The big five losers from 'The Passion'
From the Online Edition of the Jerusalem Post Mar. 10, 2004

By Rabbi SHMULEY BOTEACH

The writer is a nationally syndicated talk radio host in the US and author of 14 books.

Rather than being a wild triumph for Christianity, The Passion of the Christ has created a long list of losers. Here are the top five:

1. Christian conservatives whose ability to protest violence in Hollywood films has now been severely compromised.

The Christian community in the US earned my abiding respect for serving as the foremost guardians of the morality of the American nation. There are literally hundreds of Christian organizations in the US devoted to enforcing standards of decency in Hollywood, strengthening marriage, and teaching young teens to abstain from sex rather than use a condom.

But the Christian community's enthusiasm for The Passion has dealt a catastrophic blow to its credibility in condemning violence in films and squalid video games such as Grand Theft Auto. Gibson's movie is one of the most brutal and bloody in the history of film and rivals The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for sheer gore.

No doubt my Christian brethren would argue that the violence in The Passion is warranted, given the fact that the subject matter is religiously inspiring. But I predict that Hollywood directors famous for gratuitous violence, such as Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone, will now find convincing arguments that violence in their films also serves an important social purpose.

2. Mel Gibson, who emerges as a talented fanatic at best and a full-blown loon at worst.

Yes, I know, every commentator has painted Mel as the big winner in this brouhaha since his Aramaic movie defied all expectations and so far earned him a cool $200 million. But money is not everything, and Mel must now contend with his new reputation as a violence-obsessed religious fanatic who said that all Protestants, including his own wife, are destined for hell, who claimed that the Holy Ghost helped him direct his film, and who has a Holocaust-denying anti-Semitic dad to boot.

Mel's violent streak has also been much in evidence. As New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes, "If he says that he wants you killed, he wants your intestines 'on a stick' and he wants to kill your dog – such was his fatwa against me in September – not only is there nothing personal about it but it's an act of love."

When the hoopla is over and Mel is searching for a new project, he'll be hard-pressed to find another controversial biblical story that guarantees controversy and profit. After all, you really can't much improve on the charge that the Jews killed God.

3. Jewish conservatives, many of whom now feel alienated from their Christian colleagues and are wondering who are their authentic allies.

The Passion has forced upon politically conservative Jews like myself a horrible choice: either betray Jewish interests by pretending that a movie making the charge of deicide is no big deal and playing sycophant to the much larger Christian market by praising the film – a choice all too many high-profile Jewish conservatives have made; or be told that you are endangering Israel by undermining Christian support for the Jewish state.

But I reject the choice between the interests of the Jewish people versus the interests of the Jewish state. Any Christian friend whose support can so quickly evaporate when we object to being falsely portrayed as god-killers in a movie is hardly an ally.

PASSIONATE ADMIRERS of the Christian community, like myself, now feel distant from and disillusioned by our Christian counterparts. Where is Christian sensitivity to an allegation that has led to the death of millions of Jews throughout the ages?

I have been attacked by Franklin Graham on US television for opposing this film. His father Billy, one of America's finest sons and its foremost evangelist, has – for all his greatness – labeled Jews "devilish" in a secretly taped conversation with Richard Nixon.

If such an educated man can develop a negative view of Jews based on the gospel's depiction of Jewish culpability for the death of Christ, what conclusions will the less educated draw as they are shocked by the bloody images of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus?

4. Jews for Jesus.

I have thrice debated leading Jewish-Christian missionary Dr. Michael Brown on the messiahship and death of Jesus. People like my friend Mike must now defend a deeply anti-Semitic film that portrays his own people as devilish murderers who crucified the Creator, thus giving the lie to Jewish-Christian's central argument that believing in Jesus is not a betrayal of the Jewish people.

5. The Christian faith.

The biggest loser of all, tragically, is the Christian religion, which is now portrayed as a religion of blood, gore, and death rather than of blessing, love, and life.

Judaism and its daughter religion, Christianity, were a radical departure from the pagan world's earlier cults of death. Both emphasized the idea of righteous action on this earth and both were based on the Hebrew scriptures' demand for moral excellence and the need to perfect the world in God's name. Even in the New Testament, the passion of Christ occupies at most a chapter or two in each of the gospels, while the life of Jesus is spelled out more than 10 times that number.

But Mel Gibson, in his wearisome, monotonous, and numbing depiction of endless blood and gore, utterly ignores things like Jesus's beautiful ethical teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, focusing entirely on the horrors of the crucifixion.

Gibson tells us that what made Jesus special was not that he lived righteously but that he died bloodily. Mel Gibson – who told interviewers that he contemplated suicide before making this film – is clearly obsessed with violence and death.

The Passion is an evangelical tool. Is that really Christianity's central message – not that Jesus lived an inspirational life by which the faithful should be roused but that he died a horrible death for which the sinners should feel responsible?
Indeed, the only winners emerging from The Passion are Islamic extremists who will no doubt take pleasure in seeing Jews and Christians squabbling at a time of considerable danger to both Israel and the United States.

But rather than blame the Jews for simply defending themselves against Mel Gibson's attack, let's place the blame squarely where it belongs – on Mel Gibson, who could easily have made an inspirational movie about the life and death of Christ without blaming the Jews for Jesus's death and without mixing in enough blood to fill the Jordan River. Instead, he decided to protect his investment by courting controversy and has made hundreds of millions of dollars.

Will he put some of that money toward educating Jews and Christians about their common heritage and kinship? Only time will tell. And in that telling, we will better be able to gauge Mel's motives and sincerity.
- posted by Izak @ 1:49 AM