Praises for the Movie⤒🔗

“It is as it was” (John Paul II).¹ “Every time I preach or speak about the Cross, the things I saw on the screen will be in my heart and mind” (Billy Graham).² “It was an encounter, unlike anything I've ever experienced” (Keith Fournier).³“It's as close as any of us will ever get to knowing, until we fully know” (Jody Dean).⁴ “It's the best evangelization opportunity we've had since the actual death of Jesus” (Lisa Wheeler).⁵

What is it?←⤒🔗

The accolades are almost breathtaking! Who would not want to go see Mel Gibson's new movie called, “The Passion of the Christ” after reading recommendations like these? The movie purports to follow the text of Scripture entirely as it portrays the last 12 hours of Christ's life, from the garden to the grave, ending with a brief glimpse of the resurrection. Its producer is none other than Mel Gibson, now 46 years old, the successful actor turned director who has played the main role in some of Hollywood's most violent and bloodiest movies. Gibson is actually a devout Roman Catholic who stated about this new movie, “It reflects my beliefs – I've never done that before.”⁶ The huge hype and anticipation surrounding its debut result from the fact that Gibson first took the movie to thousands of clergy and church leaders to obtain their opinions. Most, especially evangelicals, responded with ringing endorsements, urging Christians to buy out whole theatres to give this movie a huge success at the box office (eg. Rick Warren, James Dobson). We are faced with the question of whether we should join others in endorsing this movie, and the question presses upon us, particularly with all the publicity surrounding the movie.

But we don't Watch Movies!←⤒🔗

Some readers may find no reason at all to read on, since they reject movie-going out of hand. I applaud your position, for I do not think Christians should support Hollywood. In this article, however, I am not addressing that wider question but restricting myself to this one movie. I fear that the wider publicity may well persuade some Christians to overcome their trepidation and go to the theatre for the first time. If so, please read this first. And, if you do attend the movies, I particularly desire to dissuade you from watching this one.

Problems – Second Commandment←⤒🔗

Principled objections are most important. One might think that the role of Christ can be played in a movie, for he was and is fully human, like we are. Though he was God, the people of the time did not see that he was God simply by gazing upon him. Nevertheless, his divine nature cannot be separated from his human nature and therefore mere humans are unable to re-enact his life as the Christ who is both God and man. Even in his humanity he was and is sinless. Sinners cannot play this either. Finally, no one knows what he looked like. ⁷ In this movie, the portraits of Christ are front and centre. James Caviezel, who plays Christ in the movie, was chosen for his penetrating gaze.⁸ His eyes seem to hold the suffering of the world in them, and this was very important to Gibson, for reasons which will soon become clear. Caviezel blasphemously noted that his own initials are J.C. and that he was 33 at the time of shooting the movie. Some people actually bowed down to him.⁹ This underlines how playing Christ breaks the second commandment. ¹⁰

Problems – Redemption Complete Already←⤒🔗

As Reformed Christians we speak biblically about redemptive history. We mean that the events of redemption were accomplished at a certain time and place, once for all. There is not one event of Christ's earthly ministry that needs to be repeated (biblical history is linear). Christ's moment of glory on the mount of transfiguration will no more be repeated than his death on the cross. This is a major criticism that the Protestant Church has always had towards the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass, where Christ is sacrificed over and over. We confess that the crucifixion and death of Christ are now to be preached, just like all the events of redemption, as completed events, by which our salvation was secured and remains secure.

Roman Catholicism by the Back Door – Stations of the Cross←⤒🔗

The movie is actually a stylized version of the fourteen stations of the cross. What are they? The stations of the cross are a series of 14 devotional pictures (two or three dimensional) which Roman Catholics view at Easter (or other times) which trace Jesus' journey from his condemnation to his burial. Roman Catholic writings emphasize that the stations are not an exercise in understanding but an “imaginative exercise” meant to lead to a deeper “experience” of the “mystery” of the faith.¹¹ At each of the fourteen stations the worshipper focuses on the picture to worship Christ and express veneration for the saints, and repeats a short prayer.¹² This movie is nothing but a stylized moving version of these pictures. ¹³ In our Heidelberg Catechism we regard such “books for the laity” to be against God's holy will (QA 98). People who watch the movie have been leaving in awe and tears – therefore they are most certainly using the movie as an aid to worship, which is wrong. Their error only grows when we realize what is moving them: a number of imaginative additions to the gospel.

