A Passionate Disagreement

Having not seen the movie, I'm limited in the extent to which I'm able to comment, but I have to get a few thoughts about reaction to The Passion of the Christ out of my head so other thoughts can flow while I walk the dog.

Although I'm surprised that John Derbyshire linked to it with approval, I'm not surprised by Christian Canadian writer Michael Coren's thoughts on the movie. Coren's review brings to mind previous indications of a cross-denomination schism. On one side are believers in what Rev. Donald Sensing calls "Metrosexual Jesus." Put simply, these are people who don't believe that religion should ever make anybody feel badly about themselves, no matter what they insist on doing. Doctrine should change with the times to accommodate the people living in them, and the softer, gentler side of Jesus is taken as license to do so. Does he have a speck in his eye?, they ask the righteous. Well, what of the plank in yours? If the accusation were turned on the person judging another for intolerance, and if the accuser could be made to address the complaint directly, I can only assume a relativist fog would arise, in which the speck/plank comparison changes with perspective such that everybody else's eyes have specks while yours, if you are judging, will always have a plank. Or something.

On the other end are people who believe in what might be called "South American Prison Jesus." These are people who take religion as they have found it, realized that they will sin and be judged, and move on from there. Of course, it is healthy for these folks, among whom I count myself, to realize that Christ's forgiveness does await... if we repent. But the point is that the religion is real. Evil must be faced, particularly within ourselves.

So, based just on a quick look at his column and his Web site, I'm guessing that Coren's closer to the Metrosexual Jesus crowd than he is to the South American Prison Jesus crowd. And it makes sense to me that such people will have a soul-deep dislike of Mel Gibson's movie. This is particularly true of those with the aesthetic sense suggested by his Web site. (If you visit it, make sure to stick around long enough for the music to kick in.) It is even more particularly true of a person likely to write the following:

This is some pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic blood cult. It is populated with medieval-type caricatures, screaming out of context, laughing at suffering. ...

The flashbacks seem, with one touching exception depicting Jesus as a child, to be mere attempts to push Catholic eucharistic theology onto the audience.

Putting aside sectarian prejudice, one line strikes to the heart of the matter: the movie "is also so, well, so anti-humanity." That's, well, sort of the point. Humanity brings this ugly sin into the world. It's cliché to say, but Coren, almost by his own admission, wants the "majesty and pathos" without the scourging. As I understand Gibson's intention, it isn't, ultimately, as much a movie about Christ as about us, what we did, and about what we must acknowledge having done. We, I needn't remind Coren, have not yet been raised up into majesty.

One way not to acknowledge this is to throw out decoys that have the tangential benefit of making us feel oh-so-compassionate and full of pathos. A big one in this case is anti-Semitism. Yesterday, Michael Graham wrote in the Corner:

I don't know what the reviewers who see even a hint of anti-Semitism are looking at. While the Jewish leaders certainly aren't heroes, several members of their ranks step forward to defend Christ and denounce the way he is treated. The battle over Jesus isn't Jew vs. Christian in this movie. It's Jew vs. Jew, with both factions doing what they believe is right.

In fact, Gibson uses a moment in the Crucifixion to all but declare Caiaphas and his allies "Not Guilty!" for the death of Christ. It's not subtle in the least, and the fact that most reviews I've read skip this moment indicates to me they're doing their part to keep the unfounded controversy alive.

Let me be perfectly clear: There is no way to honestly say this movie is either anti-Semitic or promotes anti-Semitism. That is simply not true, and people who have seen the film and make that claim are being dishonest or ignorant.

To be entirely honest about my own biases, I expected Andrew Sullivan, if he said anything substantive, to relate the movie to his central cause. That seems to me a perfectly normal and understandable reaction. But this, I did not expect:

Is it anti-Semitic? The question has to be placed in the context of the Gospels and it is hard to reproduce the story without risking such inferences. But in my view, Gibson goes much further than what might be forgivable. The first scene in which Caiphas appears has him relaying to Judas how much money he has agreed to hand over in return for Jesus. The Jew - fussing over money again! There are a few actors in those scenes who look like classic hook-nosed Jews of Nazi imagery, hissing and plotting and fulminating against the Christ. For good measure, Gibson has the Jewish priestly elite beat Jesus up as well, before they hand him over to the Romans; and he has Jesus telling Pilate that he is not responsible - the Jewish elite is. Pilate and his wife are portrayed as saints forced by politics and the Jewish elders to kill a man they know is innocent. Again, this reflects part of the Gospels, but Gibson goes further. He presents Pilate's wife as actually finding Mary, providing towels to wipe up Jesus' blood, arguing for Jesus' release. Yes, the Roman torturers are obviously evil; yes, a few Jews dissent; and, of course, all the disciples are Jewish. I wouldn't say that this movie is motivated by anti-Semitism. It's motivated by psychotic sadism. But Gibson does nothing to mitigate the dangerous anti-Semitic elements of the story and goes some way toward exaggerating and highlighting them. To my mind, that is categorically unforgivable. Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity. Far from expiating it, this movie clearly enjoys taunting those Catholics as well as Jews who are determined to confront that legacy. In that sense alone, it is a deeply immoral work of art.

Some of this requires one to see the movie, although modest replies are obvious: Making an issue of the amount of Judas's payment? See Matthew 27:6 and 7, but particularly 9. The Jewish priests rough Jesus up? See Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65, and John 18:22.

For now, what jumps out the most, however, is the line, "Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity." To illustrate why I picked up on that specifically, I offer another citation — Sullivan's Love Undetectable, page 19: "The loathing of each group [gays and Jews] is also closely linked to fear, and the fear is fanned, in many ways, by the distortion of a particular strain in Christian theology."

ADDENDUM:
Mike Potemra offers his thoughts on the matter:

Now, I saw this movie, too, twice, and I was especially on the lookout for signs of anti-Semitism or an overstress on Jewish guilt. I didn't see it—and I think if Andrew hadn't been angry at the film on other grounds, he wouldn't have seen it either.