Krister Stendahl and Amy-Jill Levine on The Passion

Thanks to Gail Dawson for this link to an article that quotes Krister Stendahl and Amy-Jill Levine extensively. It is from the Episcopal News Service and located on the Worldwide Faith News and it focuses on a "Forum for Inter-Religious Understanding" held at Rhode Island on 18 February:

Rhode Islanders consider The Passion
by Andrew Wetmore

Levine referred to her presence on what is usually called the "ad hoc committee" (though not here); it's worth quoting this line because of previous blog entries on it:

Levine said she had taken part in an ecumenical review committee that looked at the film script with Gibson's knowledge.

The comments quoted are all worth reading, including this:

Offering some advice for those who will see the Gibson movie, Levine said, "When you sit in the theatre and watch this story, picture my 13-year-old son on one side of you and my neighbor from down the street, who survived the Holocaust, on the other side. Try to see what they would see."

Concluding, Levine said, "This move is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is that Jews and Christians do not really know each other. They need to."

And from Stendahl's comments:

It was not until after World War II and the Second Vatican Council, Stendahl said, that "Christians began to learn how the things we say sound in the ears of the Jews. We have a new situation which calls upon us to make new attempts to help one another against the undesirable side effects of our devotion. The historical record is shocking."

The cross, he said, is a symbol of faith and hope for Christians. "But the Cross reminds Arabs of the Crusades. The Cross reminds the Jews of the Crusades and the pogroms (massacres). Historically, most attacks on the Jews in Europe took place in Holy Week, after the people in church heard the Passion narrative."

Stendahl suggested that, to live together, we have to practice three principles of communal living:

1. "Let the Other define herself. 75% of what our tradition says of another tradition is bearing false witness."

2. "Compare equal to equal. We all have our extremists and nuts. Don't compare ideal Christianity with the actual or distorted form of the Other."

3. "We will never have good relations without an element of holy envy. Find something in the Other that is beautiful and meaningful and that tells you something about God. You are not called upon to absorb it or to pass judgment on it."

Like many others, including Crossan, Stendahl sees the violence in the film as "pornographic":

"Violence is pornographic. I've always thought the suffering of Christ and the shout 'why have you forsaken me?' is the pain of the martyr-the pain of wondering was it all in vain, had it all been wrong. That's where the deep suffering is, not in the physical abuse." The way in which the movie describes the Passion, he continued, "is a celebration of suffering and death instead of a celebration of life and of the triumphal resurrection."

As I have commented before, one of the enormous effects for good that this film is having is that it is providing an opportunity for Biblical scholars to communicate to a broader public than usual. People are interested in what they are saying. Some people, who have not previously been exposed to it, are asking to hear the kind of discussion that has been going on in the academy for the last generation.