Mystical Additions – Imagination←⤒🔗

Mel Gibson's sources were not only the gospels but also the diaries of St. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) and Mary of Agreda's “The City of God.” Both of these are Roman Catholic mystical writings, based on “visions.”¹⁴ Their influence appears in such additions to the gospel as Jesus meeting Mary on the road to the cross (fourth station), Veronica wiping the face of Jesus (sixth station), Jesus falling three times on the road to the cross (third, seventh, and ninth stations), Mary holding Jesus' dead body after it is taken from the cross (thirteenth station). These are all in the movie. Gibson has also added imaginative flashbacks such as Mary helping Jesus as a child when he fell on the dirt road outside their house.¹⁵ Plus Mary looks like a nun.¹⁶ The devil appears in several places, though he is not mentioned in the gospels in these places. More additions can be noted. As several reviewers strongly emphasized: this movie is a work of art and as such it is both an interpretation and an exercise in imagination. Dobson's claim, that “there are no specific references to unique Catholic doctrine in the film,” is incredible.¹⁷

Experience of Physical Suffering Only←⤒🔗

Why make additions to the Scriptures? This is directly tied to the main emphasis of Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic religion is based in experience, namely the experience of the sacraments, particularly the mass. Both in this religion and in the movie, additions were made so as to add to the overall experience. In fact, non-Christian reviewers have still appreciated the film as a beautiful story of a mother and her son.¹⁸ Is it possible to read the Scriptures and come to such a conclusion? Rather, Scripture reveals God the Father giving up his Son to death! Roman Catholicism focuses on Mary and Jesus, and on Jesus' physical suffering, while aiming to have church members identify with him through this. Thus, the focus on pictures and imagination. But the message of the cross is more than the physical suffering of Jesus – the reason for his suffering is explained in the rest of the New Testament in ways that no movie can portray, which is why God gave his Word in words and not in pictures. This movie is a very dangerous way to have false doctrine slip into your mind through the gateway of an emotional experience, both by what is added and by what is left unsaid.

Who has Suffered the Most?←⤒🔗

There is absolutely no question that no one has ever suffered as much as Christ, for he suffered under the burden of God's eternal wrath against sin. ¹⁹ However, the movie focuses only on his physical suffering – it is described as brutal and gruesome, a Mel Gibson classic. In this respect, one could certainly make the case that others have suffered more terribly than our Lord did, for some of the church's martyrs underwent severe torture for years. In fact, the emphasis of the New Testament in terms of physical suffering is not the physical suffering of Christ, but the physical suffering of his church. Paul even writes that he fills up in his own body the afflictions of Christ – and here he refers to the physical afflictions (Colossians 1:24; cf. Philippians 3:10). If we wish to focus on Christ's sufferings today, then we should look at what is happening right now to our persecuted brothers and sisters. ²⁰

The Mass – an Accursed Idolatry←⤒🔗

The core of the Roman Catholic faith is the Mass. Mel Gibson himself said that he attended mass every morning while shooting the movie because, “we had to be squeaky clean just working on this.”²¹ James Caviezel said that he needed the sacrament “in him” to play the Christ.²² Gibson adheres to a Latin Mass, something largely abandoned in the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II in the 1960's.²³ Part of Gibson's intention in the movie indeed is to juxtapose the sacrifice of the altar (the mass) with the sacrifice of the cross, since for him they are the same thing.²⁴ Roman Catholics believe that Christ is sacrificed over and over in the mass. The movie, by way of flashbacks, etc., is designed to help such thoughts grow in the viewer's mind.²⁵

Roman Catholic Conversions←⤒🔗

Gibson claimed many conversions and even some healings during filming. Make no mistake, however, he does not merely mean conversions to Christianity but to Roman Catholicism, and, best of all, to the pre Vatican II Tridentine rites of Roman Catholicism.²⁶ Disagreeing with Vatican II, he believes that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church.²⁷ Gibson has his own chapel at home where he receives the mass spoken in the old Latin every Sunday. For him it is a most moving religious experience.

The Medium of Film←⤒🔗

Does it become more clear why a devout Roman Catholic would make such a movie? It is an act of devotion for him (could it even be a way of atoning for past sins?). And in this case, it is more true than ever, that the medium is the message. Instead of coming with the Word, Gibson comes with the Picture (originally the movie was not even going to have subtitles, leaving all to the viewer's imagination, since the languages spoken are Latin and Aramaic). The Roman Catholic emphases on the visual, on experience, on Christ's physical suffering, and on mystery (mysticism) are all well-served by this movie on the passion of the Christ. Roman Catholicism is not a religion of the Word, but of the sacraments, of the imagination, and of the authority of the Church. Film as such reinforces this kind of religion. We have here the great modern-day relic, the moving picture.²⁸ The medium is the message in this sense also: films are about entertainment. As one web blogger put it after seeing the movie: “They don't get the fact that most people who see this will still see it as a film, and within the context of a film.” ²⁹

As Reformed Christians who hold to the Word, we confess that God regenerates us by his Word, which is the tool given and used by the Holy Spirit. We confess this in Heidelberg Catechism, QA 65 and Canons of Dort III/IV, art. 17. His Word is not only the “seed of regeneration;” it also provides our souls with daily bread (cf. CD V, art. 14). It was precisely in the time of the Reformation that the Reformers emphasised Solo Scriptura in the face of all kinds of Roman Catholic abuses such as the stations of the cross. Let us follow in their footsteps, in accordance with our confessions of faith (cf. Belgic Confession, art. 3, 5, 7)!