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 Saturday, March 20, 2004

  Controversy over "Passion of Christ" is a Reminder to Christians of the Malevolence Toward Them and Their Religion By Others

Other Breaking News
  • Bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, slips net.A senior Taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim that both Zawahiri and bin Laden were safe in Afghanistan. Read here for more
  • Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero tonight rejected US Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry's call for him to reconsider plans to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. Read here for more
  • Iraq faces "unbelievably bad days" ahead with more suicide bombings and devastating attacks that U.S.-led forces may be powerless to prevent, according to Britain's envoy to the occupied country."These things are going to keep happening, and it may get worse before it gets better," Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former ambassador to the United Nations and now Britain's top representative in Iraq, told Reuters in an interview. Read here for more
  • John Pilger: The invasion of Iraq, which began one year ago today, was "organised with lies", says the new Spanish Prime Minister. And yet these proven lies are still dominant in Australia. Day after day, their perpetrators seek to obfuscate and justify an unprovoked, illegal attack that killed up to 55,000 people, including at least 10,000 civilians; that every month causes the death and injury of 1000 children from exploding cluster bombs; that has so saturated Iraqi towns and cities with uranium that American and British soldiers are warned not to go where Iraqi children play, for fear of contamination. Set that carnage against the Madrid atrocity. Read here for more
  • If you oppose George Bush's policies, or if you're supported by anybody who opposes George Bush's policies, you're anti-American. That was the message of the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, who suggested that his opponent from Massachusetts was against the Pledge of Allegiance. Now it's his son's campaign message, too.Facts don't matter when you run on this theme. Read here for more
  • Why aren't the Americans accused of terrorism? The US has no right to judge the Al-Quaida or the Taliban as terrorists when the US itself permitted 241 American citizens to go to Britain and volunteer for service (the Eagle Squadron) with the ROYAL AIR FORCE and fight Nazi Germany, before the US entered World War II. What the US is asking the world today, is to revert to its own double standards, which does not seem surprising, at all, since that is the way the US has operated against other nations from 1812 onwards. Read here for more




  • Gibson's Favor

    by

    Charley Reese

    March 8, 2004

    Mel Gibson, the actor and director, has done Christians a favor with his movie "The Passion of the Christ," which depicts the last 12 hours of the life of Christ.

    For one, he's proved once again that the know-it-all critics don't know what they're talking about half the time.

    When he started this project, the jeers were loud and clear: The guy's going to lose his shirt; making a movie in Latin and Aramaic is crazy; nobody will go see it; etc. and so forth.

    Well, as you probably know, Gibson's movie grossed four times its cost in the first five days of release and will certainly add greatly to Gibson's wealth. The naysayers were just flat wrong.

    A more important favor he did, however, was to remind Christians of the malevolence many secularists feel toward them and their religion.

    I have never seen the level of personal attacks directed against Gibson launched against any other director, plenty of whom have produced bloody garbage and soft porn. Even when the Disney people hired a convicted pedophile to direct a movie that had pedophile overtones, the critics were all "ho-hum" and "so what."

    What you've seen spewed out against Gibson is pure venom, a hatred that goes far beyond any critical disagreement as to the merits of the movie. The attacks have been vicious and personal. He's been called an anti-Semite, a sadomasochist, a wacko and Lord knows what else.

    It is far more revealing of the nature of his critics than it is of him. Gibson is a Christian and a near genius as a moviemaker.


    He is NOT an anti-Semite, unless you accept the definition that an anti-Semite is anyone Jews hate.

    The movie accurately reflects the account of the Gospels.

    When you hear people say that the movie is inaccurate, they are really saying the Gospels are inaccurate — which, of course, is the secular position.

    Christ's arrest and execution were instigated and insisted upon by the Jewish religious establishment. That's in the Gospels and also in the Talmud.

    Christ NEVER criticized the Roman Empire, but he did criticize the Jewish rabbis of his day.

    Here, you must give credit to Christian fundamentalists. If the Gospels are not the inspired word of God and therefore not true, then the whole religion collapses. There are no secular accounts, except for a brief mention here and there.

    But if you're not a Christian, then why should you care what Christians believe? What is it about Christianity that causes disbelievers to hate it so? And that's the point of this column.

    All of this malevolence directed at Gibson is also directed at Bible-believing Christians. Don't kid yourself.

    There is a limit to ecumenicalism. If Jesus is the son of God and the true Messiah, then Judaism is a false religion, as is Islam.

    If the Jews are right that Jesus was a fraud, then Christianity is a false religion.

    Mutually contradictory propositions cannot be compromised. That doesn't mean that people with different and contradictory beliefs cannot treat each other with courtesy and decency, but theology, by definition, is not suited to compromise.

    As for the movie itself, in my opinion, it's too violent for children or even squeamish adults. Gibson has made real the suffering of Jesus and done so deliberately. It's one thing to read that he was scourged and crucified; it is another thing entirely to see it. That causes people to realize the enormity of the sacrifice. But that's why the movie is R-rated, and it is certainly LESS violent than much of the junk that Hollywood produces.

    Gibson is owed an apology by his critics, but I expect to see the Second Coming before that happens.

    But you Christians can take comfort in the fact that your enemies are pretty much a nest of vipers — the kind of people no decent person would want for a friend.

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