Don’t see Christ’s body in ‘The Passion,’ instead, be it

by James K.A. Smith (Professor of Religion at Calvin College, Michigan)

As a spiritual task for this Lenten season, I have a suggestion: Resist the temptation to go see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

But if you do resist, be prepared for strange looks.

The movie grossed $23.6 million on its opening day in 3,006 theaters, according to the Wall Street Journal. It was the fifth-biggest Wednesday debut ever, behind blockbusters such as “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”

This is due, in no small part, to the contemporary climate of the North American evangelical church, including here in Grand Rapids, as churches buy up entire viewings of the film and push the movie as an “evangelistic tool.”

So, if you decide to stay away, yours probably will be a minority view. Nevertheless, I think there are at least three good reasons for you to consider abstaining from “The Passion” craze.

First, there is a certain danger of images. My reservations about “The Passion” do not stem from a principled opposition to images in general, or even images of Christ in particular. There is a long iconic tradition in the church.

However, on a theological and aesthetic level, it is precisely this iconic tradition that motivates my opposition to Gibson’s “Passion.” Central to the marketing of the movie is what is described as the film’s “disturbing realism.” Gibson, a bit naively, has said that he wants to portray what it was really like for Christ to endure suffering for our sake.

But the iconic tradition calls into question this idea of realism. Icons of Christ are intentionally nonrepresentational. They do not try to be realistic. The whole point of an icon is to be a window that leads us through the icon to Christ himself.

Icons that try to be realistic tend to lose this window-function, and we become absorbed with the reality of the work itself. But then it is no longer an icon: It’s an idol. Because Gibson’s film is so consumed with being realistic, I think it has the potential to be an idol, not an icon.

The second problem is a confusion between viewing the body and being the Body.

I think churches latching onto “The Passion” as an evangelistic tool is a bit of a cop-out. I fear the churches’ evangelistic interest in the film as a way to view the suffering body of Christ is one more way to avoid being the Body of Christ. It’s easy to take a neighbor or a co-worker to sit in a comfy theater, see the supposed “reality” of Jesus’ sufferings and then go to Starbucks and talk about it. A bit strange, isn’t it?

The Bible says we are the ones who are sent, as the Body of the ascended Christ, to be the light for the world, not the dancing light of the silver screen or cinematic attempts to portray the “real” Jesus. Would Jesus need to come to a theater near you if we, his Body, were bearing the light?

Finally, I worry about the commercialization of “The Passion.” This hit home for me last week in the periodical room of the Grand Rapids Library. A picture from the movie on the cover of CBA Marketplace, the retail industry magazine of the Christian Booksellers Association, caught my eye. The theme of the story was “Reclaiming Easter.” This is what it said:

“While Christmas may ring up cash registers, Christianity’s greatest holiday celebration is Jesus Christ’s resurrection — Easter. This year, converging activities and events offer potential for significantly increased evangelism, outreach and store traffic.”

Indeed, after seeing a preview of the movie, the CBA president challenged Christian retailers and suppliers to be part of an industry effort to “Reclaim Easter.” In other words, this movie might help make Easter another season that makes cash registers sing.

The article urged those who claim to follow Christ to respond with such strategies as selling special jewelry and prayer-card lines and developing a special “this is what it’s all about” slogan for Easter materials.

Churches also have joined. My church is displaying promotional flyers, door-knob hangers, post cards and information about advance ticket purchases. This commercialization by the church is disturbing. As with “The Prayer of Jabez” and “The Purpose-Driven Life,” here is one more marketing phenomenon generating a cottage industry of Christian consumer products.

As we live this Lenten season, I would suggest if we want to be imitators of the Crucified One, it seems to me that we bear witness by resisting such consumerism.

So, this Lent, instead of viewing the body of Jesus on the silver screen, consider being the Body of Christ to the world. As Teresa of Avila reminded us: Christ has no body now on Earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.