A Loyola Chicago prof looks at the appeal

Loyola University Chicago recently held an excellent panel discussion on The Passion. A Bible scholar critiqued the film’s historical and scriptural accuracy; a Jewish professor responded to the film’s alleged anti-Semitism; and two doctoral students in theology—an Evangelical Christian minister and a Catholic laywoman—offered their own thoughts. (He praised it, albeit with reservations, while she was very disturbed by it.) The panel was well attended by undergraduates and some neighbors from around the university. During the question period, most of the student audience voiced strong, positive reactions to the film that often seemed at odds with the critical tone of the scholarly participants. Although the panel’s conclusions seemed sound to me—that the movie is not biblically accurate, that it at least flirts with anti-Semitism, that it overindulges in violence—I wondered why the panelists’ remarks were so out of sync with the experience of most of the students. As I continued the discussion in the classroom, it was obvious that my students couldn’t understand why the criticism of the film failed to recognize that it was, in one student’s words, “a sacred event” in their lives.