Anticipation of The Passion

The Passion opened yesterday, and I've never talked so much about a movie I haven't seen.

I've had some interesting conversations with a Jewish co-worker. I've worked with 'J' for a few years and he is one of the few people at work who has been a consistent friend. He is also thoughtful, and surprisingly well-informed about Christianity. He probably is more familiar with the New Testament than many of my Christian friends are. We have a relationship of mutual respect, so we are able to engage in conversations that are not politically correct. Nevertheless, it is touchy talking about something like this. Anyway, a few days ago we gingerly discussed the controversy about the purported anti-Semitism. He said he had rather intentionally avoided reading anything about the movie, since the headlines were enough to make him not want to get involved. I related a fact that I had heard on Primetime, in an interview with Mel Gibson, where he acknowledged that in the crucifixion scene, the hand that we see holding the nail as it is pounded into Jesus, is Mel's own hand, thus symbolizing the fact that we are all guilty of sin. 'J' listened intently and seemed to grasp the significance, that this was an intentional concrete act that speaks against anti-Semitism, or blaming the Jews for Jesus' death.

So instead of settling for the headlines and sound bites by activists on both sides, he searched the web today to read reactions by normal people who saw the movie, and noticed that people with various backgrounds had various reactions. I had read an interesting column that thoughtfully discussed the topic of anti-Semitism, which I mentioned to him, and then sent the link.

Is the Passion of Jesus Anti-Semitic?

He immediately read it, and came over to tell me that he actually agreed with almost everything in it. As you can imagine, I was relieved, because I'm trying to show respect and yet enter into a dialog, which is sometimes a hard dance. And in response, he has now lent me a book about the history of anti-Semitism, called Constantine's Sword. I gather that it is about the power that the Catholic Church has historically had, and the anti-Semitism that has often resulted. I'm interested in keeping the dialog going, but did I mention that the book is over 700 pages long?

It's such a pleasure to talk to him, because he asks very pointed questions, and actually listens to the answers. He was afraid of offending me when he said that he could not accept the concept that a Jew could believe in Jesus and still be called a Jew, because Judaism is rooted in monotheism. So we ended up discussing whether the Trinity can be considered monotheism or not. Which was pretty funny considering the fact that two days ago, in my VLI final, I wrote that one of the three cardinal points of Jewish theology was monotheism -- so it didn't surprise me when it suddenly turned up. Then the conversation turned to the dangers of a hierarchical church structure (because of his fears about the influence of the pope), and I found myself explaining the differences between Dependent, Independent and Interdependent church models. Suddenly, the lectures from the Church Planting class, as well as Pauline literature and theology actually came to life, in a practical forum.

Parenthetically, I can't believe that my mother saw the movie already. This is probably the only time in her life she ever saw a movie within 24 hours of its opening. Her verdict was that she liked Mel in his interview better than she liked his movie.