FAITH, FACT, FICTION, & FEAR:

'The Passion of Christ' (Robert Novak, November 3, 2003, Townhall)

When a private viewing of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" was completed at a Washington hotel 10 days ago, my wife and I along with a dozen other invited guests were emotionally frozen into several minutes of silence. The question is whether public presentation of the film four months hence shall be welcomed by tumultuous demonstrations outside the theaters.

Hollywood actor Gibson, who spent over $25 million of personal funds to produce "The Passion," has finally found a distributor to begin its showing Feb. 25 -- Ash Wednesday. A campaign by some Jewish leaders to radically edit the film or, alternatively, prevent its exhibition appears to have failed. This opens the door to religious conflict if the critics turn their criticism into public protest.

That is not because of the content of "The Passion." As a journalist who has actually seen what the producers call "a rough cut" of the movie and not just read about it, I can report it is free of the anti-Semitism that its detractors claim. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and its allies began attacking the movie on the basis of reading a shooting script without having actually seen the film. The ADL carries a heavy burden in stirring religious strife about a piece of entertainment that, apart from its artistic value, is of deep religious significance for believing Christians.

Private Viewing of 'The Passion of Christ' (Joel C. Rosenberg, Nov. 3, 2003, Newsmax)

Gibson's desire to show the world what really happened on that "Good Friday" nearly 2,000 years ago should be applauded, not vilified. And Gibson, to his credit, got it right by carefully following the Gospel accounts in the New Testament: the Jewish people are not to blame for the murder of Jesus. Nor are the Romans.

We are all to blame. As the Apostle Paul -- also a Christian from an Orthodox Jewish background -- tells us in Romans: "We all have sinned and fallen short of of the glory of God." We all need the message of the cross.

That said, the more I mull over the film I saw, the more it strikes me that an intense new cultural battle is brewing over this fundamental question: "Who is Jesus?"

Jesus Himself said He was the Messiah. He said He was God. Is He, or isn't He? If He isn't, what do we have to fear from His story being told? But if Jesus is the personification of the living God, will we follow or reject Him? Mel Gibson is about to use his Hollywood star power to raise those profound and eternal issues. But he's not the only one.

The No. 1 New York Times best seller for most of the year has been "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, a writer who's never been a big best-seller before. What's troubling about "The Code" is that it draws you unsuspectingly into the murder of a man who's protecting a 2,000-year-old conspiracy: secret documents that "prove" that Jesus had an adulterous relationship with Mary Magdelene, had a child with her, never believed he was the Messiah, and actually believed in goddess worship.

It's fiction, but a full-bore attack on the person and message of Jesus Christ, and it's finding a huge audience. Over 3 million copies of "The Da Vinci Code" are in print. The "Today" show featured it last week. Other network shows will feature it over the course of the next month.

We've a group of friends, largely Catholic, who read Da Vinci Code for a book club and enjoyed it, unbothered by the Jesus bit because...well...it's a novel. What seems to bother folks like the ADL about The Passion is even the historical facts it portrays.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 3, 2003 8:06 AM