[NON BLOG] The Passion of Christ
Mar. 20th, 2005 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldLast night with the boyfriend, I went to Palm Sunday mass. The story of the Passion, Gospel of Matthew, featured prominently.
I hadn't really cared about the story of the Passion as such until the controversy surrounding Gibson's recent film. My initial skeptical reaction changed to a grudging appreciation of certain qualities of the film when I actually saw the film for my medieval devotional literature class. I'm a non-believer, but the filmed version of Jesus' torture and death, showing how Jesus abandoned everything in and about life to suffer an agonizing death for the good of us all, was tremendously powerful. Even if Gibson failed to communicate anything about Christ's doctrine save through intrusive and useless flashbacks, at least it got people thinking about that story's drama, and its relevance to the modern day. Certainly, the mother of Emmett Till, murdered in one of the last racist lynchings in the southern United States, was able to relate her own grief and her son's death to the passion story.
The Passion has contributed to what seems to be a spike in anti-Semitic acts. This hasn't happened only in the Muslim world, but also in Canada, as B'nai Brith argues that there were almost half again as many hate crimes against Jews committed in 2004 as in 2003. I wonder, though, and I worry: Assuming that there is a connection between portrayals of the Passion of Christ and anti-Semitism, is this connection evitable or not? Powerful stories have real-life consequences, especially if you don't undermine them adroitly in best pomo fashion.
I hadn't really cared about the story of the Passion as such until the controversy surrounding Gibson's recent film. My initial skeptical reaction changed to a grudging appreciation of certain qualities of the film when I actually saw the film for my medieval devotional literature class. I'm a non-believer, but the filmed version of Jesus' torture and death, showing how Jesus abandoned everything in and about life to suffer an agonizing death for the good of us all, was tremendously powerful. Even if Gibson failed to communicate anything about Christ's doctrine save through intrusive and useless flashbacks, at least it got people thinking about that story's drama, and its relevance to the modern day. Certainly, the mother of Emmett Till, murdered in one of the last racist lynchings in the southern United States, was able to relate her own grief and her son's death to the passion story.
The Passion has contributed to what seems to be a spike in anti-Semitic acts. This hasn't happened only in the Muslim world, but also in Canada, as B'nai Brith argues that there were almost half again as many hate crimes against Jews committed in 2004 as in 2003. I wonder, though, and I worry: Assuming that there is a connection between portrayals of the Passion of Christ and anti-Semitism, is this connection evitable or not? Powerful stories have real-life consequences, especially if you don't undermine them adroitly in best pomo fashion.
