Violence and Salvation (The Passion of the Christ)

This column's Ash Wednesday posting coincides with the release of Mel Gibson's new movie about Jesus' final twelve hours. The film is opening with an avalanche of prior publicity, controversy, and expectation. Happily, the column is not likely to suffer the same fate. Almost certainly, though, we will be hearing more about the film, the reactions to it, and the theology that informs it throughout this Lenten season. And so, this column and the next two will be devoted to exploring at least a few of the faith-issues that Gibson's work raises so forcefully.

As we have come to understand it from the four Gospels, the Passion Narrative is about a lot of different things all at once: conspiracy, misunderstanding, wrath --- human and divine ---, betrayal, abandonment, power --- human, divine, and satanic ---, humiliation, and undeserved suffering, all in the context of proclaiming the history of human salvation's consummation at the cross of Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine that anyone would ever get all of it, either at once or over a lifetime, or that anyone who does manage to get even a small part of it could absorb a fraction of what God has put into it. I know that this Holy Week will mark the 26^th year that I have been leading Bible studies on Jesus' Passion, and when I am through with this next one I will be just as far from fully understanding his suffering as I was when I started all those years ago. But I also know I will be even more grateful for what it testifies to about our salvation, which is probably all that any of us should ever ask from the story anyway.

About Mel Gibson's particular (and, as we shall see, peculiar) rendering of the Passion of Christ, two major controversies have been flourishing for quite some time. One, about the film's alleged anti-Semitism, probably will go away soon. At least, it should. Anti-Semitism, in the modern sense of the term, refers to a prejudicial attitude toward Jews just for being Jews. Hitler held it, but the Gospel writers did not. Those whom the latter scorned were some of the Jewish people's own leaders, notably Caiaphas, for not being good enough Jews. All of the Gospel writers knew good Jews in abundance, many of whom were Jewish Christians to boot.

A corollary issue with this one is Gibson's depiction of Pontius Pilate in a relatively positive light, in contrast with his characterization of the High Priest. Well, on this matter Gibson is indeed guilty as charged. But so are the Gospels: Pilate comes across in all four a little better than he does in other historical documents of the period. But never to the point that anyone could ever exonerate him of his complicity in Jesus' death. He only thought he could wash his hands of the whole affair. Imagine living out the rest of eternity known primarily for the fact that the Savior of the world "suffered under" you.

But the second major controversy that Mel Gibson has stirred up is not likely to go away at all. It has to do with the graphic nature of the way that his film depicts the violence done to Jesus in the hours leading up to and including his crucifixion. The scenes are so graphic that they yield a bitter irony. What one writer once referred to as "The Greatest Story Ever Told" has earned an R rating from the motion picture industry. An evangelical minister promoting the film declared that he will be taking his eleven-year-old with him to see it. I sincerely hope that the good Reverend will reconsider his plan.

But how far should we go as Christians to meditate upon and to tell other people, especially our children, about the details of our Lord's physical suffering? (The details at stake here are primarily about the beating and the flogging; Jesus'suffering on the cross itself was mercifully brief, at least compared to that of most crucified prisoners.) A good rule of thumb for dealing with this question, one that Mel Gibson has not used well, is to go as far as the Scriptures suggest that we go, but no further.

Our four Gospels tell us a lot of different things, and not just one thing, about the pain that our Lord endured for our sake. Just what some of these things are will be the subject of the next column. To anticipate the conclusion a little: learning more about them will make the question with which the previous paragraph began even more pressing and even less easily resolved.

The Methodists, the Anglicans, and the Gays

Just when things were going well in the current Methodist-Anglican dialogue, New Hampshire Episcopalians elected a gay man their bishop. So much for achieving "full communion" between our denominations. But then again…

The break-down of these talks illustrates well the polarized context in which serious theological conversation must be carried on these days. Inquiry, exploration, and re-consideration are luxuries from a by-gone era. Now, the name of the game is being right rather than being wrong, choosing up sides, and flaying your opponents without mercy.

While traditionalist Episcopalians are setting up a separatist-looking Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, their Methodist counterparts are stepping back from supporting closeness with the Episcopal Church in America until its leaders get their heads on straight about gay-lesbian relationships. Whatever happened to "Come and let us reason together"? It wasn't just Isaiah's invitation; it was God's. (Personally, I doubt that the prophet would have been up to the task all by himself.)

For United Methodists, the new issue emerging is the issue of which Episcopal Church is it with which we should seek full communion. (Not merger, of course --- creating a "super-church" has been off the agenda of most ecumenical dialogues for decades.) "Network" Anglicans say that their gay-supporting fellow members have sundered the historic unity of the Anglican Church, and only those who reject gay relationships have the right to consider themselves members of the true body of Christ. Traditionalist Methodists seem to be looking at things this way, too, abhorring even the thought of hob-nobbing with the doctrinally impure.

One noted Methodist theologian, a former colleague of mine whom I much admire, recently jumped into the discussion by pronouncing, in effect, that the truths of the Scriptures trump all proposals for church unity. Another way of putting his point is that resolving theological differences by contradicting the plain meaning of the Bible is always a no-no. And so, the gay bishop, and all who support him, must go. All of a sudden, we are looking at the Scripture principle in its most doctrinaire form: the Bible is no longer the primary source of doctrinal unity; it must be recognized as the only source.

If only things were this simple. For one thing, the unity of the earliest Christian communities was achieved in spite of one body of Scripture (The Torah) and in advance of the other. (We didn't have an official New Testament canon until the fourth century.) As a matter of fact, the decisions about which writings would be included in that canon were based upon a writing's conformity to an understanding of the Christian message forged long before even the possibility of a Christian canon was seriously entertained.

While our Anglican brothers and sisters are sorting out which of their fellow Christians do and do not represent their tradition at its finest, Methodists might well give some more thought to which Scriptures they particularly have in mind when spreading scriptural holiness all over the place. When sexuality is the issue, I for one have in mind, to begin with, how Jesus talked with the Samaritan woman (John 4:7:-29). It didn't seem to bug him all that much that she had left a trail of husbands in her wake or that she was living with a guy to whom she was not married at all.

Most probably, Paul did intend to say some nasty things about gays. But he also revealed what most of us would deem a rather dismal attitude toward marriage in particular and sex in general: better to be married than burn with desire. (1 Corinthians: 7:9) I keep wondering how this fits into the slogan that has passed for moral instruction in the United Methodist Church for decades now: chastity in singleness. If Paul is right, we had better not trust ourselves, our spouses, or our kids to unmarried ministers. As he reminded his congregation self-righteously, very few people can live as chastely as he did.

And then there is the story of the woman taken in adultery. (Nobody knows for sure where it really goes in John's Gospel; the REB adds it at the end, like an appendix.) Decorum dictates that we put the emphasis on the last verse, and remind each other that Jesus told the woman not to sin anymore. But the heart of the passage is our Lord's telling us to ratchet down our eagerness to pass judgment on others and to quit ignoring our own sins.

Scriptural truth OR church unity? This is surely one of the most devious and destructive dichotomies ever devised. Change the "or" to an "and," though, and we can get somewhere.