitally-enhanced child-harpies that bedevil him. They're not in the Bible and I can't imagine why he dropped them in; these things are way too Hollywood. After all, Gibson paid incredible attention to detail to make this movie as realistic as possible, even having his actors learn the languages of Jesus's time. Why mar the rest of the work with such tackiness? There are some other indulgences too, like the fact that Jesus looks more he came from Northern Europe than the Middle East. And those perfect teeth! Are we sure he wasn't the son of a dentist instead of a carpenter? But all these things are minor gripes, really, Gibson did a very good job of welding the four different stories of Christ's death into one movie.

Oh c'mon, why are you rolling your eyes like that? For sure in our dummied-down sound-bite-driven culture too many good people are spoon fed the Bible by their preachers, verse by verse, too often out of context, and they don't know there are four versions of The Passion. Most Christians have never completely read the four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- and seen for themselves how similar they are, and yet how many differences there are too. The Church long ago recognized the discrepancies which is why each book is labeled, "The Gospel According to..." Still, all of them do contain the story of the last hours of Jesus's life, but no one gospel has everything that Mel Gibson put into his movie.

For example when the Pharisee's servants come to arrest Jesus (oops, Gibson depicts them as soldiers in leather armor, but they are always called "servants"), all four Gospels agree on one thing -- one of the servants had his ear cut off in a scuffle with the disciples. From that point the Gospels diverge. In Luke it says that Jesus healed the soldier's ear, the other three say nothing about this healing. Only in John's Gospel does it say it was Peter who struck the blow, Matthew just says "one of those who were with Jesus," Mark says "one of those who stood by" and Luke says "one of them." Only John gives the name of the injured servant, Maleck, who supposedly is the same man who is healed in Luke. Certainly that's the assumption Gibson puts into his movie. Furthermore, only in Matthew's Gospel does Jesus explicitly forbid more violence as he is arrested saying, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword," which thankfully Gibson includes here. Conversely, in one of Luke's stranger passages, Jesus appears to be authorizing the disciples to BUY swords just before they go to the Mount of Olives:

22:36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let
him take [it], and likewise [his] scrip: and he that hath no
sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
22:37 For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be
accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the
transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.
22:38 And they said, Lord, behold, here [are] two swords. And he
said unto them, It is enough.

You won't find that passage quoted in too many sermons, I guarantee, and I am thankful Gibson ignored it too. I'm not sure why that's a part of the story of Jesus at all. Gee, you think maybe that means the authors of the Gospels were fallible? "No! All the Gospel authors were divinely inspired!" say the Church leaders. Forgive me for asking, but why all the differences if these men were inspired by the same divine power?

[The Gospel of Mark]

Oh well, part of the problem here is that Jesus never wrote down anything himself and the authors of the Gospels were just regular people trying give their faith voice in a time far removed from Jesus. Most scholars agree the oldest Gospel is Mark, which appeared at least thirty years later, after Jesus' crucifixion. The Gospel of John may not have appeared until 100AD or even later, giving a couple intervening generations of believers plenty of time to embellish the original oral teachings.

We'll just have to find it in our hearts to forgive the occasional exaggeration or error of fact in the source material and concentrate on the spirit of it. And likewise the movie still has a lot of good in it. Forget that fact that Mel Gibson has made most of his money playing violent men in movies that wallow in senseless killing. Forget my complaints about the Hollywoodisms he threw into this movie too. I actually applaud Gibson because he's given us a picture of Jesus that is completely non-violent. Jesus never fights back during all his horrific torture, and in flashbacks to earlier teaching, Gibson's Jesus stresses that we should love our enemies. This is an important message for our times and one I hope all the audience takes to heart.

Now if we could just get certain supposedly Christian members of our government to heed it.

Anyway, enough on The Passion Of The Christ. Right now I need to go back into the Closet to find my tickets for the next showing of Agent Cody Banks: Destination London. You can expect a dissertation on its symbology next month. NOT! Thanks for reading and until next month the Closet is closed.

© 2004 - Rusty Pipes

Official Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are those of Rusty Pipes, and his alone. Anyone attempting to draw conclusions worthy of picketing or sending hate mail should relax. Any women so upset that they'd see fit to send terrifying photos of themselves in the nude, well, we just can't stop you. This is a free country. Mailing panties? Well, that's just plain sick, and I can't imagine what they'd think over there at the office where PO Box 2412, Mt. Superior, Washington is. We will not buckle under for that kind of terrorism, no ma'am. It'd sure teach us a lesson we'd never forget, though, I can tell you that. Thank you. - The Editors