Christian culture loves this movie. It is the only R-rated movie they heartily endorse.

The Passion of the Christ received support and endorsement from Billy Graham, James Dobson, Mission America Coalition, Salvation Army, Promise Keepers, National Association of Evangelicals, Campus Crusade, Focus on the Family, Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Rick Warren, Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Jerry Falwell, Max Lucado, Young Life, Tim LaHaye, Chuck Colson, Lee Strobel, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Mothers of Preschoolers, aka MOPS. (The idea that preschoolers may have watched this movie should make anyone in their right mind want to hurl.)

Roger Ebert gave it 4 out of 4 stars, and said “The movie is 126 minutes long, and I would guess that at least 100 of those minutes, maybe more, are concerned specifically and graphically with the details of the torture and death of Jesus. This is the most violent film I have ever seen.”

The film opens with Jesus being tempted in Gethsemane before his arrest. With the focus placed on Jesus’s torture and death over a 3 day period and virtually no depiction of his 33 year-long sinless insurgent upheaval, we have to wonder if this is basically a snuff film.

*This post originally aired on April 11, 2009, and warranted a repost due to Mel Gibson’s recent media kerfuffle.