INDIANAPOLIS — The most important stretch of the liturgical calendar begins tomorrow for many Christians, and throughout America, this year’s observances of Holy Week will feel more somber than usual.
Actor/director Mel Gibson’s blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ” is prompting Christians to consider Jesus’ suffering as they recall his entry into Jerusalem at Palm Sunday services, mark the Crucifixion on Good Friday and celebrate Easter a week from tomorrow.
“It’s given me a whole other perspective on the season,” said Dr. Jill Burns, a 46-year-old dentist from Indianapolis.
A member of Geist Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which — like other congregations across the country — built its Lenten programs around the Gibson film, Dr. Burns said her Protestant upbringing put little emphasis on the events at Golgotha. But this year is different.
“I’m taking this much more personally,” said Dr. Burns, who saw the Gibson film with her two teenage sons. “I am preparing myself for the agony of Good Friday.”
Mr. Gibson has said his film is a deeply personal meditation on Christ’s last hours and the sacrifice of his life, through which Christians believe they are reconciled with God despite their sinfulness.
While a substantial number of critics have said Mr. Gibson’s devotion crosses into gratuitous gore and cruelty, many Christian viewers disagree, and the film has undoubtedly put the Crucifixion front and center for Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Protestants of all types.
“The one thing Mel has done for us is he’s reminded us of what [Jesus] did for us on the cross,” said the Rev. Elmer Goodeill, an evangelical minister in Centralia, Wash. “He has reminded us of the passion and love that Jesus Christ had for us, to go through the humiliation, the whipping.”
“The Passion” also has sparked one of the most fervent, broad-based evangelistic periods in recent U.S. history, with this week as the natural climax. The movie has inspired Bible studies, sermon series and other teaching techniques at churches spanning the theological spectrum.
The groundwork for such a campaign began well before the film’s opening on Ash Wednesday.
Mr. Gibson held advance screenings for evangelicals and like-minded conservatives, and the movie was promoted through Web sites such as www.thepassionoutreach.com. Congregations invited unchurched neighbors to watch the movie with them. Study guides and other movie-related books have filled Christian bookstore shelves.
Geist Christian scheduled two private screenings for 900 members and guests. It designed its entire Lenten program around the film, encouraging members to write essays on Jesus and using sermons to examine such themes as Christ the teacher, social prophet and suffering servant.
“When people watched ’The Passion of the Christ,’ they would have questions. I wanted to create an environment in the church where their questions would be answered,” said the Rev. Randy Spleth, senior minister of the 2,300-member church.
Another component of the Lenten program was a film festival that presented alternative cinematic images of Jesus, in movies such as “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and “Godspell.”
“We wanted to create an opportunity for people to see it [’The Passion’] in that context — just one viewpoint of who Jesus was. The movie is a devotional piece: Gibson’s artistic perspective on the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ,” Mr. Spleth said. “You can turn a prism and see other colors.”
On a recent Sunday evening, while Geist bustled with classes, meetings and youth activities, about 25 people gathered to watch “The Last Temptation of Christ,” the Martin Scorsese film in which Satan tempts Jesus to come down from the cross and live out a fully human life. Its nudity and exploration of Jesus’ sexuality met pickets during its 1988 release, and many cinemas wouldn’t show it.
“In some ways, this film is a litmus test,” the Rev. Edward McNulty, a Presbyterian minister and film critic, told participants before showing the movie on a screen above the altar in Geist’s round, modern sanctuary. “Can we have a Jesus who was tempted in every way?”
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