Why I am not discussing "The Passion of the Christ" [View All]

[truthspeaker]

I haven't seen it.

I am old enough to remember when two movies came out that were, allegedly, offensive to Christians. The first was "The Last Temptation of Christ". It was greeted by protests from various Christian groups who felt it was offensive to them. Except almost all of them had never seen it. From what I understand, the "offensiveness" of "Last Temptation" was that it painted a slightly different picture of Jesus than those Christians believed in. I have a hard time understanding how that could be offensive, but I have an even harder time understanding how someone can protest a movie that they haven't even seen.

The second was Kevin Smith's "Dogma", which I actually saw. "Dogma" has swearing, crude sexual dialogue, crude scatalogical dialogue, and violence. But I didn't think it was particularly offensive to Christian beliefs; in fact I think it would be very faith-affirming to sincere Christians while poking fun at humans who try to profit off God's name. But, that movie was also protested by people who hadn't seen it.

So you can imagine my dismay when I heard people calling "Passion" anti-Semitic before they had even seen it. Maybe it is anti-Semitic. Maybe there are other negative things about it. But the shoe's on the other foot now. A movie about Jesus is out that many evangelical Christians and traditional Catholics approve of. If we're going to criticize it, let's do it the courtesy of watching it first so we know what we're criticizing.