The Passion

by Edgar J. Steele

February 25, 2004

The Passion of Christ operates simultaneously on many different levels, therefore it isn't surprising that it draws different reports from different people.

As a piece of entertainment, this film is not a movie so much as it is an experience.  I didn't expect anything like the way this film took hold and refused to let go until well after the closing credits.  Think about your very first roller coaster ride...now, imagine it going on for two straight hours.  

"Bad trips" on LSD result from the eleven-hour forced introspection that the drug creates.  Most cannot stand to look that closely at themselves, certainly not for that long.  That's why Leary and company were getting complete cures of psychotics after five or six guided LSD trips, of course, before the government stepped in and outlawed the drug.  Well, this movie is like being on acid for two straight hours, only the subject isn't yourself, it is Jesus Christ.

The Passion gripped me like nothing I've ever seen.  Maybe it's the subject matter, which occupies such a special position in Western civilization.  Surely, it must be that.  Watching this movie is like watching a horrible auto accident take place in slow motion, up close and personal, right before your eyes.  You want to look away, but you can't.  You know how it must end, yet still you hope, somehow, some way, it will be different.

It was surreal to emerge into the glitz of a theatre lobby afterwards.  A long walk down a dusty road after the credits should have been included in the price of admission.   Nobody from the audience was speaking, other than in hushed tones.  Everybody seemed to sense that something truly significant had just taken place.

I want to shake Mel Gibson's hand and thank him for making this very important motion picture.

There is no question in my mind that this is one of the best written, directed, acted and filmed movies I have seen.  The Academy Awards should be cancelled this year altogether.  To have other movies jockeying for awards alongside this one, which so clearly is in a class by itself, seems obscene.  Yet, I will be surprised if this film gets even a single nomination, considering who controls Hollywood.

Violent?  No.  Nothing like what is standard fare for America's teenagers, such as Halloween or so many other slasher movies or, even, Gladiator, the huge hit from two years ago.  What insults the senses about this movie is not so much what is being done to Christ throughout, as the reality that people actually did this sort of thing to one another, let alone the Savior.

Religious propaganda?  No, there is no danger of being converted during this movie.  

AntiSemitic?  Only in the minds of some Jews.  Only Jews could expect Gentiles to hold them responsible today for the acts of their forbears two thousand years ago.  However, some of the rhetoric I have heard coming from the likes of Abraham Foxman this week is reminiscent of the impression left by The Passion's Jewish elders, I must confess.  It must really be genetic.  I actually had one Jew email me that, "He (Jesus) had it coming."  Imagine.  

Why does it (everything, that is) always have to be about the Jews?  The only thing AntiSemitic about The Passion is the furor being created over it by the Jews!  If only they knew when to shut up.

I've said it before.  Let me say it again, as the Jewish reaction to this film more than amply demonstrates:  AntiSemitism is a disease - you catch it from Jews.

It is okay, in fact it is de rigueur, for Hollywood's Jews to produce filth like The Last Temptation of Christ, a trashy piece of total fiction, yet a production like this, hewn faithfully from the four main Gospels, is somehow not acceptable.  It is okay to desecrate the memory of Christ, but don't you go hinting that Jews are anything other than God's gift to the world.  The real problem with Christians is a sincere belief in Jesus' admonition to turn the other cheek.  The Chosen certainly have no such proscription for themselves.

See this exceptional movie.  See it now in a theatre with lots of other people so that you can experience the majesty of how differently this film affects people.  See it this week so that its opening week gross through Saturday night goes through the roof and sends a message to the troglodytes in Hollywood.

See it by yourself first, then see it again with your children.  Be there for them throughout this very disturbing film.  It will hurt you to watch them experience it, but, as they say, it hurts so good.

Copyright ©2004, Edgar J. Steele

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