Mel Gibson's Christ Jack Chick's Christ
MEL GIBSON: THE JACK T. CHICK OF HOLLYWOOD?
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is a blood-drenched blockbuster that Gibson says God told him to make. The movie reminded me of a Jack Chick tract writ large on the big screen. The movie depicts the last hours of Christ's life, this although the first Gospel was not written until forty years after Jesus died and so we really don't know what actually happened. That makes no difference to Mel Gibson, for it is clear that like Charlton Heston before him, Gibson is turning his back on the liberal Hollywood culture that made him rich and famous and is making a statement about who he really is and what he really believes in.
Does Gibson become the NRA's next Heston? Or does he become TBN's next Zimbalist? Where to next, Mel?
In my opinion, this movie is about Mel Gibson far more than it is about Jesus Christ. I understood the movie as a tour inside of the psyche of a man who has killed dozens of people onscreen for fame and fortune and can't deal with the violence he has spewed into the world. I saw The Passion of the Christ as being about Gibson's search for salvation by making a public act of contrition for having made Mad Max and his many other gun movies. I thought that it was Gibson who as really up on the Cross in the movie; he just hired an actor to play his part so that he could direct his own Catharsis via Crucifixion, just as do the Filipinos every year at Easter when ten men are selected to reenact the Crucifixion -- nails through the hands and all:
Would Mel Gibson take a 10-Penny nail for Christ? This man did.
Mel will not take a nail, but he will sell you his Jesus jewelry:
Nail 2
5/8" Pendant
leather/pewter
$16.99
SPCN 510-327-7972
You too can share the suffering
of Christ with "Passion Jewelry" which has been justified, er, rather
licensed by Mel Gibson. I thought Jesus owned the rights to his suffering,
but apparently Mel Gibson now owns the rights to profit from Christ's
sufferings:
http://www.sharethepassionofthechrist.com/jewelry.asp Is it me,
or is this somehow vile? Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the Temple
and yet Mel Gibson is now licensing merchandise from "His" movie. The
Passion jewelry website declares, "This
life changing movie is inspiring many people to convey their faith in
everyday ways. Make a statement of faith with these 100% lead free pewter
handcrafted designs." Well, there you go: Handcrafted pewter! I hadn't
realized it was handcrafted pewter and now I take back everything I said.
Pewter is such a humble metal that profiting from it must surely be okay
with Jesus.
Many of the men who are crucified in the Philippines at Easter do so to find forgiveness, to show their gratitude to God, or to drink of the Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson was not literally nailed to a Cross, but he did reenact the Crucifixion in a very violent way calculated to move the masses to embrace Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Never mind that hundreds of thousands of people were crucified in Roman times; it is only the Crucifixion of Christ that counted back then and now at the box office. The anonymous masses who were crucified and died that same horrible death as Jesus are forgotten nobodies, save for the two thieves who were fortunate enough to be crucified at the right time and place.
The Passion of The Christ as a corporeal filmic entity has a Trinity in which Mel Gibson is the Father, James Cavizel is the Son, and film itself is the Holy Spirit which projects itself to countless millions through movie screens and the media. The canny Gibson, who in his role as the Father brought forth his Creation from out of the darkness and void of Hollywood, has made upwards of $500,000,000 as of this writing and many in the movie business predict that he will earn upwards of $1,000,000,000 for his version of the greatest story ever told.
On sale from Reverend E. Dwayne Looper: License Plate Frames
Mel Gibson will be famous forever for making his film. Yet let us consider a man who in every way equals Gibson's evangelistic fervor to do what God told him. Here I speak of the largely unheralded hero of Christian comics-cum-tracts, Mr. Jack T. Chick who. An AOL "Christian comics" website says this of Mr. Chick:
"However despite all setbacks Jack's ministry has continued steadily for nearly forty years, becoming international in scope, with his tracts now translated into almost 100 other languages. His ministry is said to have published over 140 separate tract titles, totaling over 500 million copies sold world-wide, which thousands of people have placed on car windows, taxi seats, in telephone booths, laundromats, and public restrooms. Many people the world over claim to have come to Christ through Chick tracts (particularly This Was Your Life! - with 60 million copies in over 60 languages) and his ministry continues to receive many testimonies about the effectiveness of his material. Jack's comics were featured in the first edition of the Truth for Youth Bible with over 100,000 copies distributed. He has written books such as Smokescreens, The Next Step, and La Ultima Llamada. Copies of Chick tracts are displayed in the Smithsonian Institute as a part of American culture. Jack himself is listed in 'The Who's Who of American Comic Books.' His out-of-print tracts sell briskly on Ebay."
