The following is a letter I wrote to the editor for Tikkun Magazine after reading an online article on Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ – A plea to Christians to Respond with a Gospel of Love and Hope in place of this new fundamentalism” You can find the original article here.
Michael,
Thank you so much for your article “Gibson’s the Passionâ€. I see the mainstream media’s portrayal of this movie as an effort to create controversy between Christians and Jews, to create a story that will drive ratings, with no thoughts to the consequences. I appreciate your efforts to try to channel this energy into a message of hope.
Jesus’ teachings were radical for their time – this created a fear based fundamentalist movement among the Jews that played a role in his crucifixion. The actions of the Christian fundamentalist in their persecution of Jews came from this same fear based worldview – just as now Muslim Fundamentalism strikes out around the world in acts of terrorism. These actions of small subgroups of any faith – never represent the feelings of the masses – and I believe the real evil portrayed in the movie is fundamentalism, not Judaism.
I believe there is an important message to the crucifixion story. I believe the crucifixion represents a metaphor for the current state of the world. We are experiencing a massive rise in human population on the earth. The environment is in an apocalyptic state. At a time when we need all organized religions to be reaching out to people, we see them falling back in to fundamentalist views. The sale and trade of weapons of mass destruction represent a terrible threat to world security. People around the world are loosing their contact with nature at a time when they need it most. The media is doing nothing to enlighten people, and instead leads people into a false sense of reality. People are lost in a state of perpetual motion, just trying to get by with no time to consider what is really happening.
Yes, the world is experiencing a crucifixion on a global scale. In the same way that Jesus kept his faith through his torture and crucifixion, maintaining his love, hope and goodwill for all the people in the world, even those that tortured him, so must we. If we can maintain our faith and positive vision through these difficult times and not give in to fear and fundamentalism, the world will find itself resurrected – reborn anew. This world will be one driven by hope, not fear. A world where all the faiths work together, realizing that they offer different paths that lead to the same place. This is the world envisioned by the Tikkun community.
So let’s look beyond the surface image, and use the crucifixion story as an example of how we must act in these difficult times, rather then cast it aside as simply an example of anti-Semitism.
Thank you.
Matthew Smith