The Passion of Christ revisited

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Dennis Ruhl, Mar 25, 2004.

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  1. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    Takes on new importance as I actually have seen it. My wife suggested that I accompany her.

    What a terrible movie. Turn 2 pages of text into 2 hours of movie and you get - bore - ring. I am talking Terrible with a capital T.

    The 1 3/4 hour torture scene is the most intense filler I have ever seen.

    Anti-semetic - in your dreams, but I would be ticked if I was Italian. The boys from Rome were the pros, the Jews were mere amateurs.

    I am $10 poorer and Mel is $300 million richer so he must have done something right.
     
  2. StevenKing

    StevenKing Active Member

    As a Christian, I don't agree with this at all...

    While it will be fodder for the "experts" to debate its historical (or even biblical) accuracy - I do appreciate that the movie moves the Christ of faith down from Anglo-Saxon, ultra-glamorized, effeminate paintings and helps to stimulate discussion. I have to believe that the Christ of Faith suffered greatly in his scourging and since people were not laden with video cameras in the first century - any - impression of the event will necessarily entail grand conjecture.

    I applaud Mel Gibson for bringing the subject out of the doldrums and offering a venue to place it in peoples' minds. Do I think it's entirely biblically accurate --- of course not. When we agree to fork over our cash to see ANYTHING that Hollywood produces we are cosigning the poetic license that EVERY director has. And, most certainly, enlarging his coffers is a luxury America has agreed to in the capitalistic enterprise---since, alas...nary one of us who have seen it, did so at gunpoint.

    That having been said - it is, afterall, only an opinion.

    Steven King
    The Kingster†
     
  3. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    But my wife suggested that I accompany her.

    I'd watch the a Bridges of Madison County and Driving Miss Daisy double feature to avoid it.

    As a movie - sucked the big one. As to feeding some need to feel the pain of Christ - sure.
     
  4. Deb

    Deb New Member

    Another view

    I went because everyone that I knew said that it was well done cinematically. I'm a movie fan and can enjoy a movie just for the elements if they are done well.

    As a movie, not speaking historically or religiously, it was a bore. It was over-filmed and over-written. Anti-Semitic, not really.I will say it was well-acted. Way, way too long. I found myself going to the restroom and snack stand several times.

    If you are Christian or interested for whatever reason then see the movie. If you are interested in seeing a well done movie, see "Return of the King" instead. Or rent the mini-series "Jesus" that was done a few years ago by the BBC.
     
  5. Jeff Hampton

    Jeff Hampton New Member

    For me, that one sentence is probably the most evocative review of this movie that I have seen (and that's saying a lot.)

    I was planning on seeing it, but now I think I will pass.

    Thanks, Dennis.
     
  6. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    William Safire, the New York Times' in-house "conservative" – who endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992, like so many conservatives – was sure Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" would incite anti-Semitic violence. Thus far, the pogroms have failed to materialize.

    With all the subtlety of a Mack truck, Safire called Gibson's movie a version of "the medieval 'passion play,' preserved in pre-Hitler Germany at Oberammergau, a source of the hatred of all Jews as 'Christ killers.'" (Certainly every Aryan Nation skinhead murderer I've ever met was also a devoted theater buff and "passion play" aficionado.)

    The "passion play" has been put on in Germany since at least 1633. I guess 1633 would be "pre-Hitler." In addition, Moses walked the Earth "pre-Hitler." The wheel was invented "pre-Hitler." People ate soup "pre-Hitler." Referring to the passion play as "pre-Hitler" is a slightly fancier version of every adolescent's favorite argument: You're like Hitler!

    Despite repeated suggestions from liberals – including the in-house "conservative" and Clinton-supporter at the Times – Hitler is not what happens when you gin up Christians. Like Timothy McVeigh, the Columbine killers and the editorial board of the New York Times, Hitler detested Christians.

    Indeed, Hitler denounced Christianity as an "invention of the Jew" and vowed that the "organized lie (of Christianity) must be smashed" so that the state would "remain the absolute master." Interestingly, this was the approach of all the great mass murderers of the last century – all of whom were atheists: Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

    In the United States, more than 30 million babies have been killed by abortion since Roe v. Wade, vs. seven abortion providers killed. Yeah – keep your eye on those Christians!

    But according to liberals, it's Christianity that causes murder. (And don't get them started on Zionism.) Like their Muslim friends still harping about the Crusades, liberals won't "move on" from the Spanish Inquisition. In the entire 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, about 30,000 people were killed. That's an average of less than 100 a year. Stalin knocked off that many kulaks before breakfast.

