SUBMITTED BY Timbo

February 25, 2004 — "The Passion of the Christ" has been getting positive reviews from moviegoers, but some religious leaders who have finally seen it are not as charitable.

An interfaith panel of eight Christian and Jewish clergy members and laypeople who gathered to watch "The Passion of the Christ" on Monday night admitted they had very different expectations for it. The Greek Orthodox clergyman said he was predisposed to like it; the Methodist minister and the Roman Catholic priest were curious, but wary of its claims of Gospel authenticity; and the Jews were afraid that it would inflame anti-Semitism.

But after the showing, in a late-night discussion around a table at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, the panel members were in full agreement: they were disturbed by what they had seen. They said the movie -- which was produced, directed and largely financed by the actor Mel Gibson -- deviated in bizarre ways from the Gospel accounts, fell flat emotionally and was numbingly violent.

The Christians said they had been dismayed to see the inspiring prophet Jesus reduced to a mere victim. The Jews said they were horrified to see the Jewish high priests rendered as bloodthirsty schemers demanding Jesus' death over the protests of a sympathetic Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.

" 'The Last Samurai' gripped me more than this movie did," the Rev. Robert H. Oldershaw, pastor of St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church in the suburb of Evanston, said, referring to a Tom Cruise movie. "Mel Gibson says it's a literal interpretation. It's not. It's Mel Gibson's interpretation."

The Rev. Philip L. Blackwell, senior pastor at First United Methodist Church, said: "I found myself distanced from Jesus because of the violence. I could not identify with him."

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