The 2004 release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was an instant hot button for American culture. Its release was marked by strong opinions, controversy, and extended discussion as a significance sign of the times. For Evangelicals and Secularists these were times of war. Not a war of flesh and blood, but an opportunity to advance their own values and diminish their opponents’. These culture wars were the canvas upon which the success of The Passion was painted and Gibson, like a master painter, knew just which brushes to use in order to make a masterpiece. The Passion became fresh ground for a brand new battle in this war. Gibson gave Evangelicals a long-awaited opportunity to tell their story to a society dominated by secular films that is used to telling only its own stories. Evangelicals rose to champion Gibson’s film despite their own value differences with the film.
Evangelicals Find an Unlikely Ally in Catholicism
The sort of value differences that Evangelicals might normally have with a Catholic telling of the crucifixion would usually be considered foundational differences between the ideological commitments of Evangelical Protestants and Catholics. Leslie E. Smith explains that, “Because Evangelicals adhere strictly to the biblical text and believe that Christians are saved exclusively through an individual’s personal faith in Jesus, they do not adhere to ‘tradition’ in the Roman Catholic understanding of the term…” The Passion portrays a very Catholic worldview as it relates to tradition, redemption, and theology. Christianity Today writes that, “Evangelicals have not found that [Catholic theology in The Passion] a problem because, overall, the theology of the film articulates very powerful themes that have been important to all classical Christians.” The film focuses on the Gospel, which is the foundation for all classical Christian’s faith, taking artistic license only when scripture is unclear and leaving traditional Catholic theology ambiguous.
Catholics and Evangelicals worship the same God but approach their worship from different angles. For example, consider the way in which each group customarily portrays Jesus. Catholics have traditionally focused on the realism of his death, with grotesque images of him still hanging on the cross and pictures of his bloody sacrifice. Evangelicals traditionally focus on the meeker side of Jesus, displaying crosses with Christ removed and pictures of a clean, Caucasian Jesus tending his flock or having children sit upon his lap. Gibson, who in many ways is a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, uses strong graphic images to tell of Jesus’ death in The Passion. Traditionally such violent images in cinema made Evangelicals wary of showing support. Romanowski observes in Eyes Wide Open: “The Passion has shown that Christian audiences may not mind sitting though a violent, bloody movie if there is a spiritual message of inspiration.” The violent spiritual message that The Passion told resonated with Evangelicals as a message that needed to be heard and believed by all and to Gibson, Hollywood film seemed just the way to give validity to the message that Christians have struggled to promote for the last 1500 years.
A Never-Ending War
It is important to understand the long, tumultuous historical struggle between the church culture and secular culture. For the sake of space, a brief survey will suffice. In the pre-modern period, the church was both popular culture and religious culture. This means that all art, music, literature, science, education, and religious truth proceeded from the church. There was no dichotomy of secular culture vs. religious culture; they were one and the same. Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin were the first to break away from the universal church of Catholicism and begin their own individual Churches, placing the bible in the hands of the individual and preaching a pious, personal faith in God. This laid the groundwork for the Modern period, which was distinctly individualistic and rationalistic. Popular culture was severed from Church culture, and the two have been vying for the eyes and ears of popular culture ever since. Although this shift took place in all types of popular art, Terry Lindvall argues that none were as controversial as theater (for the modern period) and it’s post-modern successor, film.
