It will undoubtedly convert some people to christianity and probably tip people who were on the edge. I know people who’ve seen the screener and it is a very powerful movie; never underestimate the effect media can have on us.
You’re assuming its a myth which is a very foolish mistake. Myself being agnostic of sorts can relate to your stance, but that doesn’t mean you should block out everything. Without a doubt there was a guy named Jesus who was crucified. He’s hardly the first person to be crucified and, from a purely atheistic pov, its not so far out that an extremely charismatic born-leader of his time would be crucified (especially by pissing off the locals AND romans).
I think it would be “wrong” for him to do this with the intent of making money, which it seems he isn’t. What he does with any profit is up to his own moral judgement.
Ah, but when does reimbursement for expenses end and wealth and luxury begin? Jesus walked. He rode a donkey once, per the book. He took contributions, but more or less just enough to survive. Paul, IIRC, worked as a traveling tent repairman. What would we think if these folks were dripping in gold, be carried in divans, etc.? If modern-day missionaries drove around in limos? (Not that I see Gibson living a particularly ostentatious life, for all that he is one of the world’s biggest movie stars.)
I’m not saying that Gibson is moneygrubbing or anything like it. All I’m saying is, if I were in his position, a religious man who worshipped a God who spent His life living in poverty and administering to the poor, that I would find myself with some difficult choices to make should any big money come rolling in from a movie about said Savior’s death and resurrection.
Maybe this would do better as an IMHO poll. If you were Mel Gibson, and Passion brought in millions, what would YOU do with the money?
I was more sweeping and dismissive than “unequivocal,” but I see no reason to believe that a movie which contains no new information about Jesus would be especially persuasive to non-believers. One reason I say this is because the movie is already assumes that Jesus is a divine savior without making any particular logical argument in that regard. Gibson’s tactic is to focus on the horror of Roman torture and crucifixion to elicit sympathy for his protagonist. This may indeed be moving but the fact that Jesus suffered doesn’t prove that he was a God or that his death had any more signifance than the thousands of other people who were tortured and crucified. Gibson is preaching to the choir with this movie. If you don’t think Jesus was God, then Gibson gives you no reason to think that he was and no reason to convert. There is no real argument in Gibson’s film, only a plea to sympathy. It doesn’t seem like he’s really trying that hard to make converts. It seems to me that this kind of thing only works on a spiritual level if you already believe it to begin with.
Now that I think of it, I’m not sure that Gibson really is trying to win converts so much as he’s just indulging in some self-indulgent witnessing. Either way, I don’t care if he profits from it.
“Myth” is a designation of genre, not a judgement on historicity. It’s not “without a doubt” that Jesus was real, but the circumstancial evidence is very strong. I think there was a guy named Jeshua who was crucified by the Romans, but there’s nothing particularly significant about a Jew being crucified by the Romans. It’s the stuff about Jesus being God, or dying “for our sins,” and the resurrection that turns it into myth. Even if it were true it would still be myth.
I guess this depends what you’re doing. Mel doesn’t seem to be a preacher, missionary or the like. There isn’t anything wrong with being rich, there is with not helping people.
Well okay. I am supposing you are willing to accept the proposition that making some money is permissible. You are now wanting to focus on assuming there is a line to be crossed which may transform it from the realm of permissible to impermissible. I am not so certain, at least from a biblical perspective, that luxury is denounced. IIRC, luxury is denounced only when the individual loves the luxury more than his or her creator. “You cannot love both God and money,” Jesus proclaimed and is recorded in all four Gospels. I think luxury is permitted. Additionally, missionaries are rarely seen to live in a life of luxury for no other reason than they simply do not receive enough money. I think the Christian perspective, an incorrect one I might add and one with little biblical support, is to equate luxury or wealth with sin or attribute it as a “non-christian” trait. Or, similarly, to attribute the “role” with certain qualities not necessarily biblically rooted. Such as a “dirt poor missionary” which is not so biblically oriented as much as it is a result of the fact missionaries have a very low source of income. However, I fail to find anywhere in the bible where luxury and wealth is forbidden. Indeed King David and Soloman had enormous amounts of wealth.
