Why didn't you like the movie The Passion?

Recently read your article in Christianity Today about Hotel Rwanda. You expressed in the article “I was so frustrated by last year's promotional hype surrounding...

...Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and I was so frustrated by the movie itself.” I understand your frustration with the promotional hype. Can you further explain your frustration with the movie itself?

Answer: First, I know that many people loved the movie and were deeply helped by it, and I respect that and don’t want to downgrade their experience in any way. Speaking only for myself, my frustrations ran along these lines.

1. The film was acclaimed as an evangelistic tool, but it never presented a context for why Jesus suffered, died, and rose. If a person went with a friend, perhaps this would have been remedied. But it struck me that the film shouldn’t have been called an evangelistic opportunity if it didn’t offer explanation for the meaning of the suffering.

2. The Bible strikes me in how discrete it is about the suffering of Jesus. It is understated. The violence is clear, but it is not indulged in. Matthew doesn’t talk about the sound of snapping sinews or bits of flesh sticking to the whip or blood dripping or crows pecking out eye jelly. I have deeply mixed feelings about the effects of graphic violence on people – just as I’d think it unwise to tell the story of David by including a graphic sex scene of him and Bathsheba. Again, this is just my opinion and others will disagree.

3. The degree to which the story departed from the Bible bothered me. I’m surprised people were not upset by the departure from the Bible. Yes, the words were Biblical (and I thought it was brilliant to have them in Aramaic), but – for example – the scene with the crow pecking out the “bad thief’s” eye struck me as not only gratuitous violence, but also a rather crude distraction from one common understanding of the crucifixion’s purpose – that Christ is accepting the full punishment for sin so that sinners don’t have to be punished. (Is the crow to be seen as God’s agent of judgment on this fellow for mocking Jesus? How does that fit in?)

Again, these are my opinions, and I respect those who disagree, just as I hope they can respect me in expressing my opinion.