melon said:
High horses, aside, "Mr. Black," I'm guessing that you haven't seen the film.
You guess incorrectly. I saw the film a few hours before I dropped by.
It focuses solely on death and violence, nothing else. Such a thing as "plot" is also removed, so as to put even more focus on the death and violence. I understand that this has become a political issue, whereas liberals must hate the film and conservatives must defend it, no matter what the actual content (or lack thereof) of the film is, but let's just say that I'm tired of this excuse. I don't hate the film at all, but I also think that it misses the mark.
Maybe we saw two different films. The film I saw had flashbacks to the Sermon on the Mount and John's lengthy account of the Last Supper. In both flashbacks, Jesus taught love -- to love your enemies and to love one another.
Of course, "Mr. Black," I know precisely what you're trying to imply: that I'm a terrible Christian. And for someone who has supposedly only posted 12 posts, that's quite presumptous of you.
For someone who's only seen me post 12 times, it seems presumptuous of
you to claim to know "precisely" my motives.
If you've bothered at all to read what I've been saying, it is that:
1) LOVE is the point of Jesus' first coming. You can throw around all the passage numbers you want, but if LOVE weren't so central as to why Jesus came in the first place, not only would He have not made it His sole commandment, but St. Paul wouldn't have so boldly proclaimed it "the law," in replacement of all the other (Romans 13:9-10). But LOVE is the one thing that people will continually try to avoid, because, out of all the "commandments," that one is the hardest to live up to, particularly since LOVE is not a very "macho" thing to do. And, thus, that's precisely why male-dominated religion focuses on damn near everything else but LOVE, and that's why it has missed the mark. It is, thus, no better than a group of modern-day Pharisees, and you can spit out all the Bible passages you want: that's precisely what they did too.
I agree that love is the reason Jesus came, but not just to teach love but to show love, and the Passion story is the ultimate act of love. I can't understand how you seem to miss that.
As for your criticism of the macho patriarchy, I'm quite sure I don't know what that's about. To criticize this film as the most "macho" depiction of Jesus while missing the fact that the Passion details the greatest act of love... Sorry, but you lost me.
2) The RESURRECTION is the birth of the Christian faith, not the death. In spite of Gibson's big blame game (i.e., "the Jews killed Christ," Satan's fault, "it was all our fault"), if Jesus' death and resurrection paved our way to be able to go to Heaven, as tradition holds, then is it at all possible that this is what God wanted? Of course, that would certainly imply predestination, but Christ's life is nothing without His resurrection. THAT is what this film misses as well.
Again, did we see the same movie? The film I saw began with Jesus praying in the garden, where it's clear that the Father did not want to let the cup (or "chalice") pass from His Son. When questioned by Pilate, Jesus did assert that the unfolding events were of His choosing. And it did, in fact, end with the Ressurection and triumphant major-key music.
We can disagree on whether or not there was too little emphasis on certain aspects. There is a case to be made, for instance, that there was too little time to appreciate the wonder of the Resurrection.
But the attempt was there.
If it weren't for my horse...
. 
