Is The Passion, Anti-Semitic?
The Mel Gibson film “The Passion”, about the last hours and death of Christ is a powerful and deeply moving experience. This Wednesday I have the privilege of speaking at the official Premiere of the film and the launch of Ken Duncan’s magnificent new book featuring the photographs taken on the set of the film, “The Passion — Lessons From The Life of Christ”.
There has been some violent reaction from Jewish circles that the films portraits Jews as leading participants in the events that lead to the crucifixion of Christ. They claim it was the Romans that crucified Christ.
Christians find incredible fear mongering as “Israel may have to absorb a massive flight of European Jewry this coming spring, when the Jews get all the credit for committing deicide,” Rabbi Tovia Singer recently wrote for Israel’s Arutz Sheva.
“The Passion” is a blunt, brutal film of the last hours of the life of Jesus. In no way does it blame “the Jews” for Jesus’ death. Today’s Jews are not more nor less to blame for the crucifixion than I am: for the humanity each of us put Christ on the cross. In several places, Gibson clearly took measures to make this clear.
Yet the USA Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman recently told The Jewish Week, “Recent statements by Mel Gibson paint the portrait of an anti-Semite. If in fact it turns out that Gibson relied on the Christian Bible for the script of The Passion, every advance in Jewish-Christian relations over the past half-century may be in jeopardy.”
What this means is that if believe what the Bible says, you have no choice but to be anti-Semitic. No Bible-believing church teaches that way, but Singer and others are clearly forging a false link between anti-Semitism and New Testament narrative.
As Christianity Today said, “By arguing that trust in the gospel narratives is tantamount to hatred, Gibson’s critics greatly frustrate cooperation and friendship. Jews (and others) are getting bad information about what evangelicals really believe, and evangelicals are tempted to react with anger to allegations of bigotry.”
Everyone will judge the film after seeing it. The Passion has the potential to change lives by motivating viewers to think about their need for salvation through Jesus’ death. We expect The Passion to provoke exactly the same number of anti- Semitic incidents as the Jesus film made by Campus Crusade and seen by billions: zero!
In the meantime, Christians have an opportunity to prepare for the film and to demonstrate once again that Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary isn’t what its critics claim. Wesley Mission has booked out the entire Hoyt’s Theatre, City, for our own screening and details will be available soon.
THIS IS GORDON MOYES.
