"Why am I disturbed that Mel Gibson is making a movie on the passion of Christ, and the entire church world seems to have jumped on his coattails? For one....Scripture states that “no immoral or impure person... has an inheritance in the kingdom of [Messiah] and [Elohim].” Mel Gibson is an immoral and impure person. In the year 2000 he starred in the movie “What Women Want” where he played a character named Nick whose goal in life was to bed all the women his lustful heart desired . . . . To say that this movie is debauched and raunchy is to be very sparing. It is filled with an incredible amount of filth and Mel Gibson is right at the heart of all of it . . . . The Scripture above also states that “there must be no filthiness and silly talk, and coarse jesting, which are not fitting . . . . ” This is exactly the kind of talk that has filled nearly all of Mel Gibson’s movies, from his debut movie “Mad Max” that was released in 1979, to the Lethal Weapon series of movies, and many that are more recent..... Also, lest you should think that Gibson has had a recent religious experience and has changed his ways, you should consider that in an interview concerning the movie “The Passion of the Christ” he stated that he has dreamed of making this movie for twelve years. This means that he was thinking of making the movie about Christ while he was filming his sexually debauched film “What Women Want”, and also while he was filling his mouth with profanity in the making of a dozen other movies during this time. . . . .

 

"The legacy of Mel Gibson has been sexual immorality, profanity, coarse jesting, extreme violence and vigilantism. All of these things have been brought into the homes of America and the nations of the world and have borne their foul fruit. These are not the works of the redeemed of [Yahweh]. These are the works of Satan. The wise saint should then be extremely wary when a chief agent of Satan suddenly is seeking to cast himself as an evangelist of the kingdom of Light . . . . do not be deceived, Mel Gibson has been a tool of Satan for one purpose, and that is to spread Satan’s own violent nature and make men, women and children everywhere less sensitive to acts of cruelty and physical violence. The leopard has not changed its spots. . . . . We have the Scriptures, and we have the Spirit of [Elohim], which is something that Mel Gibson does not have (One of the fruits of the Spirit is gentleness, and the Spirit of [Elohim] is peaceable and pure. These are qualities lacking in all of Gibson’s movies.) We shall know them by their fruit."  (http://heart4god.8k.com/id421.htm)

"We don't consider [Gibson] in any way knowledgable about the truth of the Messiah", one subscriber stated, "or else why would he still belong to the counterfeit church?  This is a movie...a message...from the counterfeit church, the anti-messiah, in our opinion, so why would we partake [of] it?..... We, personally, have a deep suspicion that somehow, this may be a tool used by the anti-messiah to twist people's thinking about the truth.  The 'enemy' uses 99% of the truth to deceive.  It is our opinion and we believe it is proved out historically, that he has used the 'church' to further his deception and destruction of mankind.  After all, we are warned in the Scriptures, that his angels, the demons, disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness...... We also know from Scripture that the 'whole world is deceived by satan', so that would include this worldly movie....."

In one email, a reader stated that they were "a bit shocked by the reaction [of many] brethren to the movie...a seemingly wholehearted endorsement of it."  "At the same time", they said, "we can't and don't condemn anybody's opinion because maybe we are wrong.  The Scriptures say the Word does not come back void...so there might be a remnant of truth in it that may reach some unbeliever and turn them to HIM.  After all, most of us came out of [the] counterfeit system, whether it was the mother church or her harlot daughters, the protestants.  Whatever is going on here, with this movie and the impact it is apparently making on the public...it is meaningful in some way...which we may only see clearly as time progresses."

A subscriber informs me that "Mel Gibson HAS come out publicly and said that he was not the least bit anti-Semitic and that he loved the Jewish people.  In fact Mary in the Movie is a Jew who Mel consulted with daily to try to portray the Jewish religion in an honest light without offending them the best he could."

"Let's briefly consider Ms. Morenstern's words as quoted in the trailer on the official movie website, those being that "she did her best film work prior to the Passion of the Christ in...The Oak Tree (1992) and Witman fiuk (Witman Brothers) (1997)". According to a press release from the International Film Festival at Rotterdam, Witman fiuk is "a kind of Freudian case-study in the land of Dracula".  "Their (the two brothers') cold mother (played by Maia Morgenstern) is hardly affected by the death of her husband and she soon has a lover. The boys are meanwhile obsessed by the death. They pay nocturnal visits to their father's grave and start to dissect animals. At school, their rather strange behaviour leads to reprisals by other pupils. When the elder brother Janos meets the pretty young prostitute Iren, she becomes the new object of obsession." Is this the "best film work" that groomed Morgenstern for her role as the mother of Jesus Christ? One cringes at the thought!"  (The Poisoned Passion Fruit Of Mel Gibson, http://heart4god.8k.com/id423.htm) 

