The Passion Restoring Faith In America

March 3, 2004

By now many of you have had a chance to see The Passion of the Christ , Mel Gibson's masterpiece that's breaking box-office records across America. In its first five days, it raked in an amazing $125 million, setting an all-time record for movies opening on Wednesday. Hollywood seems stunned but can the imitators be far behind? Nothing, after all, succeeds like success. Can Hollywood ignore this picture at next year's Academy Awards? I don't think so.

 

The movie is not without its detractors. Rev. Stephen Bauman, a Methodist minister and board member of the Partnership of Faith, an interfaith group of Christians, Jews and Muslims in New York said, “This is one man's vision, his interpretation of what he reads in the Gospels and how they impact his own life. He's entitled to his vision, but we shouldn't receive this vision as the same thing as the Gospel.” Let me get this straight. Mel Gibson's film is taken directly from the Gospels as events actually happened but we shouldn't receive this vision as the same thing as the Gospel? As the Pope reportedly said of the movie after screening it, “It is as it was.”

 

As Mel Gibson said at the screening, he hoped people would see the movie then read the book. I was inspired to do just that. I went back and re-read the Gospels, if for no other reason than to check the accuracy of the movie. I found the movie to be true to the Gospels. With the exception of the devil character, most everything else was, as the Pope said, as it was.

 

As I told you in this column after viewing the picture back in December, it is an amazing piece of work. I went to see it again when it opened and was moved even more the second time. I suspect I'm not alone. Countless numbers will be led back to the theatre. It's almost more than one can absorb in one sitting. Although I wasn't a bit surprised by its success, many on the Left Coast are scratching their heads. In today's climate, religious pictures aren't supposed to be hits. Or are they? Has the pendulum swung back the other way?

 

This is something that is being overlooked by the sociologists. America is decidedly more conservative than it was a decade ago. Just look at Washington. Conservatives control all branches of government. California even has a Republican governor. Issues like abortion have seen dramatic changes over the last few years. The number of abortions per year is down measurably. Even more dramatic is America's opinion of abortion. According to Los Angeles Times polling, Americans' support of abortion is down to 43 percent after being as high as 56 percent a decade ago.

 

These trends are borne out in my own personal observations of late. I recently went to a large music/video/computer outlet to purchase DVDs pertaining to the life of Christ. A twenty-something clerk was ringing me up and asked if I'd seen The Passion . I told her I had and she informed me that she was going that very afternoon with a group of her friends to see it. She was eagerly anticipating the experience. Another twenty-something clerk overheard our conversation and said that he had seen the movie the night before and declared it “amazing.”

 

It's funny, isn't it? Just when we parents are on the verge of thinking that tattoos and nose-piercings are indications of the downfall of Western civilization, Mel Gibson's film comes along. It not only rejuvenates our faith in religion, it restores our faith in ourselves.