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Passionate
In case you've been hiding under a rock for the past few months, Mel Gibson has directed a movie called "The Passion of the Christ" in which he seeks to graphically illustrate the final hours of Jesus Christ. Controversy has ensued as to whether this movie will stir up anti-Jewish sentiment. On the one hand, some people are arguing that since the movie seems to focus on the role Jews played in the crucifixion of Jesus, the anti-Jewish bent is all to apparent. On the other hand, some people are arguing that there is no anti-Jewish bent here, merely a retelling of the story as accurately as possible. (On the third hand, some are arguing that whoever Mel hired as publicist for the movie deserves an award for starting all of this controversy in the first place.)
The thing is, as a recovering Catholic, I remember seeing this movie every year since I was old enough to understand Easter. Sure, that version was played out in my mind, but the themes were there. In the Stations of the Cross, in the Passion Play, in the reading of the Scripture during Holy Week, through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to Easter Sunday, we good Catholics were reminded of what Jesus suffered for our sakes. Sure, we didn't get to see the nails pounded into his palms/wrists, and no, we didn't watch him get scourged by the whip, but we heard all about it, every single ounce of pain. I remember feeling so sorry for Jesus as he was hauled up on that cross, his shoulders dislocated, his brow bleeding, his side pierced with the spear. The Passion, the priests reminded us, was supposed to inspire our own compassion, and it did. We came out the other side of Easter knowing that Jesus had wiped away the stain of Original Sin, and that the dead could now go to heaven to live with God forever.
What we never learned during that time was to hate Jews. There was no emphasis on the Jews choosing to free Barabbas over Jesus, or the evil nature of the pharisees in having Jesus arrested in the first place. The emphasis was on the implementation of God's will: Jesus knew the guards were coming for him; he knew he could easily have placated Pilate by pretending to recant; and he knew that the only way he could guarantee himself a painful death on the cross was to tweak the noses of the politically powerful. The Jews of Jerusalem, Jesus' compatriots, were tools used by Jesus and God to orchestrate the greatest sacrifice; Jesus himself, hanging there on the cross, admonished God, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." Who were we, the congregation, to turn that on its head? How could we dare to hate when the man who was sacrificing himself for us continued to preach love?
I am no longer Catholic, and I look at these things through different lenses now. I see now in the death of Jesus the forging of a new covenant in the Judeo-Christian mythology, a covenant wherein God forgives the sons and daughters of Eve and Adam their progenitors' Original Sin. I understand the archetypal power of a sacrifice of oneself to oneself (i.e., one part of the Trinity to another part of the Trinity). I can appreciate the rich tapestry of compassion woven into the story of a man who died to prove that love is most important of all.
I fail to see how any of this can instigate hatred in the hearts of men... unless that hatred is already there. If it is, then we need to focus on the roots of that hatred and how it can be defused, not wail and moan and beat our breasts over a movie that happens to tell the very violent tale of the end of one man's life.
The thing is, as a recovering Catholic, I remember seeing this movie every year since I was old enough to understand Easter. Sure, that version was played out in my mind, but the themes were there. In the Stations of the Cross, in the Passion Play, in the reading of the Scripture during Holy Week, through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to Easter Sunday, we good Catholics were reminded of what Jesus suffered for our sakes. Sure, we didn't get to see the nails pounded into his palms/wrists, and no, we didn't watch him get scourged by the whip, but we heard all about it, every single ounce of pain. I remember feeling so sorry for Jesus as he was hauled up on that cross, his shoulders dislocated, his brow bleeding, his side pierced with the spear. The Passion, the priests reminded us, was supposed to inspire our own compassion, and it did. We came out the other side of Easter knowing that Jesus had wiped away the stain of Original Sin, and that the dead could now go to heaven to live with God forever.
What we never learned during that time was to hate Jews. There was no emphasis on the Jews choosing to free Barabbas over Jesus, or the evil nature of the pharisees in having Jesus arrested in the first place. The emphasis was on the implementation of God's will: Jesus knew the guards were coming for him; he knew he could easily have placated Pilate by pretending to recant; and he knew that the only way he could guarantee himself a painful death on the cross was to tweak the noses of the politically powerful. The Jews of Jerusalem, Jesus' compatriots, were tools used by Jesus and God to orchestrate the greatest sacrifice; Jesus himself, hanging there on the cross, admonished God, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." Who were we, the congregation, to turn that on its head? How could we dare to hate when the man who was sacrificing himself for us continued to preach love?
I am no longer Catholic, and I look at these things through different lenses now. I see now in the death of Jesus the forging of a new covenant in the Judeo-Christian mythology, a covenant wherein God forgives the sons and daughters of Eve and Adam their progenitors' Original Sin. I understand the archetypal power of a sacrifice of oneself to oneself (i.e., one part of the Trinity to another part of the Trinity). I can appreciate the rich tapestry of compassion woven into the story of a man who died to prove that love is most important of all.
I fail to see how any of this can instigate hatred in the hearts of men... unless that hatred is already there. If it is, then we need to focus on the roots of that hatred and how it can be defused, not wail and moan and beat our breasts over a movie that happens to tell the very violent tale of the end of one man's life.
Re: As you say
I don't think the argument is over whether we should have a movie about Christ's life, though. After all, we don't see any fuss raised about PBS specials on the life of Christ. I haven't seen the movie, obviously, but I do know a bit about the medieval passion play and the way it distorted some of the "facts" in the Bible. I think the problem is not in the telling of the passion of Christ, but in assigning blame in the play where in Scripture the blame is unclear. If you are drawing on a tradition that makes Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate evil stage villains, even if their motivations are not quite so clearcut in the Gospels, that could be seen as really anti-Semitic and misleading. That's the tradition, anyway. If I remember correctly, Gibson was being accused of taking similar liberties.
I don't think the majority of Christians are going around calling Jewish kids on the playground 'Christ-killers,' but some still do. That idea was popularized in the Middle Ages (and down through literature) by the cycle plays. The Catholic Church's late, late apology for anti-Semitic teachings at Vatican II was really not that long ago, and there are still very active tensions between the Catholic church and Jewish communities. This seems to be a part of that.
I grew up Catholic, too, but I never liked Easter. In fact, Easter was one of the reasons I decided not to be Catholic. I just couldn't buy the rebirth thing. It seemed like a ghost story to me -- fun to hear but absolutely not convincing. I do like the Transfiguration and the part when Jesus disguised himself and walked beside his followers on the way to Emmaus. I also didn't like jelly beans. But that's another story. I don't remember hearing anything anti-Semitic related to Easter when I was growing up, so I agree with you that there are ways to tell the story that focuses on parts that teach the good aspects of Christianity, I suppose.