Posted on 03/05/2004 6:27:49 PM PST by Stand4Truth
Charles,
Why such hostility toward a movie that has moved millions of Christians to deepen their faith? All true Christians including myself believe that Christ died for the sins of all mankind everywhere for all time. That is the story and Mel Gibson has given millions and millions of Christians a valued and treasured depiction of this central theme to our faith. The fact is that certain Romans and Jews 2000 years ago were directly involved in this story. It is frustrating to many, many Christians and Jews that a small minority has tried to make this a story about Jews vs. Christianity. That does a serious disservice to the movie, the story of "Christ's Passion" itself, and it comes off as quite disingenious. When you get outside of Hollywood and the beltway and speak with average people you have to hunt long and hard (I have yet to find one in my many many discussions of the movie) to find those who sincerely think that Mel Gibson created an anti-semitic movie. Millions of Christians such as myself have a great love for the Jewish people as we do for all races (that is what Christ commanded and incidently Mel went to great lengths to include that communication that Christ commanded us to love all people as He had done).
YOU WROTE:The blood libel that this story had affixed upon the Jewish people had resulted in countless Christian massacres of Jews, and prepared Europe for the ultimate massacre -- 6 million Jews systematically murdered within six years.
So, you believe that the central act of the Christian faith is responsible for the holocaust. Please, spare us the overheated hyperbole. The message of "Christ's Passion in the gospels, in 2,000 years of Church teaching, and in "The Passion" is that mankind turned it's back on God and sinned and in order to provide a way for us (all of us) back to God's grace the bloody sacrifice was necessary. Christ "voluntarily" stood in for us to give himself as that sacrifice.
YOU WROTE: He openly rejects the Vatican II teaching.
Many Catholics reject "the result" of Vatican II because of the devastation it has wraught on The Church. To insinuate that because Mel rejects what Vatican II has done to the Catholic Church makes him an anti-semite is like saying that because someone does not support the war in Iraq they are pro-terrorism. You should really do your due diligence and study the whole of Vatican II, how it has been "interpreted and carried out" by the liberals in the West before you judge someone for accepting it or not based upon a single aspect of this vast council.
YOU WROTE: His other defense is that he is just telling the Gospel story. Nonsense. There is no single Gospel story of the Passion; there are subtle differences among the four accounts.
This is a classic "muddy the waters" strategy so that the non-thinking reader cannot figure out how to disagree with you. The central theme and truth of the "Gospel Story" is what I stated above. All four gospels clearly tell this story as does the movie. Different aspects of "Christ's Passion" are emphasized in the different gospels because they were written by different disciples of Christ who wanted to get certain aspects and truths across.
YOU WROTE: And Gibson's personal interpretation is spectacularly vicious. Three of the Gospels have but a one-line reference to Jesus' scourging. The fourth has no reference at all. In Gibson's movie this becomes 10 minutes of the most unremitting sadism in the history of film. Why 10? Why not five? Why not two? Why not zero, as in Luke? Gibson chose 10.
Why not 15?? Why not 20?? Do you really expect us to believe that Mel overplayed the viciousness of a Roman scouraging?? This wasn't the only one you know. The brutality of this kind of punishment is legendary and the fact that you apparently don't understand that speaks again to a lack of proper research and due diligence before writing your opinion piece. When you take a cat of nine tails with weighted shards of metal or glass and drive it repeatedly into someone's skin with brute force you cannot overplay the result. The gospel writers were writing to people who clearly understood how horrible a "scourging" was and did not need to have it explained in excruciating detail. Your minimization of this portion of Christ's sacrifice is in itself evidence as to why Gibson needed to present this so graphically. If I say that Truman "dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima" those who understand what this is clearly know the devastation, but my kids who have not seen the images or heard the stories would not receive it with the same impact.
YOU WROTE: The most subtle, and most revolting, of these has to my knowledge not been commented upon. In Gibson's movie Satan appears four times. Not one of these appearances occurs in the four Gospels. They are pure invention.
Anyone who understands the Christian faith and the Christian Scriptures to any serious degree knows full well that satan was at the very heart of "The Passion" story and is at the very heart of the battle for souls today and for all time. Without satan none of this would have been necessary. It is the ultimate clash between good and evil. To "not include" this in the story in some way would have been shocking. Satan appears as you say four times and you are using one of them to try and drum up some claim of anti-semitism. The simple answer as to why this has not been commented upon is because objective viewers of this movie who are not "searching for something" would have never dreamed that Mel injected satan into this story to paint Jews, Romans, or any race as particularly satanic. Clearly Christians believe that satan is behind motivating people throughout history to committ heinous sinful acts such as Hitler's murder of millions of Jews, Stalin's murder of millions of Christians, and yes the betrayal of Christ by Judas, the savage beating He received from the Roman guards, and the other brutalities that He suffered for "all" and from "all".
