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Reviews are finally starting to pour in for The Passion of the Christ. I have been looking forward to reading some of the reviews since to this point the vast majority of people who have seen the movie are either Christians or are at least religious. They are hardly able to objectively judge and evaluate the movie. Now, though, we have hoards of secular reviewers who will be writing reivews. The site I go to for movie reviews is Rotten …
Thanks to Maryanne for sending me a link to an excellent article in The Banner of Truth entitled Five Reasons Not To Go See The Passion of Christ. The author (Andrew J. Webb) focuses on the movie’s origins, script, theology, medium and main character. Many of his points are similar to ones I have been thinking, praying and writing about. Here are some pertinent quotes: This is in marked contrast to the Jesus film, which is unabashedly Protestant and Evangelical …
My son is three years old and has recently begun to become aware of the existence of death. At only three he has far greater capacity to wonder and to ask questions than he does to understand. This makes it difficult and as his father I struggle to try to share with him what death is and how something so terrifying and so final can be made an occasion of wondrous joy. Today while my wife was at a Bible …
Should this make me nervous? I know I sometimes have the tendency to “throw out the baby with the bath-water” but quotes like this do not do much for my confidence in the effects this movie will have: “After both of The Passion screenings I attended, the Protestant women talked about identifying with Mary as a mother who was watching her child suffer. From whatever point in his spirituality Gibson’s treatment of Mary is springing, it is touching deeply the …
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending …
My reading in Proverbs today seemed to fit nicely with Valentine’s Day. Proverbs 12:4 reads “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.” Naturally my thoughts today tend towards my wife anyways and this seemed to be confirmation of what I already felt. I then turned to the very end of the book where we find a poem dedicated to the virtuous wife. We do not get the full impact of this poem when reading it in english as …
Newsweek is featuring a cover article on The Passion of the Christ in their current issue. You can read the full text of the article here. From a Christian perspective the article shows terrible theology and a view of the Bible that strips it of its inspired origin. Though deeply flawed, the article makes for an interesting read. An example: Amid the clash over Gibson’s film and the debates about the nature of God, wheth-er you believe Jesus to be …
An interesting article on Yahoo News which you can read in full here. Though not a single television ad has aired for “The Passion of the Christ” two weeks before its release, Mel Gibson (news)’s depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus is eclipsing mainstream Hollywood fare in audience interest…Total awareness for “Passion” is 60%, but much higher among men and women over 25, where it tops 80%. First-choice ratings for men and women over 25 is 23%, while it is …
The New Yorker ran a fascinating article on The Passion of the Christ in their September 15 issue. It gives a lot of the background to the movie, focusing on Mel Gibson’s background and beliefs as well as the controversy the movement generated based on its perceived racism. The full text of the article can be read here. Here are some interesting snippets: I told Gibson that I am a Protestant, and asked whether his pre-Vatican II world view disqualified …
I believe every Christian has had an experience like I had a few days ago where a passage of the Bible I had read many times and even memorized suddenly took on a whole new level of meaning to me. If you are a regular reader of this site you will know that I have been pouring over the five solas of the Reformation, trying to understand what it was that triggered so great an explosion in the understanding of …