Terry Lindvall, in his book Sanctuary Cinema, explains the roots of the troubled relations between Christian faith and theater, describing them as having foundations all the way back in the first century with Greek and Roman forms of drama. Theater was seen as a house of idolatry and immorality. Its actors were believed to be creatures of the Devil who led viewers to partake in needless immorality. In this way, the early Church secluded itself from the theater and its actors, sending them to the fringes of the religious community. In so doing, they relinquished the eyes and ears of popular culture to the secular. Their rejection led them to a critical discourse that functioned on a moral level, but which never engaged the art outside of a moral critique. A reformation of the theater did not occur until around the twelfth century led by Benedictine abbess Hildegaard von Bingen. Her convent of nuns began to use dramas as liturgical plays. These plays sought to teach theology and morality to illiterate people. Bingen’s use of drama began an ensuing Church drama era (1350 to 1575) where the church took control of both religious and vernacular plays that taught biblical themes and stories. The Protestant Reformation in the 1600’s led to a Puritan parliament, which made the decision to prohibit all stage plays. In a way similar to the one thousand years previous, the Church forfeited the eyes and ears of popular culture back to the secular once again.
Post-Modern America: Same Battle Different Media
The culture wars of past generations were founded on different media, but the same battles rage on in our post-modern, American context. It has been said that film is the new religion. In 2003, $9.3 billion was spent in the United States in box-office sales. The movie theater, in many ways, functions much like the cathedral of the Middle Ages. Johnston points out that the cinema and the church both offer life-orienting images, answering questions like, “who are you, where do you come from, and what should you do.” Both the Church and film seek to communicate their values to the culture at large. The ancient pubic speaker Cicero defined three categories that are vital for all communication: instructing, delighting, and persuading. We will use these three categories to compare how Hollywood film has traditionally communicated their values while ignoring the values of Evangelical Christians.
Hollywood is characterized by a melodramatic style of storytelling. Melodrama could be defined as an exploitation of extremes. It features extreme emotionalism, expression, situations, and actions. Melodrama then takes these extremes and plots them against each other, pleasing audiences by catering to their desires. We see this dynamic in common themes like good winning over evil, the hero getting the girl (usually in the sack), the individual saving the world, or possibly all three at once! Hollywood’s use of the melodrama instructs, delights, and persuades its audience toward its values. Hollywood instructs its audiences in immorality, delights its audiences by affirming culture, and persuades its audiences to a relativistic worldview. Romanowski examines Hollywood’s use of both sex and violence and the ways in which it instructs them in an unrealistic way of thinking. For example, real sex is never the same as Hollywood sex. Similarly, violence never solves the problem as it does in Hollywood films. So why then does Hollywood instruct towards immorality? I believe it does so to delight the audience in confirming what popular culture says feels good. Multi-orgasmic sex and revengeful violence at first glance promises to feel good, but what Hollywood melodrama does not often consider are the consequences of these hedonistic actions. Finally, because the Hollywood melodrama instructs and delights in a way that confirms culture it must persuade toward a relativistic worldview in which the individual is most important. Hollywood films preach that, “The individual is the final authority for right living and appropriate worship.” Evangelical Christians today, like their historical predecessors, feared that if their members saw and heard this worldview communicated well they might be persuaded to a life of immorality. Consequently, they were told to abstain from such films for the sake of their souls.
The Hollywood melodrama communicates the antithesis of Evangelical Christian values, which is essentially this: instructing in morality, delighting in redemptive narrative, and persuading individuals to personal relationship with Jesus Christ (salvation). Out of fear for their souls and their values, Evangelicals adopt a discourse of criticizing, blaming, and rejecting films that do not share their own values. A Christianity Today author said it this way, “Christians are called to be countercultural, a force for moral change in a sinful world. But if we surrender that role, we should be forewarned: If we stop attempting to change culture, the culture will already have changed us.” This quote is helpful in explaining the discontentment that Evangelicals feel about what they believe to be the disintegration of morality and biblical values. It also indicates that they see their role as cultural crusaders who are called to overtake popular culture with their message of salvation, morality, and piousness.
It was into these popular, secular, and evangelical cultural contexts that The Passion of the Christ was introduced. Evangelicals saw the film as, “The best evangelism opportunity in 2000 years,” selling out theaters to take full advantage of the opportunity to promote their values to a secularly owned popular culture. The Passion functioned as the battle horn upon which Evangelicals rallied for the eyes and ears of the popular culture while the secular attempted to hold their ground.
