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A Dispassionate Look at "The Passion"
JS: Should we add to the whirl of debate on "The Passion," or should we keep our thoughts to ourselves? LK: Why step out of character now? Far be it from us to keep our thoughts to ourselves. What's on your hypercommunicative little mind? JS: I'm amazed at the timeliness of the movie's release in my own little life. For many years I've been studying the closing scenes of Jesus' life, thinking that if only I could somehow be there, God would transform my selfish little heart. A few months ago I started working on a four-part seminar that just simply walks from the garden to the cross, step by step. I was able to share the seminar last weekend in Johnston, Rhode Island, just after the release of the movie. I didn't even know about the movie when I started making plans for the seminar. Isn't God amazing? LK: God is very amazing. And I agree with your perception that our selfish hearts are transformed when "Jesus Christ [is] clearly portrayed among [us] as crucified" (Galatians 3:1, NKJV). But now I have a question for you. You said your seminar "simply walks from the garden to the cross;" you mean it doesn't slash, crash and hemorrhage all the way there? As a recent letter to the editor of Newsweek asserted regarding Mel Gibson's portrayal of Christ's journey from the Garden to the Cross: "While the violence was indeed numbing at times, anything less would have trivialized man's ultimate triumph over death."1 What do you think--do we need a "numbingly" violent portrayal of the Cross to adequately convey Christ's triumph in our behalf? JS: We "need" to realize that crucifixion was a cruel and painful death, because that gives us a reference point for Jesus' internal suffering--which greatly surpassed the physical suffering of the cross. Notice that He didn't say, "My God, My God, I'm suffocating!" or, "My God, My God, I'm bleeding to death!" but rather, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" If a victim of merely physical wounds had been on that cross, He would have bewailed His physical pain. But there was a suffering that overrode it, and made it almost unnoticeable--the suffering of a soul cut off from God. We can hardly conceive of that, so we must start somewhere. That's how grasping something of the physical pain of crucifixion can serve us. LK: I agree. The physical trappings of the cross are a visceral revelation to our dull spiritual senses of the curse that Christ endured for us. Though God didn't inspire it, He capitalizes on Christ's physical torment to awaken within us the "pre-spiritual" emotions of empathy and awe. So I think that when we portray it, we should certainly do so honestly and with at least a representative amount of realism. However, this doesn't equate to a sensational or gratuitous portrayal. In that case we step over the line from awakening sympathy to bludgeoning it. When we permit our God-given emotions to be manipulated and exploited, we will ultimately pay the price of reduced sensitivity and responsiveness. JS: As I understand neurophysiology, the lower part of the brain responds very rapidly to real or portrayed violence (it doesn't know the difference between the two). In the process, the forebrain shuts down. In addition, the combination of intense visual stimulus and music also causes forebrain shut-down. The forebrain deals in the slow, subtle processes of reason, conscience and decision. So a high-relief depiction of violence, combined with the right theatrical elements and music, will powerfully impact emotions, but it probably won't consistently lead to long-term decisions or deep, lasting changes. LK: That makes a lot of sense. There is an intimate connection between the lower brain (or limbic system) and the forebrain (or cortex). As a neurologist remarked in a book I've been reading, "It is largely the limbic system that gives us the motivation to do cortical tasks, and it is the cortex that allows us to have cognitively complicated desire."2 So when the relationship between emotion and cognition is respected and rightly employed, we get a happy marriage of head and heart--of motivating emotion that turns our cognitive wheels, which, in turn, inform and regulate our emotions. That's the ideal arrangement for facilitating solid "long-term decisions" and "deep, lasting changes." Still, do you think that sometimes even God resorts to shock value to grab our attention? JS: Yes, but the plague spot of most attention-getting devices is that the device itself can immobilize people's ability to really pay attention. As technology advances, there are more and more exciting sights, sounds and experiences vying for our time and energy. It's my belief that through excessive media viewing people lose the ability to read well and attentively. After a movie of any kind, the Bible can seem boring. I'm not trying to pick on The Passion. God will use it to broadcast the story of Jesus. I appreciate the fact that a powerful Hollywood producer/actor wanted to tell the greatest story ever told. But I long for people to go to the source of the story, the Word of God. It is through meditation upon the Word that the mind is truly fortified, and the heart truly won. LK: And it's the Word itself that reveals that while God has made use of some high-octane attention-getting devices, He's done so reluctantly, and with mixed results. When He thundered from Mount Sinai so spectacularly that He made a million-odd newly freed slaves quake in their Birkenstocks, He succeeded in momentarily grabbing their attention and impressing them with a sense of His grandeur. But the impression was, for the most part, short-lived. It didn't result in a "deep, lasting" "repentance . .. . not to be repented of," but was rather followed by a sickening corporate moral failure (2 Corinthians 7:10, KJV).3 In fact, I think the conclusion to the story came years later when He led the disheartened Elijah to the same mountain and assaulted his senses with "a great and strong