Conservative Student News

Mel Gibson’s controversial Passion of the Christ has been a hot topic of conversation around St. Thomas.  While many students thought it was a moving and well-portrayed New Testament excerpt, others apparently agreed with the view that this film is anti-Semitic.  This latter view is unfounded, misguided, and just plain wrong.

            Jamie Bernard, a writer for the New York Daily News, claims in one of her recent editorials that, “Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II … Jews are vilified, in ways both little and big, pretty much non-stop for two hours and seven minutes.” 

However, the movie’s focus is not on the High Priests, as Ms. Bernard’s interpretation seems to hold.  Though High Priests, Romans, and Jesus’ supporters all had supporting roles in showing what happened during Jesus’ crucifixion, the movie was not a story about them.  What actually takes place for two hours and seven minutes is a portrayal of Jesus Christ’s suffering and death for the salvation of humanity.

The reason why I use the terminology of “High Priests” rather than Jews when referring to those whom Ms. Bernard believes were ill-represented by the film, is that the entire set of characters is Jewish.  To claim that the movie is anti-Semitic is to claim that the movie represents all the characters (besides the Romans) as mean and evil people—Jesus included.  Everyone knows that Jesus was a Jew, along with his mother, the apostle John, and all the rest of his supporters.

Opponents of the movie cannot claim ignorance to the fact that Jesus was a Jew.  They proudly flaunt this truth, as if it is a dirty little fact of which Christians are secretly ashamed.  But Christians are not ashamed if it; they are invigorated by Jesus’ identity. 

The New Testament would not make a whole lot of sense if Jesus and his followers were pagans or believed in the Roman gods.  Everyone knows that Jesus was a Jew; if he were not, his story would not be coherent.  He fulfilled Jewish Scripture, he followed Jewish law, he prayed to the Jewish God and he followed Jewish practices.

Judaism and Christianity are brother religions.  Christianity was founded after two Jewish groups grew apart: those who believed in Christ’s purpose and those who did not.  Eventually, Gentiles were accepted into the Christian religion and from there it grew to be as influential as it is today. 

No level-headed Christian blames the Jewish population—past or present—for killing Jesus.  Mel Gibson made sure that the camera shot his own hands nailing Christ’s hands to the cross because he feels responsible for the crucifixion along with everyone else.  Is that an anti-Semitic portrayal of Christianity?

So what about those High Priests?  Were they represented as being more malicious than they really were?  Certainly not—the actors who portrayed them were simply given the lines from the Gospels.  It was the High Priests who brought Jesus to Pontius Pilate and who were afraid of his large following. They were powerful men who felt threatened by a common carpenter gaining influence.  They were crafty men: trying to get an innocent man crucified for fear of losing their own earthly positions of power and privilege.  The fact that they were portrayed in a way that is true to the Scriptures doesn’t mean that Mel Gibson or Christians are anti-Semitic.

Furthermore, it seems to me that the real malicious people in the movie are the Romans.  In fact, the Romans are portrayed as far more brutal characters than the High Priests; they are the ones who physically tear Jesus’ flesh off, laugh as him, spit in his face, place an enormous crown of thorns on his head, and nail him to the cross. 

Unlike Ms. Bernard’s idea that “Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Palestine who decreed that Jesus be crucified, is portrayed as a sensitive, kind-hearted soul,” the movie actually showed Pontius Pilate to be who he was: a typical, weak politician who felt some obligation toward true justice, but was primarily worried about his personal reputation.  Although he couldn’t bring himself to order the crucifixion of Jesus, Pilate caved into the political pressure and turned him over to the Jews to do what they pleased with him.  Ultimately, Pilate turns his back on his conscience.

Now, I suppose these critics will accuse me of being anti-Roman.  I am simply trying to set things straight.  Gibson tried to portray things accurately—he was not trying to ostracize any group of people.  It is easy for people from all parts of the spectrum to say that the movie was not historically accurate because, quite frankly, no one knows the minor details of what exactly took place. 

All four Gospels are different, and their respective authors had separate intentions behind them.  What is consistent is what they were not trying to portray the Jewish population as hateful sinners, especially since these writers considered themselves Jewish.  On the contrary, the story of Jesus of Nazareth was a fulfillment of Jewish prophecy and Christ came to save all people.

All this brings me to Ms Bernard’s final, and most preposterous of statements.  She says at the end of her article, “Whatever happened to the idea that the centerpiece of every major religion is love?”  Oops, maybe she forgot to watch the movie.