Battle Ground Passion
Entertainment weekly named The Passion of the Christ the most controversial film of all time. Steven J. Nicolas observes in his book, Jesus, Made in America, “the ruckus was not being raised by the religious right or the stalwarts of evangelicalism. Instead, the religious conservatives were buying tickets by the gross and renting out whole theaters for evangelistic outreaches.” For Evangelicals, Gibson’s film was a way to communicate and give legitimacy to their values, which had largely been ignored by popular Hollywood culture. Again, these values are to instruct in morality, delight in redemptive narrative, and persuade unto salvation—and that that is precisely what they believed The Passion could do.
Evangelicals seized this opportunity to expose a large secular audience to the story that is foundational to evangelical’s faith and values. Evangelicals rely on an experience with Christ in order to produce life-transformation, and they saw this film as way to introduce their belief in morality to a society that had abandon it. They believe that the emotional experience of the cross demands a changed life that is lived out by a moral dedication to Christ. Even the songs they sing express this moral dedication—one song that describes the death of Christ says, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” Relevant magazine, a trendy evangelical periodical, published a story of one person’s reflection on The Passion, telling how Gibson’s film moved him emotionally to brokenness as he fully comprehended what it meant for Christ to die for his sins. Evangelicals jumped on the consumer bandwagon in order to try to bring this experience to as many people as possible. In the spirit of evangelism, followers were encouraged to buy passion T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, and ball caps in order to give them to their non-Christian friends in hopes that they might experience The Passion. Even workbooks and journals were produced to help Evangelical Christians discuss the film’s significance as an evangelistic tool. They believe that once one truly experiences what Christ did on the cross, they will be fully persuaded to pious morality.
Evangelical Christians generally delight in the redemptive narrative told in the Gospels. For them, this story is a reason to celebrate because it highlights their new life—completely different from the old one they used to live. Thus, Evangelicals supported the redemptive narrative retold in The Passion’s story in order to stand up for their belief in Christ as the redeemer of the world. The evangelical viewer delights in the story of Christ, celebrating the fact that he himself has been redeemed by the events in the story being told. One reviewer of the film said, “The rest of us, however, should see The Passion every year for the rest of our lives—lest we take it for granted, lest we forget.” This is the value that Evangelicals place on the redemptive power of the Gospel story. In Gibson’s film Evangelicals saw the Gospel’s redemptive narrative portrayed in a way that they hoped could redeem popular culture itself.
Using the Gospel’s redemptive narrative portrayed though the media of film, Evangelicals sought to persuade popular culture toward salvation. For Evangelicals, salvation consists in being fully convinced that the story portrayed though the Gospels is true and thus accepting Christ as one’s personal savior. The evidence of salvation is portrayed by the above values—a life of morality and delight in the redemption brought by Christ death.
Francis Schaffer, in his essay Art and the Bible, argues that all art forms serve to strengthen the worldview in which they were created, no matter what the worldview is or whether it is true or false. This is the second thing that fueled Evangelicals to promote Gibson’s film as their own. They believed that it could not only promote their values to the popular culture, but it could also give legitimacy to these values that popular culture had largely devalued. Evangelicals, up to this point, had been known for producing shoddy visual art such as The Left Behind series films. Their films were usually low budget biblical stories, which came through in poor acting, cinematography, and style. Overall, they combined to produce pitiful art that reflected poorly on their worldview. In the realm of film, they had provided no aesthetically acceptable alternatives to the works that they had so violently critiqued, and Gibson’s film gave their group a voice to promote and legitimize their values. James Dobson, a leader and voice for the Evangelical movement said it this way, “If ‘Hollywood’ producers want to make movies about Jesus, even if they stay true (as Gibson has) to the biblical ‘script,’ we should do everything we can to encourage them. What difference does it make if their past lives are morally imperfect or their doctrinal perspectives don’t completely match our own? The Word of God retains its power in spite of human motives and agendas.” Evangelicals showed that they agreed with Dobson as they stormed the theaters sending a loud message to Hollywood that said, “We will not leave popular culture to pagan values. Here are our values; we’re willing to fight for them.”
