I'm also reminded of the words of St. Paul who said that if Christ did not rise from the dead then Christians are the most unfortunate of all peoples (sorry for the paraphrase).
I think Mel's movie is important precisely as a stick in the eye to all these wishy-washy Christians that are comfortable w/ platitudes but uncomfortable w/ the idea of everlasting judgement. They don't want to see the reality of Christ's suffering because it will shatter their world of complacency.
It's really bothering them. We're 8 months before the movie's release and there's an article a day somewhere trashing the movie –which the writers haven't seen.