Evangelical Clergy on Mel Gibson: Judging Not
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
It has taken a couple of weeks, but the reviews from evangelical Christian leaders about Mel Gibson's latest performance are now in.
Gibson's drunken remarks about "[expletive] Jews" being responsible for "all the wars in the world," which the actor made to a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy who pulled him over on July 28, were "hurtful and unfortunate" (James C. Dobson), "reprehensible . . . shameful" (the Rev. James Merritt) and "cause for concern" (the Rev. Ted Haggard).
But has the actor-director's intemperate speech by the side of a highway prompted any prominent evangelical leader to voice second thoughts about the portrayal of Jews in Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ"?
"Not as far as I know," said Haggard, who is president of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
"This incident is not relevant in any way to 'The Passion of the Christ,' which is one of the finest films of this era," Dobson said in a statement issued Thursday by his organization, Focus on the Family.
Before "The Passion" came out in 2004, Gibson screened it privately for select audiences, including megachurch pastors. Many members of the clergy responded enthusiastically, urging their congregations to see it and rejecting the contention of some Jewish and Roman Catholic commentators that the film perpetuated the anti-Semitic message delivered by Passion plays through the ages: that the Jews killed Jesus.
Some of those who warmly embraced the "The Passion" two years ago have defended Gibson's character since his arrest and subsequent apology. ("I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge," Gibson said in a statement released by his publicist, Alan Nierob.)
"People say things when they're intoxicated that they don't necessarily mean. And I wasn't there, I didn't hear it," said the Rev. Garry Poole, director of spiritual discovery at Willow Creek Community Church, which draws about 20,000 people to its Sunday services in South Barrington, Ill.
(There's more, here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
It has taken a couple of weeks, but the reviews from evangelical Christian leaders about Mel Gibson's latest performance are now in.
Gibson's drunken remarks about "[expletive] Jews" being responsible for "all the wars in the world," which the actor made to a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy who pulled him over on July 28, were "hurtful and unfortunate" (James C. Dobson), "reprehensible . . . shameful" (the Rev. James Merritt) and "cause for concern" (the Rev. Ted Haggard).
But has the actor-director's intemperate speech by the side of a highway prompted any prominent evangelical leader to voice second thoughts about the portrayal of Jews in Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ"?
"Not as far as I know," said Haggard, who is president of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
"This incident is not relevant in any way to 'The Passion of the Christ,' which is one of the finest films of this era," Dobson said in a statement issued Thursday by his organization, Focus on the Family.
Before "The Passion" came out in 2004, Gibson screened it privately for select audiences, including megachurch pastors. Many members of the clergy responded enthusiastically, urging their congregations to see it and rejecting the contention of some Jewish and Roman Catholic commentators that the film perpetuated the anti-Semitic message delivered by Passion plays through the ages: that the Jews killed Jesus.
Some of those who warmly embraced the "The Passion" two years ago have defended Gibson's character since his arrest and subsequent apology. ("I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge," Gibson said in a statement released by his publicist, Alan Nierob.)
"People say things when they're intoxicated that they don't necessarily mean. And I wasn't there, I didn't hear it," said the Rev. Garry Poole, director of spiritual discovery at Willow Creek Community Church, which draws about 20,000 people to its Sunday services in South Barrington, Ill.
(There's more, here.)
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