Hollywood was not without a response. They spoke up with hopes of censoring Gibson’s film by claiming the film portrayed an anti-Semitic tone. The Anti-Defamation League—the world’s most famous anti-Semitic watchdog—procured an early draft of the script and complained that The Passion would, “portray Jews as bloodthirsty, sadistic, and money-hungry enemies of Jesus.” The controversy only heated the already strained ties between the Jewish and Evangelical communities. The return-fire served to further impassion Evangelicals to push Gibson’s film toward epic status. Relevant Magazine published an article which argued that the film comes from the Gospels and its writers were originally Jewish. Gibson responded personally by explaining that the he did not intend to portray the Jewish people as those responsible for Christ’s death, but that it was all of our sins that demanded Christ’s sacrifice. Both of these responses appealed to Evangelicals’ understanding of personal responsibility for Christ’s death, and as such, they saw these claims as purely false, continuing to support Gibson as controversies arose.
Turn the Other Cheek
As we have seen the battle for popular culture has raged for nearly two thousand years as Christ followers have attempted to interact with both Christ and Culture. This struggle is embodied in the question of how to promote Christianity, and yet still live in and amongst an evil culture? The natural reaction, as we have seen above, has been to fight against culture in order to promote better values as Evangelicals did with Gibson’s film. Their mentality has traditionally been ‘give them what they deserve’. But, the Christ figure that Evangelicals so passionately fight for offers a different alternative, he says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” This is a wildly different paradigm than the one that Evangelicals have employed in their interactions with seculars. In this paradigm Christ essentially says to his followers, don’t play their game but show a better way.
What then is a better way for Evangelicals to interact with popular culture? Christ explains it by saying, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” This commission to be in but not of the world is not unfamiliar to Evangelicals, but when their response to secular culture is reevaluated, it shows them to be more ‘of the world’ than they would like to believe. For example, Evangelicals have adopted—almost explicitly—a mentality of consumerism. Evangelicals are broadly known for their personalized worship experiences, book deals, Christian pop icons, and the Contemporary Christian Music industry. These are not necessarily bad things, of course, but they all thrive from the American culture’s ideals of consumerism, which places faith in money rather than Christ. What then does being ‘in the world’ but not ‘of it’ look like?
This delicate balance requires a “both and” mentality in order to survive. By this, I mean that Evangelicals must do two things: they must be ‘in the world’ by being cultural leaders alongside both Christians and non-Christians. And they must refrain from being ‘of the world’ by developing a critical eye which leads to an embattled orientation toward culture. One without the other will always fall short of Christ’s intention for Christian culture. Christians must build houses and families, be doctors and nurses, musicians and filmmakers, artists and sculptors, and do any of the infinite other things that are essential to being ‘in the world’. When this happens, it makes room for multiple voices and perspectives, allowing open lines of communication between differing worldviews rather than enflaming warring discourse against each other. Romanowski asks his readers to try this perspective on for size, “Popular artworks can explore the heights and depths of human experience, illuminate our mundane lives, and get us to transfer artistic interpretations to the real world.” While being engaged in culture-making Evangelicals must also develop a critical eye. This is not for the purpose of judging, but for engaging. Evangelicals must make informed decisions about the art they choose to consume because some art is not beneficial. Developing a critical eye then allows Evangelicals to engage the culture on a deeper level than a melodramatic ‘good or bad’, ‘right or wrong’, ‘support or reject’ level. When Evangelicals stop fighting for control and rather turn the other cheek to show a better way, their values will be displayed for all to see in a greater way than even The Passion of the Christ can portray. For the church, it is this dynamic that allows faith in Christ, rather than the works of humans, to be the transformer of popular culture.
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