    But Safire argues that viewers of "The Passion" will see the Jewish mob and think: "Who was responsible for this cruel humiliation? What villain deserves to be punished?"

    Let's see: It was a Roman who ordered Christ's execution, and Romans who did all the flaying, taunting and crucifying. Perhaps Safire is indulging in his own negative stereotyping about Jews by assuming they simply viewed Romans as "the help."

    But again I ask: Does anyone at the Times have the vaguest notion what Christianity is? (Besides people who go around putting up nativity scenes that have to be taken down by court order?) The religion that toppled the Roman Empire – anyone?

    Jesus' suffering and death is not a Hatfields-and-McCoys story demanding retaliation. The gist of the religion that transformed the world is: God's only son came to Earth to take the punishment we deserved.

    If the Jews had somehow managed to block Jesus' crucifixion and He had died in old age of natural causes, there would be no salvation through Christ and no Christianity. Whatever possible responses there may be to that story, this is not one of them: Damn those Jews for being a part of God's plan to save my eternal soul!

    Gibson didn't insert Jews into the story for some Machiavellian, racist reason. Christ was a Jew crucified by Romans at the request of other Jews in Jerusalem. I suppose if Gibson had moved the story to suburban Cleveland and portrayed Republican logging executives crucifying Christ, the left would calm down. But it simply didn't happen that way.

    Of course, the original text is no excuse in Hollywood. The villains of Tom Clancy's book "The Sum of All Fears" were recently transformed from Muslim terrorists to neo-Nazis for the movie version. You wouldn't want to upset the little darlings. They might do something rash like slaughter 3,000 innocent American civilians in a single day. The only religion that can be constantly defamed and insulted is the one liberals pretend to be terrified of.
     
  7. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    In the dozens and dozens of panic-stricken articles the New York Times has run on Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," the unavoidable conclusion is that liberals haven't the vaguest idea what Christianity is. The Times may have loopy ideas about a lot of things, but at least when they write about gay bathhouses and abortion clinics, you get the sense they know what they're talking about.

    But Christianity just doesn't ring a bell. The religion that has transformed Western civilization for two millennia is a blank slate for liberals. Their closest reference point is "conservative Christians," meaning people you're not supposed to hire. And these are the people who carp about George Bush's alleged lack of "intellectual curiosity."

    The most amazing complaint, championed by the Times and repeated by all the know-nothing secularists on television, is that Gibson insisted on "rubbing our faces in the grisly reality of Jesus' death." The Times was irked that Gibson "relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours" – at the expense of showing us the Happy Jesus. Yes, Gibson's movie is crying out for a car chase, a sex scene or maybe a wise-cracking orangutan.

    The Times ought to send one of its crack investigative reporters to St. Patrick's Cathedral at 3 p.m. on Good Friday before leaping to the conclusion that "The Passion" is Gibson's idiosyncratic take on Christianity. In a standard ritual, Christians routinely eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ, aka "the Lamb of God." The really serious Catholics do that blood- and flesh-eating thing every day, the sickos. The Times has just discovered the tip of a 2,000-year-old iceberg.

    But the loony-left is testy with Gibson for spending so much time on Jesus' suffering and death while giving "short shrift to Jesus' ministry and ideas" – as another Times reviewer put it. According to liberals, the message of Jesus, which somehow Gibson missed, is something along the lines of "be nice to people" (which to them means "raise taxes on the productive").

    You don't need a religion like Christianity, which is a rather large and complex endeavor, in order to flag that message. All you need is a moron driving around in a Volvo with a bumper sticker that says "be nice to people." Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity (as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of "kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed"). But to call it the "message" of Jesus requires ... well, the brain of Maureen Dowd.

    In fact, Jesus' distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it. That is the reason He is called "Christ the Redeemer" rather than "Christ the Moron Driving Around in a Volvo With a 'Be Nice to People' Bumper Sticker on It."

    The other complaint from the know-nothing crowd is that "The Passion" will inspire anti-Semitic violence. If nothing else comes out of this movie, at least we finally have liberals on record opposing anti-Semitic violence. Perhaps they should broach that topic with their Muslim friends.

    One Times review of "The Passion" said: "To be a Christian is to face the responsibility for one's own most treasured sacred texts being used to justify the deaths of innocents." At best, this is like blaming Jodie Foster for the shooting of Ronald Reagan. But the reviewer somberly warned that a Christian should "not take the risk that one's life or work might contribute to the continuation of a horror." So the only thing Christians can do is shut up about their religion. (And no more Jodie Foster movies!)

