Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Anyone seen the new Mel Gibson flick

dis-Passion-ate
Fox — (archived)

I've been reading about the controversy surrounding it since last summer - mostly in the "Faith" section of the newspaper, mostly about the perceived or suspected potential for stirring up anti-Semitism . . . mostly by people who had not seen the film, of course, as it was still being edited. There was also some mention of Gibson and his father being connected to a radically conservative movement within Catholicism - for instance, they think the Vatican II reforms were blasphemous. The original article in the paper included the film's website's URL - I was intrigued to see one could view a version of the pages entirely in Latin.

As the release date got closer, churches around here booked special pre-release screenings for their congregants. The "buzz" among serious Christians became that Passion would be a major new tool for conversion. Meanwhile, enough film critics and religious figures saw previews of the film, and talked about it, to convince me that it's entirely too gory and violent for my tastes.

I intend to stay away from it - not because I'm afraid I'll be mobbed as a Christ-killer while leaving the theater, and not because I'm not interested in the story even though I don't believe he was meshiach, but because I won't pay for the privilege of witnessing torture, graphically portrayed.

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