Read this excerpt from her writtings!!!"
"At the same moment I perceived the yawning abyss of hell like a fiery meteor at the feet of Caiaphas; it was filled with horrible devils; a slight gauze alone appeared to separate him from its dark flames. I could see the demoniacal fury with which his heart was overflowing, and the whole house looked to me like hell. [ ]I remember seeing, among other frightful things, a number of little black objects, like dogs with claws, which walked on their hind legs; I knew at the time what kind of wickedness was indicated by this apparition, but I cannot remember now. I saw these horrible phantoms enter into the bodies of the greatest part of the bystanders, or else place themselves on their head or shoulders.[6] "
How creepy is that? And then there is her comment about Jews strangling Christian babies? What the HELL is that all about?
From Christianity Today:
"Early in the filming of The Passion, he gave a long interview to Raymond Arroyo on the conservative Catholic network EWTN. ... He also recounted a series of divine coincidences that led him to read the works of Anne Catherine Emmerich, a late-18th, early-19th-century Westphalian nun who had visions of the events of the Passion. Many of the details needed to fill out the Gospel accounts he drew from her book, Dolorous Passion of Our Lord. "
That's part of the "blood libel" by which Jews have been calumniated for quite some time. It varies from place to place; the essence of it is that Jews require the blood of a Christian child in order to make the matzoh for their Passover celebration. It presents them with a double whammy because Jews are forbidden to eat blood, and hence, by inference, things that have been strangled to death.
Would you take seriously any person who ever wrote the following: "The soul of the old Jewess Meyr told me on the way that it was true that in former times the Jews, both in our country and elsewhere, had strangled many Christians, principally children, and used their blood for all sort of superstitious and diabolical practices."
I don't care what else she wrote she's a nut and he reads her works.
I still like Mel Gibson but a religious authority he aint. And an authority on the gospels he aint. He seems to be a nice man and I wish him the best and all that. But I think after the dust settles there will be a reapproachment of this movie and a few hangovers from overindulgence in its praises.
Well as the Church Lady would say, "Isn't that convenient? Stop really. You insult my intelligence. One minute you are a Christian, then you sin and oops, not a Christian, then you ask for forgiveness, then oh back to being a Christian again. So basically one is either a Christian or a sinner but never both at the same time. Therefore no Christian ever persecuted a Jew because that would be a sin.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry but Krauthammer is on FOX and I just want to listen to a human being that makes sense so I am going to watch him. Good night all.
One reason certainly was the role of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution, which in its extreme hostility to Christianity burned churches, murdered priests, killed nuns and deliberately starved 5 to 10 million Christians in the Ukraine. The fact that ordinary Germans were terrified of the the Bolsheviks made it easy for for for a master manipulator like Hitler to induce them to buy into his genocidal agenda.
I saw the movie last night. It was neither as life changing as its admirers asserted nor as awful as its detractors claimed. I personally enjoyed and was glad I went, but in the end it was just a movie, not a cultural juggernaut that will forever change the face of western society.
All true Christians including myself believe that Christ died for the sins of all mankind everywhere for all time. Please reconsider your statement. Rethink this clearly, please. |
I grew up Catholic, and I was an altar boy. I performed the Stations of the Cross dozens of times so I was familiar with the Catholic take that Mel used.
It was a fantastic movie, but it merely covered the material realistically. I mean if you do a movie about the Titanic - at some point a boat has to sink, right?
What I do think is that Muslims will go nuts when they see this movie. Don't forget, to a Muslim, Christ was the immediate precoursor of Mohammed. Seeing Christ abused will add fuel to their already delusionary fires.
Another insight is that, viewing this movie, ALL of the Jewish non-clerical characters, I mean ALL of them - and these were the good-guys in this movie - could be mistaken in terms of appearance for modern day Muslims. From the head coverings of men and women, to the beards on the men, the dark complexions, the 'stone age' environs of the town. I had to mention that because it jumped out at me. I can't help but see them identifying with the 'downtrodden and oppressed' middle easterners in this movie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.