    By contrast, in the weeks after 9-11, the Times was rushing to assure its readers that "prominent Islamic scholars and theologians in the West say unequivocally that nothing in Islam countenances the Sept. 11 actions." (That's if you set aside Muhammad's many specific instructions to kill non-believers whenever possible.) Times columnists repeatedly extolled "the great majority of peaceful Muslims." Only a religion with millions of practitioners trying to kill Americans and Jews is axiomatically described as "peaceful" by liberals.

    As I understand it, the dangerous religion is the one whose messiah instructs: "f one strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" and "Love your enemies ... do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." The peaceful religion instructs: "Slay the enemy where you find him." (Surah 9:92).

    Imitating the ostrich-like posture of certain German Jews who ignored the growing danger during Hitler's rise to power, today's liberals are deliberately blind to the real threats of violence that surround us. Their narcissistic self-image requires absolute solicitude toward angry savages plotting acts of terrorism. The only people who scare them are the ones who worship a Jew.
     
  8. Deb

    Deb New Member

    Summary

    Cyrus,

    Take a couple of deep breaths there, buddy.

    To sum up your statements:
    Christians - good, liberals - bad, Muslims-bad.
    Every religion but Christianity teaches bad things.
    Only Christianity has said "love thy neighbor."

    Did I get that right?

    We were having a nice peaceful conversation about movies - why didn't you start another thread for this?
     
  9. BLD

    BLD New Member

    Wow! You guys must have went to a different movie. I admit that as a Christian I have a certain amount of bias here, but I'm sure that many (if not most) in the theatre with me were not Christians and they all sat spell-bound for two solid hours. I never saw one person get up to go to the restroom. At the end of the film not one whisper was heard in the crowd until they had dispersed into the lobby. IMO it was one of the best films ever made.

    BLD
     
  10. Deb

    Deb New Member

    Interesting assumption, given the subject of the movie and that the majority of Americans claim to be Christian. I would have assumed just the opposite, that most of the crowd was Christian.

    All the people I know who have seen the movie, except me, saw it because they were Christian. The Wiccans and pagans I know have no interest. Surprisingly, my Catholic friends don't want to see it, saying it is just not to their taste. My Jewish friends also refused, though I don't think their objections where supported by what I saw. On the other hand, I can see where they would have no interest.

    I would think the movie would appeal mostly to two crowds - Christian and those, like me, who like to watch movies to see the construction. I suppose some people might be attracted by the controversy.
     
  11. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Cyrus:

    Although your post was, shall we say, somewhat emphatic, I must admit that it contained enough important material (to me, anyway) that I read it twice, carefully.

    The center of your argument is the idea that seems to me to be the real foundation of Christianity, that is, that Jesus suffered and died for the expiation of the sins all humankind.

    Please correct me if I am wrong; I am a fairly knowlegable Reform Jew but I have no training in Christian theology.

    But if I am correct in this understanding, then I don't see how Christianity can be any sort of descendant of Judaism.

    The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would never, ever, have permitted, let alone demanded a human sacrifice. That is one of the conclusions the Rabbis draw from the Binding of Isaac.

    The custom of sacrificing one's own child is condemned in the strongest possible terms in Torah and later writings as being an abomination in the worship of Moloch.

    Furthermore, the animal sacrifices may have served to atone offenses against God, but it was clearly understood then, as it is in connection with Yom Kippur now, that God cannot forgive offenses committed against other people.

    Nor was the preist ever allowed to torture an animal in the process of the sacrifice. Our God is a God who abhors torture of animals and people.

    How, then can Christianity claim to be even distantly related to the religions, either ancient or modern, of the Jews?

    Please do not view this post as a challenge. I am asking an honest question here, because I would really like to know.
     
  12. BLD

    BLD New Member

    Nosborne,
    You are correct that God condemned human sacrifice by other humans, but He did not condemn His own desire to sacrifice Himself on behalf of humanity.

    The proper word for what happened was propitiation. In pagan religions gifts were given to the gods as a means to appease them and avoid their wrath. There was no gift that could be given to appease the God of the Bible. Nothing, including animal sacrifices, could actually pay the penalty for our sin. In Christ, God offered Himself as a propitiation and poured out His wrath upon Himself, satisfying the sin debt that could be paid in no other way.

