Priest's Passion

It's pretty terrific to have a blogger like AKMA -- an Episcopalian priest, a teacher, a cool guy -- write about seeing the movie The Passion. Talk about a person who has a lot to teach us on the subject.

But that points to one of the tremendous aspects of this film, its strength and its weakness: Gibson has wrought a cinematic artifice that almost entirely escapes his intentions. I said at the beginning that Gibson has achieved what may be an unsurpassable illustration of innocent suffering, but how many viewers will take up their crosses? How many others will look at Pilate’s lackeys and go and do likewise? Gibson has disclaimed responsibility for the harm this movie may cause to Jews, to relations between Jews and Christians, to the Christians whose self-hatred succumbs to a spirit of destruction and mortification, since he did not intend those effects. He did undeniably intend, however, to sow the wind that has stirred up more-than-merely-human forces already. Who will reap the whirlwind — and who will cash the checks that flow to Icon Productions?