Reactions to the Passion

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
18 Apr 2004

A strange thing happened this Easter.  Mel Gibson was applauded by many Christian leaders across Australia, even by those who had been silent about the film and by one or two who had refused to see it.

Reactions to the film were not only various, but contradictory even among Christians.

In the U.S.A. anti-religious forces disguised their early hostility by claiming the film was anti-Semitic.  They feared that it would be as effective religiously as it has proved to be.  Certainly too there was a genuine fear that the film would be used by anti-Semites.

Predictably those who hate Christianity hated the film.  Others refused to go because they object to so much violence, even when it serves a good purpose.  Their position is understandable and to be respected.

One person told me she would not go because she saw in Jesus’ suffering the effects of her sins.  She found every Good Friday service a strain for the same reason.  While she might be urged to stronger belief in God’s forgiveness, her position is also understandable.

Some traditional Protestants with their hostility to statues, religious pictures and relics quite logically extended these attitudes to a film about the passion, which was also strongly eucharistic and gave Mary a prominent place.

A selection of Catholic viewpoints illustrates the fundamental tension among Christians today and helps explain different Christian reactions to the film.  The more “liberal” the Christians the more likely they are to reject the film.  Those in favour were more likely to reflect the new de-facto alliance on many issues of “bible” Christians in every denomination.

One U.S. Catholic professor believed the film gives the wrong answer to the question of why God became man.  The atonement theory needs to be replaced.  Another Catholic writer believed the Passion cannot be called a Christian film by portraying violence against Jesus as a central concern of the Christian faith.  Others found it too negative, too centred on suffering, while one Australian theologian affirmed that there is no deep meaning in Jesus’ passion and death, nothing to be gained from picturing it in our minds.

What is at work here?  For some Christianity is no longer personal, about faith in God and his Son, about prayer, repentance and forgiveness.  It is a programme of policies, some good e.g. social justice, some bad e.g. too many “noes” on sex.

Others believe in Jesus, perhaps in his divinity, but want a God of creation, positive, not a redeemer.  To quote a famous Protestant critique, they want a creed where “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross”.

This brand of Christianity is false to the New Testament and has no young followers.  Nor is it found in Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”.