Landres, J. Shawn, and Michael Berenbaum, eds. Lanham,
MD: AltaMira Press, 2004. xiii + 348 pp., $24.95 (USD). ISBN:
0-7591-0815-3.
[1] Although J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum, editors of After The
Passion is Gone: American Religious Consequences, clearly
have reservations about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the
Christ, it is not the film itself that they find most disconcerting. What
troubles them is the way the controversy over the film’s alleged
anti-Semitism amplified cultural and religious divisions in society
by separating people into opposing factions, leaving little room
for reasonable and charitable discussion over important disagreements. The
debate, focused as it was on the film’s alleged anti-Semitism,
failed to address the larger challenges the film posed to “Christian
theology and to Christian-Jewish relations” (5). Addressing
these larger issues through “reasoned scholarly discussion” (10)
is the stated purpose of this book.
[2] Landres and Berenbaum draw together a diverse group of scholars
and religious leaders in the hope of modeling “how diverse,
conflicting, and controversial views can be presented in a context
that permits serious exchange and deep discourse” (11). The
book includes essays by critics and defenders of the film, historians,
philosophers, theologians, and many others. The individual
essays, although each is concerned with the larger questions posed
by the film, vary considerably in content, perspective, and opinion.
[3] The book is divided into three parts. The essays in Part
I, “The Context of The Passion,” discuss the
immediate cultural and religious factors that contributed to the
controversy over The Passion of the Christ. Each essay
explores a particular aspect that contributed to the controversy,
from the role the media and the internet played in fueling the debates
to the variety of Mormon and Christian responses to and understandings
of the film and its significance. What emerges from these
different essays is the sheer complexity of the controversy over
the film, a complexity that defies mere reduction to questions concerned
with anti-Semitism alone. The essays in Part II, “The
Passion in Context,” set the film in its wider cultural
and religious context, discussing it as, among other things, “a
cinematic offering, an argument about history, a spiritual form,
a theological statement, a work of art, and an expression of the
psychology of our generation” (89). By viewing The
Passion of the Christ through these lenses, the authors go beyond
simple judgments concerning the film and its content. Instead,
these essays grapple with the reasons behind the content of the
film, seeking explanations for how and why the film is the way it
is. The essays in Part III, “Jews and Christians: Reframing
the Dialogue,” build on the first two parts by focusing on
the state of Jewish-Christian relations in the aftermath of The
Passion of the Christ. The authors disagree about the
film’s contribution to constructive inter-religious dialogue,
and often raise more questions than they answer. However,
these essays generally seek to keep such dialogue open despite obvious
disagreements between Jews and Christians of all types.
[4] The book is not without its limitations. First, the essays
are short, averaging around twelve pages including endnotes. While
this makes for easy, quick reading, some of the essays do not go
into as much detail as I would have liked. Certainly, there
is always room for an author to say more on any given topic, especially
in a short essay for an edited volume. But here the limited
discussion of many key themes in the individual essays often leaves
the reader wanting more. Moreover, this lack is not made up
in other essays, a consequence of the considerable differences between
the essays. Many of the essays read like monologues on selected
themes and often do not seem to produce the dialogue the editors
intended. Second, although there are many perspectives represented
in this book, African-American scholars and theologians are absent
from the list of contributors. Also left out are voices representing
religious traditions other than Judaism and Christianity, reflecting
the view that the controversy was largely “an intramural issue” (13). Landres
and Berenbaum do acknowledge these drawbacks and hope further discussion
will extend beyond the pages of After The Passion is Gone,
but the deficiency is worth noting here.
[5] Despite these criticisms, this book remains a valuable resource
that I recommend. It will appeal and prove useful to various
audiences. The overall lack of disciplinary jargon, the lucid
explanations given to the issues addressed in the individual essays,
and the diverse perspectives from which the subject matter is engaged
make this book accessible to scholars from various fields and to
a more general readership. Students of religion and culture
will find this book particularly helpful as an example of how religion
and popular culture can engage each other from a variety of perspectives
and for showing the complexity of the relationship between the two.
Hollis D. Phelps IV
Claremont Graduate University
Claremont, CA
hollis.phelps@cgu.edu
