The 677 Last Words...

My wife and I finally went to see "The Passion of the Christ," this weekend. I don’t want to spend much time on it, because there’s already been too much time spent on it, pro and con. I can say this: after all the hype, the movie was not the great faith-confirming vehicle for me that it seems to have been for others, nor was it anti-Semitic. It was just another flick, of the same genre as "Lethal Weapon," "Mad Max," or "Payback." Aside from the gratuitous, over-the-top violence, it was generally biblically correct and true to the ultra-conservative Catholic catechism in which Gibson grew up. It was a long, drawn-out, filmed version of The Stations of the Cross.

There were a lot of places in the movie where it was apparent that the penchant for all religious people through the ages to "illuminate" the story-line to fit a certain line of reasoning, was in full force. Nowhere in Scripture are the names of the criminals who were crucified with Jesus mentioned, nor is there any mention of Pilate’s wife bringing the material for Jesus’ shroud to Mary, nor of the two Marys using this material to lovingly wipe up every drop of blood shed by Jesus in the place of his scourging. These, and others, are all traditions which have grown up over centuries of interpretation and "what-ifs" that we seem to revel in when it comes to making a case for our religious faith. My wife goes there. I’m not going to.

The movie is lauded by Catholics and conservative Protestants most everywhere, and why not? It falls perfectly in line with their particular theories of atonement, which live smack in the middle of the Crucifixion event. And this is my bone of contention: Why is it that so many Christians are rooted in Good Friday as the definitive statement of their faith? We are supposed to be an Easter community, living in the faith that no matter what comes our way, by emulating Jesus’ life, not death, we will share in his new life for all time, beginning now, at this moment. Gibson underscores this by spending (dragging out?) two hours and some change on the agony of Good Friday, and only a moment or two at the very end on the empty tomb on Easter morning, as if it were a post-script to two days before.

For some reason, Christianity believes that we have to wallow in guilt and blood in order to feel gratitude for what God has done for us. I just can’t go there. I’m more inclined to buy into the idea that what happened to Jesus as a result of his being in the faces of the religious hierarchy of his day, can, and does, happen to us, if we start preaching and acting as he did.  But, I’ve said this all before.

My point is, that Gibson’s movie does nothing more than to affirm the beliefs of those who need the agony of Jesus to confirm their own faith; that out of a sense of guilt and gratitude that God sent his own son to suffer in our place, when God really wanted to do it to us.  This makes me a little nervous about God and a little distrustful. The prevailing theories of atonement; Aulen’s Christus Victor (God tricked Satan), Anselmian satisfaction (God's offended honor needed to be satisfied), and Abelardian moral influence (Jesus died as a demonstration of God's love) motifs, are all ways to rationalize the event and to explain how God really loves us when we thought he was a mean and vengeful God. When I hear some of the theologies from my more conservative colleagues today, I wonder if that message got through.

If Gibson’s movie solidified the faith of some because they needed to have that, well, OK. For me, watching "The Passion" was a lot like watching a basketball game on TV. I could have gotten it all in the final two minutes.

8:08:30 AM   Lay some on me []