Even before the film opened, voices were lifted to criticize and support the project, and there has been worry by both Christians and Jews about how the rumored violence of the film would affect relations between people of the two faiths.

Since the film was released on Ash Wednesday it has had excellent ticket sales despite very mixed reviews. Some have praised its uncompromising look at Jesus' crucifixion as an antidote to the "safe and suburban" Christianity that is taught too often. Others have held that the extreme violence--45 minutes of the film focuses on the torture and murder of Jesus with all the skill Hollywood cinematography can deploy--verges on a sort of pornographic obsession that distorts the meaning of the life, death, and life of Christ.

Anticipating these and other concerns, the Cathedral of St. John in Providence, Rhode Island hosted a "Forum for Inter-Religious Understanding" on February 18. A large crowd, including Christians, Jews, seekers, and many members of the press, filled Synod Hall for the day-long event.

Modern passion play

The first of two keynote speakers, Professor Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University, addressed the problems the Gibson movie raises for her. "Whenever we talk about matters of religion," she said, "we risk unsettling people. So we have to proceed with care, and with as much listening as talking."

Levine called the move a modern passion play. "Passion plays are a pious response to a passion about Jesus. But through the centuries such plays have inflamed thought. Gibson could have done more to ensure that the Gospel of Love does not present itself as the Gospel of Hate."

Levine said she had taken part in an ecumenical review committee that looked at the film script with Gibson's knowledge. The committee found that, despite Gibson's claims, "the script was not accurate to the Gospel. There was a relentless anti-Judaism. Moreover, there were many scenes with no scriptural basis. Some of these scenes are based on the visions of a 19th-century nun [Anne Catherine Emmerich] that have had wide distribution among conservative Roman Catholics, including a scene showing the making of the cross on which Jesus would hang--in the Temple."

According to Levine, the movie lessens the responsibility of the Romans for Jesus' crucifixion by making the governor, Pontius Pilate, "a coward who was awed by Jesus. But from the historical record, Pilate was a ruthless shmuck."

The distortions of the Gospel as presented by the Gibson movie are so extreme, according to Levine, that "to give a modern analogy, it is like suggesting that the gas ovens used in German death camps were made in the Vatican."

When the team making the movie learned of the review committee's reaction, "Gibson went after the scholars," Levine said. "We were excoriated by right-wing commentators, who started to talk about 'Jewish censorship.'"

Seeing what others see

Levine said that the movie is a problem not for people who are active and thoughtful in their faith, but for those who do not have a deep understanding of Christ's message. "Christians know the story: Jesus is killed not by the Jews, but by human sin, to which he made himself a willing sacrifice." She said that Jews need to know Christian teaching, and Christians need to know how the story is heard by Jews.

Responding to a question, Levine suggested a series of steps to avoid anti-Jewish interpretations of the Gospel: "Avoid making a division between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament: they are the same God. Avoid stereotyping Jesus, and divorcing Jesus from Judaism. Avoid the idea that the Law was bad, or that Judaism has been disenfranchised."

Levine continued, "Avoid the view that the fault is all on one side, that someone has to be found guilty. Avoid the idea that the Jews have an unapproachable God, and that Jesus fixes that. Say what Jesus' 'radical message' is, because it isn't hating the Jews. Try to hear the text through Jewish ears."

Offering some advice for those who will see the Gibson movie, Levine said, "When you sit in the theatre and watch this story, picture my 13-year-old son on one side of you and my neighbor from down the street, who survived the Holocaust, on the other side. Try to see what they would see."

 Concluding, Levine said, "This move is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is that Jews and Christians do not really know each other. They need to."

'Violence is pornographic'

Bishop Krister Stendahl of Harvard Divinity School spoke of how he had learned the Passion story growing up in the Church of Sweden. "It is not unsimilar to how most Christians at that time lived and related to that text. We understood 'Jew' = me = a sinner. We would sing, 'Tis I, Lord Jesus, I it was who denied thee. I who crucified thee.'"

"This way of reading," Stendahl continued, "has the advantage of having no anti-Semitism. But the irony is that this is achieved by reading the Jews and the Jewish community out of the book."

 It was not until after World War II and the Second Vatican Council, Stendahl said, that "Christians began to learn how the things we say sound in the ears of the Jews. We have a new situation which calls upon us to make new attempts to help one another against the undesirable side effects of our devotion. The historical record is shocking."

The cross, he said, is a symbol of faith and hope for Christians. "But the Cross reminds Arabs of the Crusades. The Cross reminds the Jews of the Crusades and the pogroms (massacres). Historically, most attacks on the Jews in Europe took place in Holy Week, after the people in church heard the Passion narrative."

Stendahl suggested that, to live together, we have to practice three principles of communal living:

 1. "Let the Other define herself. 75% of what our tradition says of another tradition is bearing false witness."

 2. "Compare equal to equal. We all have our extremists and nuts. Don't compare ideal Christianity with the actual or distorted form of the Other."

 3. "We will never have good relations without an element of holy envy. Find something in the Other that is beautiful and meaningful and that tells you something about God. You are not called upon to absorb it or to pass judgment on it."

Stendahl said that, to him, the Gibson movie seemed like an obscene magnification of violence. "Violence is pornographic. I've always thought the suffering of Christ and the shout 'why have you forsaken me?' is the pain of the martyr-the pain of wondering was it all in vain, had it all been wrong. That's where the deep suffering is, not in the physical abuse." The way in which the movie describes the Passion, he continued, "is a celebration of suffering and death instead of a celebration of life and of the triumphal resurrection."

Stendahl noted that there is a positive side to the controversy about the movie. "At least we have woken up to the fact that our Christian tradition has caused us enormous pain, and that we need to do something about it."

Speaking of the attraction of the movie's approach, Stendahl said, "It feeds the hunger for simplicity and uncomplicated answers. It's a kind of power-grab. In response, we need to keep teaching and speaking and educating toward a capacity of living in a non-absolute world. Do not settle for this, which is really the Gospel for suckers."

Two different movies

In the afternoon a panel responded to the morning's presentations. Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf spoke of her experience as a Jewish convert to Christianity. For the future, Wolf said, "We need to get honest. We don't often share the pain we have inflicted on each other, and we need to."

Rabbi Marc Jagolinzer of Temple Shalom, Middletown, spoke of the history of anti-Semitism. "The anti-semite hates first, before he meets the Jew. Jews didn't cause, and cannot cure, anti-semitism."

Jagolinzer noted that Christians and Jews, when they discuss The Passion of the Christ, are really talking about two different movies. "This film will come, and this film will go, and in the United States it will leave us largely untouched. But overseas...? I am scared, I am horrified by the graphic depiction of crucifixion and what response it may call up from people."

David Lewis Stokes, a former Episcopal priest who is now a member of the Roman Catholic Church, expressed worry that "the film will obscure 50 years of incredible dialogue. The last thing we need right now is for this film to muddy a conversation that is far from over."

Selma Stanzler, interim Director of the Rhode Island Holocaust Museum, cautioned that "for evil to thrive, good people must remain silent." She offered the resources of the museum to help explain the implications of letting anti-semitism go unchallenged.