Regarding the new Mel Gibson film, "The Passion of The Christ:"
Evidently, many Christian-reared people in other parts of the country who have determined that the film's depiction of the crucifixion as brutal and violent, were all absent from Sunday school, church, or from any source of the Easter story. For heaven sakes, gang, it is about crucifixion -- not a Tupperware party!
And some film critics seem to treat this subject as breaking news. Anyone who has said the Stations of the Cross, anyone who has closed their business early on Good Friday, anyone who couldn't get a drink after 3 p.m. on Good Friday, anyone who has swaddled their flanks in an Easter outfit at any time since 1950, anyone who has trundled to a pew this and only this one Sunday out of the year, anyone who has had visions of their Easter basket dancing in their heads on Saturday eve, is familiar with the facts of Easter and the crucifixion of Jesus.
To suggest this film is anti-Semitic is profoundly absurd. (And I suspect those same film critics and commentators who have raised such foolishness, said nothing about the movie, "Pearl Harbor" being a disparagement of Japanese people. Or that there would be backlash, hate crimes, and general mayhem, as a result of viewing it.)
Actually, it is refreshing to hear people talking about Gibson's movie, and about Jesus, on TV and radio. For awhile there, the only mention of anyone's beliefs we heard were the fiendish ramblings of Osama bin Laden and his twisted ilk.
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K. J. Steffan
Fargo
