xjwsforChrist

YPPUPLLEH SAID

I view them as art forms

Check out "Big Gay Musical" for another take on it lol I found it entertaining
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Love is a warm rubber puppy...

CHAPPY SAID



Yeah. Agreed. But this is a spiritual thing. Is Mel Gibson the guy to teach appreciation for the crucifixion? I wonder how much money he made from the effort?



Even now we learn a lot from the oldest movies. Lot's of culture there. I always joke that they will find a movie, like maybe Dodgeball or Talledega Nights, and figure that represented our culture. LOL

I'm in an archeology class right now, and the prof said that when we find an artifact, we can't necessarily base a lot of knowledge on it. It could have been crafted by the village idiot, or a young person learning the craft. We could conclude that the people weren't very good, at say, making projectile tips.

UGH! What if all they found was a copy of Jackass! These things weigh heavy on my mind! We have to be more careful what we offer the cosmos!

YPPUPLLEH SAID



He had the money and the means to make it. He was in a position to make his vision happen. As to whether or not he is the guy to teach appreciation, he is a man like any of us. Another voice in a sea of humanity. He may not be the poster child for a perfect person judging from his background and personal life but he had the means to do what he did. People can argue that the money used to make the movie could have been used towards other things like orphanages, helping the poor, healing the sick and so forth. There is always something else that can be done but in the end it's the choice of the person in power

I think you can find out how much money the movie made from Wikipedia
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Love is a warm rubber puppy...

YPPUPLLEH SAID



Lol that has always been one of my favorite thought experiments
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Love is a warm rubber puppy...

CHARIKLO SAID

From what I've read, my understanding is that Mel Gibson didn't make the film to teach anyone. He made it because he had to. Yes, Shelby, I believe he did feel he was told to make it by Our Lord. He is a devout Catholic, and so very conscious of inclination to sin. He felt himself to be a great sinner, and his making it was a gift, an expression of sorrow, of obeisance, of love. That's all.

Personally, I agree with some things you say, Chappy. I don't know why some see it as beneficial to watch it, other than, perhaps, that it might emphasise to those lacking imagination, the degree of suffering Christ underwent. I believe Mel also made it as an expression of sorrow and penitence for his own sin. That's my understanding.

For myself, I couldn't bring myself to watch it. I didn't go to see Schindler's Ark, either. I just can't watch graphic physical brutality, nor other kinds of pure unadulterated cruelty, because I can't bear it. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy Westerns, either, but I don't like the kind that glory in violence or other physical nastiness. Or psychological cruelty, likewise. I can't watch Silence of the Lambs.

In the Church, not just Catholic but Anglican too and maybe others, i don't know, we have a tradition called the Stations of the Cross. Around the walls of many catholic-inclined churches are depictions, stylised and formal, usually, often in a kind of blank relief, of various episodes in the crucifixion story, including the gradual progression of Christ through the trial and mockery and crowning with thorns, the scourging, the various moments carrying the cross, hanging on the cross, the spear in his side, his Death. Usually, the representations tend towards the abstract. During Lent, which starts tomorrow, on Good Friday, but also individually by some throughout the year, the practice is to follow Christ's journey through all these sad and terrible stages, pausing at each with prayer and meditation and a short reading from Scripture. It is a profound experience, unfathomably deep. ( the WT has nothing even approaching such spiritual depths.)

To me, it is just one means suggested and offered by the church to bring one closer to Christ, and even to hear his voice. No-one has to do this. There's no compulsion. It is a different experience every time and for every person.

It is just one way of gaining even some small degree of understanding of the truth of Christ's suffering and sacrifice of himself for us. If it doesn't suit a person, no problem. For some, it is an aid enabling one to hear his Voice more clearly. Silence and prayer for some are beautiful and help bring one closer to God. ( Personally, the knowledge that I so nearly turned my back on Him in succumbing to the WT and the manipulation of those in thrall to it, is something I find hard to live with and a daily sorrow, and I shall be taking that with me to Him at the Stations this year.)

For me, I do not need to see a dramatic representation of His suffering on a screen or anywhere else. For Mel, I think it was an expression of his own inner suffering, and a gift from him, very personally, to Christ. It may be said that at the end of it all was the dollar. That may be so, but we can none of us judge another, and we don't know what he DID with that dollar.

Sorry to write so much. I'm actually writing on my iPhone. After reading through the whole thread, prayerfully, I just had to.

CHAPPY SAID

Hi Char,

Yes, I'm familiar with Stations of the Cross. That doesn't strike me as the same, and I'm not judging so much as just trying to understand. It was something I used to think about a lot when I believed, but as I said, never asked the question.

So another memory came back to me, and I now know that I can blame my mother! That's right. This is Mom's fault.

When I went to Catholic school, we were all assigned to write about some aspect of Jesus's life. Yep. I got the Crucifixion! And being the psychotic, imaginative little writer that I was, I went into great graphic detail.

Then I decided that I wanted MINE to be typed up! So I asked my mom to do it in a little book form. She worked nights and told me she would do it when she got in, so I was sleeping when she got hold of it.

I got up in the morning, and she was sitting in the kitchen looking a bit depressed. I asked her what was wrong. She told me that typing the details I had written had made her cry. I was stunned, because going to a Catholic school, I was constantly exposed to these details, and frankly the constant exposure kind of hardened me to it. Then she started reading some of the details (she typed it up beautifully in a nice little booklet form).

When she read it back to me, it hit me that she was right! I had written a very graphic story about a man being tortured to death, and it was cry worthy. I never viewed it the same again.

She wasn't trying to discourage me from writing it (she would have never done that). She did type it up. She was just letting me know how it had affected her. It didn't make her or me more religious or faithful, but it was educating to look at how the story of anyone being tortured to death should have some affect on us.

I got an A. I think Mel got hold of my little booklet! Call me a lawyer!

So I guess it all comes back to mommy issues! Tender-hearted, cry at night, pet the butterflies, mommy issues.

CHARIKLO SAID



Not the same as a film, no, and as I say I didn't go to see the film; the extracts I saw were enough. If it were to be shown again....particularly in a church setting...well, i don't know. i'd have to decide at the time. But perhaps the Stations and the film spring from the same expression of penitence and sorrow, of awareness of the hugeness of the sacrifice and most of all that it was real. Such feelings, in very many people, result in love and gratitude and a firm intent to follow Christ. To that extent I'd say the film and the Stations may very well be in the same category.

I think it's worth consideration, anyway.

Mommy issues? No, I don't think it all comes down to that at all. I'd say your guessing was a bit awry there.

PSACRAMENTO SAID




I think that for some people ( some people are very visual in their understanding of things) it is important to truly understand what the Son of God GAVE UP and went THROUGH for US.
To reconcile US back to Himself and Our Father.
The sheer brutality of what happened gets downplayed by a few scratches and some blood.
That Christ went through that FOR US, willingly to show His love for Us and how worthy we are to Him, I just think that it is important.

CHARIKLO SAID

Paul,

Well said!

PSACRAMENTO SAID

To me it wasn't and emotional issue because of the brutality.
As most of you know, I served and I have seen worse ( yes, worse).

To me what got me was that He went through all that AND was the Son of God.
He gave up everything for us AND was tortured and judged BY US.
Let that sink in.
God incarnate, the judge of the universe, gave himself up for judgment by Us, the very beings He created out of love !
That is how much He loves us.
This wasn't a person dying a noble death or a criminal being punished.
This was God in the Flesh being judged, tortured and physically killed by US so that He can SAVE US.

CHARIKLO SAID

Exactly.