wind," "an earthquake," and "a fire"--and concluded the whole exercise by addressing Elijah in "a delicate whispering voice," in which was expressed the truest representation of His benevolent character (2 Kings 19:11-12, NKJV, margin). Being sensitive to that "delicate whispering voice" requires that we learn to "be still" in the midst of a noisy and violent culture (Psalm 46:10). JS: As usual, you've outdone me in eloquence and footnotes. And speaking of feet, how do you know the Hebrews had Birkenstocks on theirs? Isn't that a little speculative? Maybe that was an extrabiblical revelation on your part. I bet you also think Moses looked like Charlton Heston. That brings up another caution about Hollywood productions of the Bible story. They're so star-powered! Jesus wasn't handsome--at least not according to the prophet Isaiah.4 The great attraction in Christ is His loveliness of character--something that eludes a culture obsessed with externals. But Leslie, as in my mind's eye I see Him tried, tortured and crucified, He is beautiful to me. LK: He is beautiful, isn't He? He's the Soul-Mate we've always longed for, the One who satisfies the deepest desire of our hearts. Truly, we are the ones who are needy and unattractive, yet we are the focus of His undying "passion." Amazing, isn't it? But now Jen, you've really popped my bubble here. Are you sure Moses didn't look like Charlton Heston? You mean Cecil B. DeMille has sold us a bill of goods? JS: Sorry, Les. I think he was a little fatter, and a lot older. And he definitely wasn't the president of the National Rifle Association. See how all those movies messed your mind up? Seriously, may God recapture the imaginations of His people. LK: All I can say to that is Amen! (See, I do have a Stop button.) JS: And hopefully, some of you folks out there have a Go button. Send us a few words of response! But don’t use the Reply button. Click this little link right hereà jennifer@jenniferjill.org and let us know what’s on your mind. ____________________ 1. From the "Letters" section of the March 15, 2004 issue of Newsweek. 2. Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004), p. 23. 3. See Exodus 32 for the whole sordid story. 4. Isaiah 53:2 says "He had no form or comeliness. . . there is no beauty that we should desire Him." ____________________ Selected Comments:
"In a sense, the Reformation came when the masses stopped their morality plays and began to read and hear Scripture in their own language. Will the end of the Reformation come with anything less? Of course, the counter-Reformation is continuing as well, and the road to Rome looks appealing to most, even apparently most Adventists. At the end of that road is a mark.... God help us to understand the 3rd angel's message! May God give us a true witness, not a false one, of the true Christ, not the false one. "The "red letter edition" is all the blood I want to see right before my very eyes." "Have you considered the question of whether or not Christ should be portrayed in dramatic offerings at all? "I guess I got caught up in all the hoopla about Hollywood even having a movie about Christ at all and also the need to defend the movie against charges of anti-Jewish sentiment that I didn't stop to think about the important points that the both of you brought up. What was particularly enlightening was the information about our limbic system and cortex and how that all can work to produce (or not produce) deep and lasting changes. I am very guilty of the media saturation that compromises my attention span and cognitive skills. Thank you for bringing that point out and a hearty "Amen" to God recapturing the imaginations of His people. That is a clear message to me to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Cor. 10:5) Talk about God being amazing! He has been speaking to me about doing this very thing - especially regarding the media. " "The idea that Jesus wasn't handsome is not necessarily Biblical. I believe He was perfect in every way, as the ultimate Lamb, without spot or blemish. He was a muscular, tanned, gentle, intelligent man (carpenter, outdoor life, children loved Him and He was able to twist the scribes and Pharisees in knots with His answers and questions). He is the One Altogether Lovely. " "Have you read Mel Gibson's comments of surprise about the positive responses by an overwhelming number of Protestants because the film is Marian? and his strong belief that Mary is a co-mediatrix? And that he based the film on a book by a lady Catholic mystic? The film is Catholic theology at its best--which means it is classical Medieval theology. If follows the plots of the passion plays of the middle ages after the Bibles were taken from the populace and in its place were plays and dramas to elicit only emotional responses to lead people into deeper penance and devotion to the church. While we cannot question Gibson's sincerity, his motives and his strong religious desires, we need to understand that this movie is a clarion call to elicit sympathy, empathy and tears, but does not to convict of sin and resulting in heartfelt repentance. Time will reveal that a counterfeit gospel is presented in this film that leads people to believe that the intense physical sufferings of Jesus is what atoned for our sins. This in turns leads the deeply sincere Catholic to believe that he or she must follow Jesus' example and atone for their sins by physical sufferings (and the more the better), not realizing that the physical sufferings of Jesus were not what made the atonement. The atonement for our sins was accomplished in the mental convulsions of Christ as the weight of sin crushed out His life. This cannot be portrayed in a film. It can only be grasped as one meditates on the sufferings of Christ via the Scriptural portrayal of His passion. Thanks again for your synergistic collaboration. By the way, did you choose the heading of your dialogues "Synergy" from the theological or from the philosophical perspective?" |
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