Christ's Passion Comes Home

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from TheWebNewsroom.com, May 10, 2004, with the headline, “The Passion DVD and VHS: Focusing on the final twelve hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the year’s most talked-about movie, The Passion of the Christ, makes its highly anticipated DVD and VHS debut on August 31, 2004. It was announced today by 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Icon Productions.

“Beginning June 1 at the film’s website, information was available regarding bulk orders and high-quality, visually stunning, customized church sleeves and other downloads, encouraging church ministry participation.

“Additionally, the site features trailers, film synopsis, cast biographies, and soundtrack background, among other information. For retailers from the Christian Booksellers Association, CBA, the DVD, VHS, will be distributed through Zondervan, a leading international Christian communications company.”

Tom: Dave, as perhaps many of our listeners know, we have critiqued the movie, The Passion of the Christ—I wrote a book about it called Showtime for the Sheep?—in other words, are we being led into a realm of entertainment, which supposedly, or the claim is, that it presents the gospel? And our concern is that this is being introduced into the church, which we can see here it is. Big time.

Now, somebody said, “Look, if you’re just worried about the film…(this was a while ago), don’t worry about it! It’s a movie. It’ll be in the movie theaters maybe two, three weeks, and people will see it and get excited about it, but then it will go away, and perhaps you only have to worry about it each time Lent comes around, Easter comes around, it’ll be revived for that.”

Well, there would be problems if that were only the case. But the case is far worse, as we’re seeing here.

Now this movie, which I think I document very well—this is a very Roman Catholic movie. It does not have the gospel, has another gospel in it. The medium, we believe, is not appropriate for the presentation of God’s Word. It’s translating God’s Word into visual images, which is highly subjective. And it’s Mel’s vision—Mel Gibson’s vision—as a conservative, or tridentine, Roman Catholic.

Now, Dave, what we have here is Mel Gibson’s company, along with Zondervan, along with Fox Home Entertainment—and you’d say, “Well, at least it’s Zondervan.”

Dave, two of these companies, Fox Home Entertainment and Zondervan, are owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is a media mogul, and he is also a…well, he was knighted by the pope as a Roman Catholic. He has given huge contributions to the Roman Catholic Church. Dave, I’m not trying to make this into some kind of conspiracy, but the fact is, Mel is Roman Catholic, Fox Home Entertainment is owned by Rupert Murdoch, knighted by the pope as a Roman Catholic…

Dave: Well, Tom, let’s go beyond the Roman Catholic thing. You have an actor pretending to be Jesus. Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Paul said, “Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.”

Tom: Dave, my point here is that these men, with a Roman Catholic perspective—and they’re entitled to that—but they are selling this movie in bulk to the evangelical church. And what I think is going to take place is this is not going to be just a movie that was in the theaters and is gone now. It’s going to be a staple in the church. Churches will have numerous copies, it’s going to be in their library, it’s going to be in Sunday school, we’re going to have Bible studies, and so on, and we’re getting a very Catholic perspective of some things that are in the Scripture.

Dave: Yeah, but, Tom, some people will say, “Well, Catholics—they’re Christians, you know.” So you’ve got to go to the whole thing. So forgetting even the Catholic aspect, whether they were Catholics who made it or not, you have a human being pretending to be Christ. God manifest in the flesh. Paul said that’s “a great mystery.” You have a human being pretending to be Jesus Christ, who said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Even Cecil B. DeMille wouldn’t do that. You get the back of His head, or the back of His hand.

Furthermore, you get a false gospel. You have a beating that is ridiculous—just beating and beating and beating, because all Mel knows is physical suffering to pay for the sins of the world. So, did Roman soldiers—they were the administrators of God’s justice, and somehow they beat Him just enough to pay for the sins of the world? That doesn’t make sense. It’s a false gospel. Christ paid the penalty for our sins on the cross as the Father laid upon Him…it says, “It pleased Yahweh, Jehovah, to bruise him. You made his soul and offering for sin.”

So you have that aspect is completely missing from this. And, Tom, as you know—I mean, you wrote the book—so many unbiblical things in there. One after another, that come from the vision of this mystic nun.

Tom: Actually two nuns and a saint.

Dave: Yeah. So, Tom, it is not biblical. It is—well, it’s very sad. Now on the other hand, we want to say that there are people who’ve taken advantage of the interest in The Passion, so called, to give the gospel out at theaters. And you’ve got friends maybe talking about it so it has opened the door, like Christmastime or Eastertime does, as it rolls around each year. So we can’t fault them for that. On the other hand, this is a false gospel. It is a false presentation of the passion of Christ. It really is.

Tom: So, Dave, what happens when an evangelical church has this in their libraries, teaching it in Sunday school, you’re going to have Bible studies based on that? This is the way it’s going—visual presentations, whether it be the Jesus project, whatever it might be, we’re now being taught through imagery.

Dave: Which is unbiblical and the worst thing that could happen—imagination is deceitful. Tom, it is beyond anything that I could have imagined could happen in the church. But I think it is simply a sign that we are very near the end. It’s the great apostasy