Why would you say Mel Gibson has a "well-honed persecution complex"?
Because from day one, over a year ago, in an unprecedented pre-release publicity campaign, Mel has portrayed his gospel movie as if one was never made before, and that "forces" were preventing him personally from making it. He received unfair criticism, but he stoked strong interest from his publicity campaign. Some things were not his fault, like awareness of his father's hatreds and paranoias about the Pope, masons, jews, etc. Some were his fault, like saying those not in the Roman (western) Church, even his Episcopalian wife, were going to hell and that "secular judaism", whatever that is, was blaming the Church for the Nazis.
In the end, the movie will stand on it's own, though.