With 500 million copies of his Bible tracts printed in almost 100 languages, Jack T. Chick is in that rarified group of authors such as Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, the authors of the Bible, the Koran, the Gitas, and the authors of the other principal political and religious works of the world. Yet Jack T. Chick enjoys none of the fame or fortune of Gibson even though Mr. Chick has reached as vastly wider audience, especially people in the Third World who will never see The Passion of The Christ for the simple reason that unlike Chick tracts, the movie is expensive to see in a theater or to rent -- assuming one owns a television and a DVD player. Chick's goal was to produce very inexpensive tracts and deluge the world over time with his quite, hateful, and blood-filled tracts. Conversely, Gibson -- in typical Hollywood style -- is out for the big money of the opening box office weekend and then the overseas, rental, and re-issue profits.
Gibson claims he was not out to make money and didn't expect much of the movie but his words ring false because he is an extremely smart man who shrewdly created an enormous amount of profitable controversy around his movie. Gibson also courted the America Evangelicals and won them over, this despite his being a Catholic whose father believes the Holocaust never happened. Because American Evangelicals are now in the "will to power" phase of their Neitzschean conquest of American democracy, they were quick to embrace a Catholic whose father is a Jew-hater. Gibson also courted his fellow Catholics who, eager for anything to take the public's attention off the multi-billion dollar pedophile scandal in their priesthood, welcomed the film.
American Evangelical Christians worship the TBN building in Santa Ana, California.
Why? Why is there such idolatry in our land amongst God's people?
And why is Jan Crouch's hair pink and fluffy like cotton candy? Is it edible?
TBN's Paul and Jan Crouch and unidentified women seen here with God, who is wearing his favorite cowboy hat.
Normally, Evangelicals vilify Catholicism as an Antichrist church awash in pedophilia, but when a Catholic comes offering a blockbuster movie that Evangelicals can use to validate their own beliefs about Jesus and drive people back into Protestant churches, then Mel is their kind of Papist. Both Mr. Gibson and the Evangelicals are hoping that the intensity of The Passion of The Christ will compel people -- whether by fear, awe, or inspiration -- to come back into Christian churches and be saved in droves. If Mel can put put "butts in seats" in theaters as Hollywood execs like to say, it is hoped that this will translates to more "butts in pews" as ministers might say. This was certainly a savvy cross-marketing effort and a win/win for both the Catholic Gibson and the Protestants.
Jack Chick has had the same hope of getting new people into Protestant churches with his 500,000,000 + tracts, but he is not as Hollywood about it. In either case, both Mr. Gibson and Mr. Chick embrace a religion which is based on a human sacrifice. Both men Gibson vividly illustrate the bloody human sacrifice central to Christianity in their respective works and also handily remind the world that the Jews murdered Jesus. Both men also flatly declare that God told them to do what they do.
"God told me to...," is one of the most widely cited justifications for human conduct. Yet when what my God tells me to do disagrees with what God told you, I can only conclude that you are worshipping a false God and attack you for being an evil cultist. I say this because Jack T. Chick makes it clear that Mr. Gibson's Catholicism is evil as we read from the FAQ at Chick.com. My comments are in red and are not in the original quote:
Quite the opposite. In the mid-1970's, when he first began to understand what Roman Catholicism really teaches, he knew it was unscriptural. He also knew that to speak out against it would be unpopular and hurt his publishing company.
After much prayer, he made the decision that, no matter what it cost him personally, he would publish the truth that Roman Catholicism is not Christian. (Gibson decided that no matter what it cost him personally he would make his film). He did it because he loves Catholics and wants them to be saved through faith in Jesus, not trusting in religious liturgy and sacraments. He paid a price for that decision in many ways, as priests and nuns entered Christian bookstores screaming and making a scene, demanding that the store owner not stock Chick tracts. (Many Jews screamed and made a scene over Gibson's movie because he perpetuated the story that the Jews murdered Christ.) Some "Christian" media have even refused to accept advertising from Chick Publications, fearing any "controversy" that might hurt their cash flow.
But God has been faithful (as He always is) and has protected Chick Publications over the years. Jack Chick has made it clear that if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't change a thing. The letters from so many Catholics who have read Chick's anti-Catholic material and have gotten saved carry one theme: "Thank you for loving us enough to tell us the truth!" Those precious people make it all worthwhile.
Jack T. Chick -- with his 500,000,000 Christian tracts in the world -- concludes that Mel Gibson is not a Christian because Catholics are not Christians. Mel Gibson, with his famous movie and profits soaring to $500,000,000 says he is a Christian and that God told him to make the movie. Both men are passionate, but passion and truth are not the same thing -- and very passionate people can also be angry and violent, especially if they believe they are on a mission from God. Arguing that a person is passionate and therefore in touch with truth is a logical fallacy; a passionate person can be dead wrong. So the issue is not one of intense passion, but of truth. In this case, which of these men do you believe? And will you see the movie after you've already read the tract?
