Voices Across Boundaries Vol.1 No.3: Film Review
The Trouble with Being Christian
The Passion of the Christ
directed by Mel Gibson (USA, 2004) 127 min.
review by Colleen Shantz
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In the past few decades being Christian has become an increasingly complicated endeavour. For one thing, many core values and presuppositions that once were simply assumed as part of the fabric of reality are now openly questioned. Part of this uncertainty is not unique to Christianity, but is the effect of postmodernism finding its way into the public psyche. While academics and public intellectuals refine the theoretical boundaries and insights of postmodernism, most laypeople are simply aware of a general unease with institutions and with traditional systematizing of ideas and values. The reasons that such questioning might be good are not communicated as clearly as the questioning itself. Hence, many people who continue to participate in traditional religion have a growing sense of the fragility of institutions that once defined North American society. But that is only the beginning of the complications.
IF IT SOUNDS LIKE HISTORY…
Other complexities are distinctively Christian. The first of these is the changing understanding of Christian scripture. Over the past few decades the easy sense of the authority of the biblical texts has been disrupted by the findings of biblical scholarship. For many generations it was assumed that the four Gospels -- the four separate stories of the life of Jesus -- were eyewitness accounts of what "really happened." Anyone who reads and compares the Gospels will note that the four do not agree in all their details. In some cases, they even tell the same story with mutually exclusive details. However, until recently, most laypeople have simply assumed that these differences are due to the sort of deviation that is present in all eyewitness accounts.
That state of affairs has been disturbed by an increased awareness that the Gospels were, in fact, written two generations after Jesus’ death, as much in response to the needs of the communities existing at that time as in preservation of the memories of Jesus’ life events. For some time now, clergy in mainline Christian denominations have been trained in critical approaches to scripture that distinguish stages of historicity and authorial intention in the Gospels. Furthermore, several New Testament scholars have written popular versions of their work so that the fruits of this critical scholarship are more directly available to the general public. Some of this work, however, is interested primarily in tearing down uninformed concepts of the stories of Jesus and significantly less, if at all, in the pastoral questions of how the general public might continue to read the Bible in a helpful and mature way. As a result, many laypeople now have some sense that even scripture is problematized, but little or no corresponding sense of the methods and principles by which such conclusions are generated or the way in which such findings might contribute to a more mature and richer faith stance.These are the troubled waters of history across which Mel Gibson seeks to walk. His movie has been shored up by claims of its historical authenticity and faithfulness to the Gospels -- a problematic equation in the first place, but even more dubious in its implementation. For example, one of the first production details of The Passion to trickle down through the popular press was Gibson’s decision to shoot the entire film using "original languages," namely Latin and Aramaic. This choice, I thought, could hardly increase the popular appeal of the movie. So, I reasoned, whatever authenticity he hoped to achieve with the veneer of language was bound to result in distancing the audience.
It turns out I was wrong. Audiences have been impressed by the cachet of language and subtitle partly because biblical scholars have long used languages as a way of marking off their own esoteric turf. In short, Latin sounds like history (even though if Gibson were truly interested in authenticity the language that should have been used in the dialogue between the Roman occupying authorities and the colonized Judeans is Greek). The movie’s blockbuster aesthetics -- big music, shots framed like classical paintings, impressive effects -- add a further weightiness. They offer the gravitas of history at a time when much of the Christian audience is disoriented by the loss of historicity.
IF IT FEELS RIGHT…
The second distinctively Christian dilemma of our time concerns Jesus’ crucifixion itself. From the beginning Christians struggled to describe their sense that a death marked by torture and humiliation actually revealed and participated in the saving work of God in the world. One of them, Paul, described the crucifixion as a reconciliation with God, a purchase from slavery, an act of Jesus’ faith and the destruction of death and sin. Others depicted it as a martyrdom, a cultic sacrifice or a reversal of domination. And so, the New Testament authors addressed Jesus’ death through multiple images and points of comparison.However, in the eleventh century one interpretation of the meaning and efficacy of Jesus’ death came to dominate all others. The Christian theologian Anselm (c. 1033–1109) argued that God’s honour had been so deeply compromised by human disobedience that it could be restored only through a profound act of retribution -- the death of a figure who himself had enormous honour, God’s only son. Anselm’s solution made perfect sense in the cultural context of feudal Europe, and the triumphalist spirit of the times ensured that it was promulgated over all alternative explanations. Once it found its way into liturgical formulations, this theology of "divine satisfaction," as it is sometimes called, continued to exert its influence even after the cultural codes that shaped it had passed away.
This traditional view of atonement has also come under scrutiny in recent decades. Many Christian theologians have pointed out the contradiction that lies at the core of the claim: on the one hand, God acted out of radical love and mercy to reach humankind, while on the other hand, God was bound to rules of retribution that even God was powerless to change. The price of this theological paradox seems no longer equal to the explanatory leverage it might offer. Many thinkers -- Christian and non-Christian alike -- have questioned the violence inherent in this theology. Is this act of divine vengeance really the way we imagine the work of God? As with traditional views of scripture, traditional theology has become problematic.
In this case too, The Passion offers a balm for the contemporary disquiet. Throughout the movie Gibson’s primary focus is Jesus’ determination to endure with serenity and commitment the suffering inflicted on him. Even Mary, his mother, is depicted as united with him in this quest. There is a divine debt of suffering to be paid and Jesus will see it through to the end. This sense of retribution is clearest in the excesses of Gibson’s scourging scene. After an initial beating of the traditional thirty-nine lashes, Jesus falls to the ground and the flailing is terminated. However, just as the soldiers turn away, Jesus pulls himself up in an act that Gibson presents as a request for more. The sense is of a mathematical equation in which the accumulation of voluntary suffering still measures too far below the tally of human sinfulness. A mere beating cannot pay the price.
The movie does not ask who set that price or who is enforcing its payment. It simply and persistently posits a willing and loving payer. For many viewers the emotional force drowns out the problematic ideology. Viewers experience the "right" set of feelings even while right belief has become so confusing.
ONE STEP BACK
There is a truism in psychological counselling that when individuals are stressed, they revert to the behaviours and beliefs that they practised when their lives were last secure. In short, we regress to our last stable state. Christianity is certainly in a period of such stress as it strives to accommodate the insights and questions of its current historical and cultural context. For some viewers Gibson’s movie has functioned as a well-worn blanket, offering the security of comfortable familiarity. For others of us it may serve as an indication that the hard work of tearing down old and outgrown practices needs to be accompanied by greater creative efforts at building up healthy and mature alternatives. Either way, long after the release of the special feature DVD version of The Passion, the hard work of faithful development will persist -- for those of us who didn’t like the movie, and for those of us who did.Colleen Shantz is professor of New Testament at University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto.
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