Caught in the Crossfire: Gibson and his movie

National Review Online ^ | February 25, 2004 | Roy Schoeman

[TEXOKIE]

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[Shermy]

the attacks against the movie rest on the claim that its literal acceptance of the Gospels

v.

It incorporates scenes from the mystical visions of Catholic saints, as though they might actually have historical value and not be simply the delusional hallucinations of pious psychopaths.

[Enterprise]

I don't think that the bus loads of people and spectacular opening day's figures could be accurately termed as abandonment. The people have spoken.

[pax_et_bonum]

I for one pray that he has absorbed more than a little of the spirits of those two famous characters he played, Braveheart and Mad Max. He'll need it.

I disagree. It was obvious in the Diane Sawyer interview that Mel has absorbed more than a little of the Holy Spirit, and that's all he'll need.

[Porterville]

I for one pray that he has absorbed more than a little of the spirits of those two famous characters he played, Braveheart and Mad Max. He'll need it.

He has God on his side... should make these anti Christian's slings and arrows quite easy to defend against. Liberal heathens are so frantic and foolish.

[wardaddy]

Interesting article.

[maestro]

Bottom Lone:

no gospel is No Gospel is NO GOSPEL

No christian context here,.....just confusion talk!

(great new age press?)

Real Christianity is NOT surrealistic confusion!

/sarcasm

(A T.V. Jerry Springer/Mel Gibson 'Rage/violent Production....)

(..Evolutionist-Humanist ('Gnostic-Mystic') Escape's De-constructionism)

[Romans 10:17)

[Aquinasfan]

Great article.

[DentsRun]

I saw a news story a few minutes ago that said that Jewish pickets at a New York movie theater were confronting Christians determined to see "the Passion of the Christ." I really hate to see this kind of stuff. About four or five years ago Rabbi Danial Laipin told me that unrelenting attacks on Christianity by liberal Jewish groups like the ACLU and People for the American Way would eventually and totally unnecessarily awaken "a sleeping giant" (he meant resentment by conservative Christians). Well, now with the uproar over "the Passion of the Christ" it's happened.

Liberal Jews from the ACLU, the ADL, People for the American Way, The Southern Poverty Law Center and Hollywood in general have been waging unremitting war on Christianity now for the last two decades. Didn't they ever realize that sooner or later the worm would turn?

[Senator_Blutarski]

It seems odd that today's self-appointed arbiters of public morality are eager to canonize sodomy as a fundamental human right, and to defend the display of a dung-smeared Madonna at public expense as a heroic exercise of First Amendment rights, while condemning Mel Gibson's literal portrayal of the Gospels as beyond the pale of acceptable social behavior. It is enough to lead one to believe that, to these critics, it is God Himself — at least, a personal God who places any particular requirements on moral behavior or, worse yet, religious practice — who is the enemy. The only God acceptable to them would be an amorphous one with no religious or moral preferences, and the only acceptable religion one that asserts no claim to objective truth. Unfortunately Christianity fails both of these tests, and thus so do Mel Gibson and his movie.

That is one of the most insightful and well written statements I've seen in a long time.

[theFIRMbss]

>I don't think that the bus loads of people and spectacular opening day's figures could be accurately termed as abandonment. The people have spoken.

Are you nuts? Every
few months, some Adam Sandler
"movie" makes millions . . .

I refuse to think
that's a defining statement
of our modern world...

[Enterprise]

That's your problem, you refuse to think.

[atomicpossum]

This film has deeply shaken the Left. They had come to think that they were winning, that they had thoroughly cowed Christianity and the influence of the 'religious Right.' Mel Gibson is Spartacus, and the Left is the Romans, facing an uprising that shakes them to their core...

[Fester Chugabrew]

This article nails it in many ways. Good for him. Such a clear presentation of what is really at stake. But the conflict will not cease until the end of history. Says the Crucified One: "Be of good cheer. I have ovecome the world. . . . Abide in Me."

[BobS]

Those Jews should reconsider. There weren't any Christians at the time of Christ's crucificion. Just a variable bunch of people with variable religions in a time when the Romans had no choice but to put down insurgents for their own government's survival.

Apparently contemporary leftist Jews are not as intelligent as we thought they are.

[BobS]

"Mel Gibson is Spartacus, and the Left is the Romans, facing an uprising that shakes them to their core..."

You understand history! That is what the Romans had to do for survival. They had too many ethnic groups, religions, and countries to control. They had to enforce their law equally or lose control. Everyone shows their ignorance by not reading history.

[missyme]

I will say this I beleive so strongly that Jesus Christ is the Promised Messiah that I am willing to go to hell for eternity then deny him......

[Oberon]

I saw a news story a few minutes ago that said that Jewish pickets at a New York movie theater were confronting Christians determined to see "the Passion of the Christ." I really hate to see this kind of stuff.

[chuckle]

Are you saying that Gibson's film has actually fostered acts of anti-Christianism?!?

That is so richly ironic!

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

>>"Mel Gibson is Spartacus, and the Left is the Romans, facing an uprising that shakes them to their core..."

>You understand history! That is what the Romans had to do for survival. ... Everyone shows their ignorance by not reading history.

I don't like your choice of analogy.

You do realize that Spartacus' rebellion was destroyed after just a few years.