Passion of Christ
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Some say Mel Gibson's movie Passion of Christ could stir anti-Jewish feeling. I'd rather like to share a reaction I've had since boyhood to the slogan "The Jews killed Christ!"
Let's assume religious authorities 2000 years ago did get the occupying Romans to execute a radical who threatened their existing Jewish order. Not very nice by modern western standards, but how can anybody today finger the Jews?
Regimes executed dissenters - Romans did it, medieval Christians did it, Stalin on a huge scale, and countless others. Where would you start with selective indignation?
What we're meant to understand about the persecution of the provocative Jesus is that any human society would have reacted similarly. Indeed, I expect that the very Christians who want to attack Jews today (if there still are some) would be first to attack Jesus if he appeared in a modern form.
Philip O'Carroll