> This incident comes to mind in thinking about Gibson's gore-fest.
> Because I do take it that the
> main message (other than what seems to be actual anti-semitism) is "if
> God was willing to
> suffer this, what would you be willing to suffer to prove your
> righteousness? Would you be
> willing to sacrifice yourself? Would you be willing to sacrifice your
> children?"
Tomorrow's NY Times Magazine has a short article by Stephen Prothero (chairman of dept. of religion, Boston U.), who wrote _American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon_, titled "The Personal Jesus." In it he contrasts the usual view of Jesus in the U.S., which is based on Protestant X-ty, with the usual Catholic view, which is much more "physical" than the U.S. Protestant standard, and concentrates more on the Stations of the Cross stuff.
Apparently, Gibson's vision takes the average Catholic image of Jesus a step further in the bloody direction and thus a step further away from the image that Americans (X-tian and non-X-tian) have been used to. This is partly why we outsiders are having trouble understanding the "gore-fest," "Jesus snuff film" think. It's just a kind of devotional thing that is foreign to us.
As for why it's getting such a big box office, at least in the first couple of days, Prothero notes that at the very least it marks the passing of the old Protestant anti-Catholicism (while, as he says, anti-Semitism is still alive in the U.S.). Both Gibson and a significant fraction of evangelicals (and other Protestants) seem to be trying to fight the "self-esteem gospel" and the associated image of "Jesus as your Heavenly Friend and Neighbor" sort of bland, squishy religiosity which has come to be the norm in U.S. X-tian circles.
So I would say, where we non-X-tians are concerned, since we don't have a dog in this race, I wouldn't get too excited about the whole thing. Let the Jesus-freaks deal with it among themselves. As long as the flick doesn't lead to a rise in anti-Semitic incidents or other hate crimes, that is. It's still a little too early to tell whether that will happen -- let's keep our fingers crossed.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile