Financial success and even public approval, however, do not measure moral value. In fact, the sheer numbers of people that have seen "The Passion" testify to its influence on our popular culture. It is this influence that Mel Gibson's critics fear the most. Does "The Passion" deliberately or inadvertently encourage anti-semitism? If so, what should our view of the film be, in light of our first President's admonition against bigotry and hate?
That admonition came in 1790, when President Washington was making a tour of the nation. In one notable correspondence with a Jewish congregation (concerned about its status under the new Constitution), Washington declared: "To Bigotry, No Sanction" and "To Persecution, No Assistance." It was a line Washington plagiarized from a grateful Jewish rabbi, eager for such assurance on the eve of the Bill of Rights.
According to Tina Levitan, author of First Facts in American Jewish History from 1492 to the Present, Washington's 1790 letters to Jewish congregations served collectively as an "eloquent expression and hope for religious harmony" and they "endure as indelible statements of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy."
Has Mel Gibson violated these "fundamental tenets" of our society with "The Passion of The Christ"? If so, Gibson's film is merely a popular and effective tool to communicate a larger and deeper ideology. It is therefore the ideology that one must confront with judgments of ethnic insensitivity or worse, if one objects to the content of "The Passion."
What is that ideology?
The content of Gibson's film is mostly based on the biblical account of Jesus's last twelve hours (including the controversial Gospel of Matthew). If Gibson's film is anti-semitic, then one must conclude that the Bible itself is anti-semitic.
It is, after all, the New Testament that places Jewish religious leaders at the center of Christ's crucifixion. In Matthew, for example, the Jewish crowd demands Christ's execution and accepts unto themselves and their children any judgment His blood may bring. The Gospels portray Caiaphus as a power-hungry conspirator, who sees Jesus as a threat to the established order -- an order he (Caiaphus) thrives on. (It is quite similar to how Pope Leo X viewed Martin Luther in the early 1500s).