"The problem is one of context. The Jewish characters (apart from Jesus and his disciples) are continually angry at Jesus, but we are not told of their reasons in a way we can understand. A thorough reading of the Gospels would provide that context, but the film, concentrating on the final 12 hours of Jesus' ministry only gives us brief flashbacks to the [preceding] 3 years of his public life. A reading of the Gospels would also show us other things. It would show us that the chief priests and the elders were responsible for the whole sorry episode, for their own reasons (Matthew 26:3-4, Matthew 27:20), and it was their manipulation of the Jewish crowd that gives the impression that all the Jews present were after his blood. We are not shown that in the film, instead we were shown the Jewish people mocking him, pushing him, pelting him with stones and demanding his death, right up to Golgotha. Satan, a curiously androgynous character, makes an appearance at strategic points throughout the film, but it always seemed to be among the Jewish characters, rather than the Roman ones. It brings to mind the words in John 8:44, about "belonging [to] your father, the devil". Although this quote was clearly intended for the Jewish leadership, the inclusion of this scene acts to re-inforce the negative view of Jews in general. When Jesus says to Pilate, "the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin", He was clearly referring to Judas, but, instead we cut to the faces of the Jewish leaders, implying who the film-makers really hold responsible for the deeds of that day. In fact the only Jewish characters (apart from John and the Marys) who show any sympathy were some women, mostly dressed suspiciously in black, with a curious resemblance to Catholic nuns!" (www.saltshakers.com/passion.htm)

"Mel Gibson said that he wanted to make the movie as shocking as possible. He made it so gruesome in it's depictions of cruelty and violence that the rating board gave it an "R" rating. These secular people deemed it to be dangerous for children under the age of 17 to view it. A writer for Newsweek called it "The Gospel according to the Marquis de Sade", and his judgment was that no child should view it. Roger Ebert, the famous movie critic, said it is the most violent movie he has ever watched."  (http://heart4god.8k.com/id423.htm)

"The one thing I really and truly did not appreciate occurred at the ending of the movie; as Jesus rose from his seat at the end of the crypt stone near the burial cloths and as He began to walk away, the camera showed his bare buttocks. Now, I could have gone my entire life without seeing "Jesus'" bare buttocks! That scene was the very last thing you saw before the credits began to come up.  Carefully consider this fact: that depiction was totally unnecessary to this film! The Gospels do not record that Jesus left the tomb naked; Sister Anne Emmerich did not see in her "visions" that Jesus was naked as He left the tomb. Therefore, why would Gibson and his Jesuit script writer concoct such an ending? Since Gibson reportedly spent $50 million of his own money to make this film and get it distributed, and since he is a proven professional screen director, you know that he paid attention to every detail, no matter how minute. You know that he knew this film was going to end on Jesus' bare bottom, so that must have been the plan."  (The Roman Antichrist In The Passion - http://heart4god.8k.com/id424.htm)

"I would highly recommend this movie to all. I think that it was very well done. The movie, as all works of men, have some errors in it. However these error are very small and insignificant to the movie. Every other movie that I have seen that deals with this subject, I have recommended that people not see because of the gross inaccuracies of them. This movie I highly recommend."

"Mel Gibson said that he attended Catholic mass every day of the production of this film, for he felt that he had to be "squeaky clean" to produce it. Why then did he surround himself with Internet porn stars, and choose women who have starred in sexually debauched movies, to fill the leading roles of this film?...." (http://heart4god.8k.com/id423.htm) 

Rosita Celentano (the satan of the film) seems to be bisexual, appearing in two films with shaved head and eyebrows, and some of her pornographic poses are lesbian trash. [According to Mel Gibson,] bisexuality would be appropriate for Celentano's role as Satan in 'The Passion of the Christ'..." http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1896.cfm

"This movie shows little that does not have atleast some biblical basis......There are very few such additions. The ones that are there don't negatively affect the movie."

"[The] Myth [is that] Yahweh does not want us to think about Yahshua's death, only His life. [The] truth [is that] Yahweh wrote several chapters in each of the Gospels dedicated  to describing the death of Yahshua and the brutality that He suffered. He wants us to know what He had to do to pay for our sins, so that we don't take His free gift lightly."

A reader from Michigan says:  Thanks for a good defense of truth, Matthew.  One other scripture verse that has helped me in this attack on the truth of our blessed hope of resurrected eternal life in Messiah Yahshua is I Corinthians 11:26.  I believe that eating the unleavened bread and drinking the cup of grape juice is Yahweh's Way of remembering His death..... Keep up the good work!