The sense that I get, without yet having seen the film, is that it's pretty much what you make of it. I do think it's incumbent upon people to see something before criticizing it, though.
The reaction of all of my Christian friends who take their religion seriously, most of them fundamentalist, is that it makes no sense from a theological standpoint to blame "the Jews" for Jesus's death. (The blood libel, the line from Matthew that was quoted, does not appear in the film. Also, Gibson's hands are the one seen driving in the first nails.) If they start off from that point of view, the film's probably as harmless as anything else. If they start off believing that you and I are personally responsible for Easter, the film probably could be used as a focal point for all the old hostilities. Here in Denver, the Pastor of a local Pentacostalist church used the occasion to put up a sign saying, "Jews Killed the Lord Jesus." Not only did about 150 local Christians turn out (along with about 50 Jews) to protest to sign, but the Pastor soon found himself in a small minority within his own congregation. The next day he put up a sign sort of apologizing. (The kind of, "sorry if I offended anyone" apology.) The point is that without the opposition of local Christians, the sign would probably still be up there. In any case, the healthiest relationship between Jews and Christians is probably one of mutual respect from a distance. We can't dictate tenets of their faith to them, and we certainly have had enough of them trying to tell us what to believe. My personal experience, for what it's worth, is that serious Christanity, as practiced here in the States, is moving in that direction. Joshua Sharf http://www.viewfromaheight.blogspot.com ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: Hasafran at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 at osu.edu AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
