Online NewsHour: Art and Responsibility -- September 30, 2003: "When one's version of the truth assaults categories of people-- Jews, blacks, or Germans-- one is on very dangerous, not to say murderous, ground. And one cannot claim simply that art is neutral in intention and at the same time claim, as Gibson does, that his film was meant to 'inspire.' If you insist on having it both ways, you ought to concede that's what you're doing. The 'Wall Street Journal's' editorial pages have rhapsodized on how committed Gibson is to his religious vision. That vision derives from a conservative group of Catholics who deny the Vatican, and thus Vatican II, which repudiated the accusation that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death."

My response to this film has been suspicion of motives. I don't trust the film makers, nor those promoting the film. But they have every right to showt the film and I also denounce those who call for the film's censorship.

But I also agree that Christians should respect the history here: the complicated story of the crucifixion that varies among the gospels and in places opposes the historical scholarship; the history of anti-semitism and Passion plays with Jews dressed as devils killing a nice handsome Christian. That is all here, regardless of what Gibson says about the film.

Christians who dismiss those concerns show themselves to be historically myopic and that they lack compassion about those who have been on the negative side of the Christian movement.