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The Jesus Film


Brother Adam

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Seatbelt Blue

The more I learn about the Passion the more I'm not so sure about it... Why end the movie at his death? Why not continue to his resurrection. Without telling the whole story you leave the gospel entirely incomplete. I believe, it is a different gospel.

Because the movie isn't about the resurrection. It's about the passion; hence the name. It's not an Easter movie as much as it's a Lent movie.

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Because the movie isn't about the resurrection. It's about the passion; hence the name. It's not an Easter movie as much as it's a Lent movie.

Granted, but what about those who aren't Christians who will view this film. They will view our savior in a great deal of agony, and then he dies. The end.

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Seatbelt Blue

Granted, but what about those who aren't Christians who will view this film. They will view our savior in a great deal of agony, and then he dies. The end.

Let's be honest here

1. The movie will spark conversation - Christians can, indeed, use it as a witnessing tool

2. Most people in the Western world know that we believe Christ rose from the dead

3. The agony and the dying is the important part. That is what purchased salvation.

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I am being honest here. Somehow, I'm doubting that the USA is the ONLY place people will see the film- giving the backing the Vatican is giving to it. While I suppose the film has signifigant historical acadamia use, it certianly is not a gospel message.

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Seatbelt Blue

I am being honest here. Somehow, I'm doubting that the USA is the ONLY place people will see the film- giving the backing the Vatican is giving to it. While I suppose the film has signifigant historical acadamia use, it certianly is not a gospel message.

You're looking at it through the wrong glasses. This movie is not about the story of Christ. It is not His birth, His life, His teaching. It is purely and simply an expression of the wonderful, exquisite pain and suffering He experienced for us. It is not called "The Life of the Christ" or "The Story of the Christ," but, instead, "The Passion of the Christ." It is about the last few days of His live up to Calvary. The Catholic Church has a lot of respect and a very deep appreciation of the power suffering has, and since you are not Catholic, I imagine that you will, thus, have difficulty looking at it from this view. The events of the Passion are important _in and of themselves_. Had Christ not risen, His Passion would still be just as important.

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also, Gibson said that there were hundreds of movies about Jesus, and he has seen many, but it's as if directors shied away from making anything even close to the torture Our Lord suffered. Everything else was pretty accurate...Nativity, the feeding of the 5000, sermon on the mount, etc.

But he feels the Passion has never been portrayed accurately.

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Had Christ not risen, His Passion would still be just as important.

Seatbelt,

I've agreed with most of what you've said through this point, but I have to differ with the above statement.

I am agreed that Christ's suffering and death for our sins is vital to our salvation, but so is his resurrection. Here's the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 651: "'If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.' {quoting I Corinthians 15:14} The Resurrection above all constitutes the confirmation of all Christ's work and teachigns. All truths, even those most inaccessible to human reason, find their justification if Christ by his Resurrection has given the definitive proof of his divine authority, which he had promised."

Then, in paragraph 654: "The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God's grace, 'so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.'"

This is not to say that there is no value in contemplation of one aspect of the Paschal mystery, but let's not denigrate the necessity of the other.

Peace,

Sojourner

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You are right, i'm probably looking at it from a different perspective- the evangical one. I believe this film does have its place to be sure, and I will go see it, and probably even buy it.

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Bro Adam,

I see the Mel Gibson film as kind of a multi-dimensional "stations of the cross". Maybe that perspective will be helpful?

peace...

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giving the backing the Vatican is giving to it.

Actually, a spokesperson for the Vatican came out and officially denied that the Pope OR Vatican had ever endorsed or given comment regarding the film...

I'll find the source...gimme a sec...

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Vatican denies pope endorsed Gibson film

New York Times

Jan. 20, 2004 12:00 AM

ROME - Pope John Paul II's secretary denied widespread news reports that the pope offered a personal endorsement of Mel Gibson's unreleased movie The Passion of the Christ, the Catholic News Service said in an article Monday.

Cindy Wooden, a Vatican correspondent for the Catholic News Service, wrote that the secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, told her in an interview Sunday that while the pope had indeed seen Gibson's movie, "the Holy Father told no one his opinion of the film."

Dziwisz's statement contradicted reports over recent weeks that the pope, after watching the movie in his private apartment in Vatican City, reacted to the movie's depiction of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus by saying, "It is as it was."

Some Jewish and Christian leaders, along with other critics, have expressed worries that the movie could rekindle old beliefs and assertions that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion. Gibson and his associates have said that that was neither their intent nor the movie's message.

But they have been selective in choosing audiences for advance screenings of the movie, which is scheduled for release in the United States on Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday. One example was a visit that Steve McEveety, one of the movie's producers, made to Rome in early December. Rarely do mainstream Hollywood figures like Gibson turn to the Vatican for support, and when Vatican officials take note of a movie, it is often because they find its depiction of Roman Catholics or Roman Catholicism offensive.

McEveety scheduled a series of screenings in Rome for Vatican officials and prominent Roman Catholics close to the Vatican.

Conservative writer Peggy Noonan, in a column for the Web site of the Wall Street Journal, quoted McEveety as saying that the pope had declared that the movie depicted Jesus' death "as it was." Subsequent news reports, including one in the New York Times, quoted unidentified Vatican officials confirming that remark. The Vatican press office declined repeatedly to release an official comment about the pope's opinion of the film.

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I still intend on seeing this film though...

And, I do believe that, given the situation and the details I've heard of the film thus far, it will be the most amazing film EVER created!

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  • 3 weeks later...

The more I learn about the Passion the more I'm not so sure about it... Why end the movie at his death? Why not continue to his resurrection. Without telling the whole story you leave the gospel entirely incomplete. I believe, it is a different gospel.

The movie doesn't end with his death. It ends with his Resurrection. Just so you know.

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