Essay: For One Catholic, "Passion" Skews the Meaning of the Crucifixion
Interesting article. The most striking part of the essay is the line, "I would venture to say that neither of these women's vision of the world was changed by the film. They brought their own Jesus into the movie with them, their own religious history and their understanding of the history of the world. As, of course, did I. And so if Mr. Gibson's goal was to change hearts and minds, I can't believe he'll be successful."

It's definitely true that many will see the Jesus they want to see in the movie or they will just reject the movie. What does your own Jesus look like?

Yet we must hope and pray that even though the movie isn't perfect, that the Holy Spirit will use it to reach into people's lives. At the very least, it gets the person of Jesus face time in the New York Times.

One distrubing trend I have seen in the media in relation to this film is the practice of round table discussions. In almost every round table discussion, one of the "experts" makes a statement of the historical unreliability of the gospels. This becomes one of the presuppositions in the entire discussion. Unfortunately, none of the programs I have seen have had anyone on the panel that attempted to challenge this basic presupposition.

One man who made this comment is a writer for Newsweek. Sure he's smart. Sure he's researched the topic and come to his own conclusions. But it would be nice to have a truly qualified individual, such as a New Testament scholar share his or her thoughts on this issue. And since New Testament scholars come in so many stripes now, get a liberal and a conservative and let them talk about these issues. Don't let the guy from Newsweek shape the discussion about the historical reliability of the gospels.

Makes me wonder what other opinions on any story I'm not getting in these round table discussions.