First of all, no bedbug is crazier than Andy Rooney. He;s been off the deep end for years.
Second,
My sense is that, whatever he originally intended to make the movie for, it’s become political, and that’s certainly what the movie’s boosters see it as. It isn’t to win coverts, it’s to rally the troops: make Christian energized and ready to fight against what both Mel and the movie’s boosters imply is a vast conspiracy of Christ hating secularism that doesn’t acknowledge what Jesus did for “us.” whatever it may have been, the movie is now being promoted as a huge PR tool, a weapon with which to stick it in the faces of the “others” that don’t get it or want to stand in the way.
That’s why, whomever you consider “responsible” for Jesus’ death, the Jews are still a great target as the paradigmatic example of the people who just “don’t get it.”
Jesus explicitly said that rich people can’t go to heaven (Matthew 19:24). He also told his disciples to travel only with the clothes on their backs to subsist only on the food and shelter of those who hosted them. He said you can’t “serve God and Mammon,” and he told at least one would be follower to “give all that you own to the poor.”
Jesus had nothing good to say about rich people, don’t kid yourself.
Your example does not depict Jesus enjoying a “luxury,” but a ritual preparation for death. Corpses were annointed with Myrrh before burial. It was sort of the equivalent of putting a toe tag on him while he was still alive. It couldn’t have been very comforting.
I’m sure you don’t need to be eductated on what the “needle’s eye” actually means. Jesus’ teachings about wealth was more along the lines that it is a distraction from what really matters, not that it prohibits vitue.
It was trying to show that being rich and having everything is a hinderer in the sense that the wealth/riches make us feel satisfied to the point that we do not feel like we need anyhting else (GOD)
So, He did not say that a rich person can’t get to Heaven.
One thing is for certain; Bob can’t take it with him when he dies; Christian philosophy, at its core (by which I mean the gist of what Jesus said as described in the Bible, not anything else) does lean towards the idea of using it for the benefit of others; this might involve giving it away, but it might not - if Bob uses the money to set up his own (profit)business as a means of providing employment for homeless people, more net ‘good’ might be done than if he simply handed it out on the streets.
Fast cars and swimming pools? Hmmm… I’ve heard a number of preachers talk to the effect that Christians should live in divine prosperity, but it always came across as a bit of an attempt to justify spending the collection plate money on their own comfort…
I can’t get the link to open, but I’ll take your word for it. It’s not central to the argument, anyway*. Certainly, the Gospels tell us that Jesus said it is very, very, very, very, very hard for the rich to get into heaven. There is nothing in any of the Gospels saying it is impossible for the rich to get into heaven.
*And since Jesus is God, surely He knew of the Quantum Tunneling effect.
If we’re talking about a real live camel and a normal needle with a normal sized eye, would you say that it is actually impossible for the one to pass through the other, or merely very, very, very, very, very hard?
I’d just like to break in and acknowledge a historical event. I think the world is about to end. At the very least, hell has frozen over: I agree with Diogenes. It makes my head hurt.
And I think Diogenes doesn’t usually take the Bible quite so literally.
Besides, what does “rich” mean?
For much of the world, it means that you have running water and a system of waste disposal. You know that you won’t go hungry today or tomorrow. You have shelter and a place for a little privacy.
Certainly if you are reading this, you are rich by the standards of most human beings.
John. The link still works for me, so I don’t know how to fix it. Basically it just debunks the common story about a “needle gate” in Jerusalem. That was medievel contrivance. There is no arcaheological or documentary evidence that any such gate ever existed.
Maybe Jesus was being hyperbolic. He probably was. Even if he was saying only that it’s very, very, very difficult, I don’t think that’s much of an endorsement of wealth.
I’ve had this discussion many times with Christians and I find it amusing that so many of them would see themselves as that exceedingly rare exception who could be both rich and “saved.”