    In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10 (NASB)

    BLD
     
  13. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    Re: Summary

    Deb,

    The title of the thread is: "Passion of the Christ Revisited," not "was Passion of the Christ a good or bad movie." My intention was to introduce a new perspective for discussion and debate. My posts were nothing but peaceful. I know that you and I don't agree on most things, but that's okay. It fosters an environment of healthy debate. If it is a critique of the movie that you would like me to give, I believe that it is one of the greatest pieces of work in the history of the cinema. But then again, I may biased. You see Deb, I am a Christian, and to see a representation of what my Mesiah went through for me is difficult to put into words. Yes, I am VERY critical of liberals. For me this is not a difficult choice. Liberals have a history of promoting agendas that are very much against the Christian faith, such as abortion and others. And your comment on Muslims being bad? Well, I'll leave you with this...comedian Jay Leno once commented that you had better tell Muslims that their religion is peaceful or they'll kill you! Need I say more? ;)
     
  14. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member


    Nosborne,

    What BLD said pretty much sums it up.


    :)
     
  15. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Then, if I understand you, God decreed that there was a debt to pay and then paid it himself?

    I am sorry; I really don't think I understand this. Is there some "higher law" than God that compels this, well, peculiar concept? Perhaps some sort of transcendental constitutional law to which God is himself subject?

    Why, in other words, was the whole thing really necessary?

    The notion, BTW, that God is himself subject to universal law has a long and honorable tradition in Jewish thought. I am NOT being flippant here.
     
  16. Deb

    Deb New Member

    Re: Re: Summary

    >>The title of the thread is: "Passion of the Christ Revisited," not "was Passion of the Christ a good or bad movie." <<

    Yes, but it started out as a movie review, not a liberal bashing or a religious debate.

    >> My intention was to introduce a new perspective for discussion and debate.<<

    Exactly. If you are introducing a new thread why do it in the middle of a movie discussion?

    >> My posts were nothing but peaceful. I know that you and I don't agree on most things, but that's okay. It fosters an environment of healthy debate. <<

    Apologizes. Peaceful was prehaps the wrong word. How about intense?

    >> If it is a critique of the movie that you would like me to give, I believe that it is one of the greatest pieces of work in the history of the cinema. But then again, I may biased. <<

    Bias? You think? <g>

    That would have been more in the tone of the first few postings. Now, I know that threads drift, but it is usually a more natural progression such as you are seeing in the other line of discussion going on here about the reason for Jesus' sacrifice.

    >>Yes, I am VERY critical of liberals. For me this is not a difficult choice. Liberals have a history of promoting agendas that are very much against the Christian faith, such as abortion and others.<<

    Liberals have also promoted civil rights, environmental concern, workers rights and child welfare. Are these anti-Christian?

    Christians have also been known to be rather non-Christian - genocide, "kill a queer for Christ", Protestant v Catholic, Jew bashing, rez boarding schools .... Most Christians do not support such things.

    My point is that generalizing any group as bad / good is, well, generalizing.

    >> And your comment on Muslims being bad? Well, I'll leave you with this...comedian Jay Leno once commented that you had better tell Muslims that their religion is peaceful or they'll kill you! Need I say more? ;) <<

    My comment? I was summerizing your comments.

    Any religion can be hijacked for the worse. That has certainly happened to Christianity in the past; in some places it is still happening.

    Just as "thou shall not kill" and "turn the other cheek" have been ignored when it was convenient, the Koran also has things that are being subverted by fanatics. There are rules on warfare for example: "do not kill non-combatants, do not kill women, children or the elderly, do not kill livestock, do not harm trees or crops, do not poison the water." All things the terrorists have failed to notice.

    Fanatics are not a good way to judge any religion or movement.

    Jay Leno never told this one - As he was dying from being tortured for not coverting, a Lakota was asked why he didn't just convert so he could go to heaven? He said, "Because heaven is full of Christians."
     
  17. plcscott

    plcscott New Member

    Nosborne:

    God told Adam not to eat the fruit or he would die. He did and so the wages of sin is death. As BLD said the animal sacrifices were to appease God, and avoid his wrath according to the old covenent. Jesus was the propitiation (satisfaction) for the sin. Just as the animals had to be perfect, Jesus was the only perfect human, unblemished without sin. Because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin he was God/man. He voluntarily paid the price of his own penalty for the sins of man.

    This is my simple understanding of Christ. I am sure the more knowledgeable people on this forum can add to or fix my summary, but that is my understanding.
     
  18. plcscott

    plcscott New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Summary

    "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

    Mark Twain
     
  19. Deb

    Deb New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Summary

    Always loved that quote!
     
  20. Deb

    Deb New Member

    I have to admit, I'm with nosborne on this one. I have never grasped the concept of God making a sacrifice to Himself. Since he is all-knowng, all-merciful and all-wise, why not just forgive mankind of original sin?
     

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