Obligatorily Passionate
With apologies to Mark Alward, I thought I would reflect on the hype surrounding Mel Gibson's Passion movie. I fully intend to see it, although I will choose carefully the people that I see it with. Today, in my bird class (How easy is it? Today's movie was about corruption in the NCAA) a group of guys sitting behind me were discussing having seen the movie the night before. They didn't come across as fundamental, evangelical Christians, so I was interested to hear, or at least over hear, their perspective of it. None commented on whether they liked it or not, although none of them complained about it.
The key moment in my eyes came when one of them threw something at the other, to which he responded, "Hey, didn't Jesus teach you anything last night?" To take that as anything more than an off-hand comment would be foolish, however, it is indicative of a deeper understanding. He was mocking the expectation to have been converted by watching it, or even to have learned something from it. None of them were offended at the attempt to convert, and nothing they said implied that it was anything less than adequately entertaining. That was certainly a good review given the surroundings (I call it my jock class because of the company I'm in during lectures).
Another church friend of mine said to me today that he won't watch it, not wanting to expose himself to that much violence. I sympathize with him, but I reluctantly told him that I am a product of my generation, and have been largely desensitized to that kind of violence. But anyway, I'll watch it, and share my review with all of you.

   [ posted by William @ 4:55 PM ]