The paragraph below is taken from an advance review of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ by Brian Godawa. You can find the whole review on the Chalcedon website.
We live in a world in the grip of postmodernism with its negation of reason, language, and discourse. People are bored with sermonizing and preachiness, especially in the arts. They just won’t listen to reason. They want to experience your metanarrative, not mentally process it with the questionable faculties of “logocentric” rationality. Make no mistake, this postmodern prejudice is imbalanced, fallacious, and spiritually destructive. But like Paul identifying to a certain extent with pagan philosophers on Mars Hill, so The Passion of the Christ meets the postmodern challenge with a legitimate experience of Christ (dramatic and emotional, though not irrational). The story is presented through strong images and minimal dialogue that will transcend culture and denomination alike. That’s the power of image. It may be the only movie about Jesus that most GenX or GenY postmodern young people will ever consider watching.
Do you think that the film will help or hinder the development of a usable theology for the emerging church? Godawa’s comments focus on the effectiveness of the medium for a postmodern audience - but what about the message? Does the emerging church really know how to handle the reality of Christ’s suffering and death? By all accounts it’s an unremittingly violent film (I can’t see my wife going to watch it). Is that a problem? And what about all those evangelical churches in the US block-booking seats? Are they in for a shock?
I also wonder what people think of Godawa’s contention that the postmodern prejudice against logocentric rationality is ‘imbalanced, fallacious, and spiritually destructive’.
logocentric rationality was never much good anyway
I think it would be going a bit too far to say that postmodernism’s reaction against logocentric rationality was spiritually destructive. There’s an argument to say that’s it’s unhelpful (although I wouldn’t particularly agree with that argument) but I think that logocentric rationality has had it coming for decades, and it damn well better get used to not being top dog anymore. If anything, it was arrogant of modernist to believe that they had found the one truly correct meta-narrative, especially when that meta-narrative contradicted other people’s experiences. I have never felt that postmodernism was denying the existence of a meta-narrative, it was always just being realistic about ever finding it. Hence the need to experience, rather than understand the meta-narratives that others put forward. It’s negation of reason, language and discourse was in recognition that you cannot evaporate off experience to arrive at a purer truth, instead the purest form of truth is the experiential.
On another point raised, I was comforted to hear that no epilogue will be placed at the end of the film to explain the meaning of what has happened. I am looking forward to the water cooler debates about what the film means. I think that watching the reactions of non-christains to this film will give the emerging church years worth of material to chew over.
The experience is beneficial
Andrew, do you have any concerns that the film will hinder the development of usuable theology? “The Passion” can only benefit the emerging church. Struggling with the reality of Christ’s suffering and death should be the end goal of the church’s dynamic. Without the knowledge of what Christ went though for your salvation, a seeking individual cannot possibly become a part of the story of the Church. The violence of the film, while shocking, is historical. It’s a shame that people are shielded from the details of Christ’s Passion. Until individuals learn to adore the crucified Christ, their Baptism and forgiveness are absolutely hollow. How does one worship the Christ without knowing the events for which He lived? Is it not the goal of the Church to share with the local community the sacrificial love of God in Christ?