Let me see, the Bible: written by Jews, preserved by Jews, the apostles were Jews, and finally Christ who we believe is God in the flesh was and is a Jew, root of Jesse, lion of Judah, the seed of Abraham by which all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Anti-semitic?

Lilac, you make a really good point about the critics just naturally assuming Christians are all stupid bigots-in-waiting and all we need is to hear the Passion story to re-ignite the anti-Semitism of the idiots who call themselves Christian.
But we hear/see the Passion at least every Easter, and regular Bible readers see it much more often than that. Committed Christians have the Passion story at the forefront of their faith, ever present and ever mindful of the sacrifice our Lord made for us.
Yet nobody comes out of a Passion play or a daily devotional rabidly racist or anti-Semitic.

The historical fact is that both Jews and Greeks collaborated in the conspiracy to murder Jesus. The theological fact is that EVERYONE, regardless of race or religion, is culpable because the blame does not rest on any one person or group but on the sin of all -- including my own cracker-a*s.

Good words. (Yours, I mean, not mine.)

Mac, good point. Genuine Christianity has great respect for the Jewish people. Anti-Semitism has no place in Christianity.

Jared, thank you! You are right...we are always mindful of what Christ went through for us. Thinking of this does not make us hate anyone. In fact, just the opposite...it humbles us.

Imagine the media uproar if Christians voiced their opinions about a fundamentalist Muslim's creating a movie about Mohammed that included actual anti-Semitism.

Really, you'd think the chattering classes would bother to talk to a few Christians about their theological beliefs re: the culpability of all men in Christ's death. Not for naught sing we:

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,
That man to judge Thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,
O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee.
’Twas I, Lord, Jesus, I it was denied Thee!
I crucified Thee.

And not merely in "old stuff" -- the contemporary rock band Jars of Clay sings:

I am the only one to blame for this/ somehow it all ends up in vain/ Soaring on the wings of selfish pride, I flew too high/ And like Icharus I collide/ In a world I've tried so hard to leave behind/ To rid myself of all but love/ To give and die/ To turn away and not become/ Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves...

It never ceases to amaze and frighten me, the depth of journalists' ignorance toward theological conservatives (and evangelicals especially).

Strange - there are so many anti-semites out there these days, people in Europe, the Muslim world, etc. But in general they aren't evangelical Christians. In fact, usually evangelical Christians are accused of being too PRO Israel. I would posit that evangelicals in general have a very positive view of the nation of Israel and the jewish cause.

The clue-meter is reading 0.

Yes, there are hymns where Christians take responsibility for Jesus' death on themselves. And yes, people love to repeat that everyone is to blame for Jesus' death. The problem is that when someone makes a "historical" film depicting the death of Jesus, all this is utterly lost. We see only Jews and Romans -- no Christians -- and quite often, a greater emphasis is laid on Jews rather than Romans.

Suppose a filmmaker like Gibson took seriously the idea that Christians and everyone are responsible for Jesus' death. How could he show this? One thing he could do is give himself a cameo as a Roman soldier or other gentile who helps nail Jesus to the cross. That would be the equivalent of singing a hymn like the one mentioned above. But I doubt very much that Gibson would take such a courageous move. People would be aghast if they saw Gibson nailing Jesus to his cross and whipping him, even though it would be a theologically correct thing to do. The cheap and easy thing to do is blame Jews.

So for all the lip service about good theology, it so happens that in films and Passion plays, we see only Jews and Romans. And the historical accuracy of primarily blaming Jewish leaders can be questioned. It can be questioned whether even the Gospels consistently support this story. Here is a tidbit for you: The Greek Gospels do not say Judas betrayed Jesus. "Betray" is a mistranslation of a neutral word, having no connotation of betrayal, as most scholars now admit. Check out William Klassen's book "Judas". Or see my blogspot where I discuss all this and more (my Web site is also linked there).

You don't get the point, Leon; it's not that there were Christians as such there. The followers of Christ mostly self-identified as Jews until the destruction of Jerusalem and the Diaspora in 70 AD, I believe. The proper Christian view of Jews is that of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son; we Gentiles returned to the fold only to see the Jews rejecting Christ. We are their spiritual brothers and ought to pray for their salvation, not their deaths. It is hard to be an anti-semite and a true Christian.

While of course I disagree with Leon about the traditional Passion depiction as a cause of or symptom of anti-Semitism (you can check out our site for a recent lengthy discussion with him), I think he makes a good point about being "theologically correct."

But as an evangelical Christian, for me to be theologically correct necessitates being historically correct. And I, unlike Leon, tend to think the Gospels are accurate historical records. So not only did Judas betray Jesus (whatever the word betray "really" means, the context of the story in all gospel accounts is betrayal), some Jews conspired to murdered Jesus.

Tim ably pointed out that there were no "Christians" during Jesus' time. There were Jews and Gentiles who followed Him.
And, in a way, the historical fact that Jews and Romans collaborated in the betrayal and assassination of Jesus actually demonstrates the theological fact that all men are culpable for His death. The NT repeatedly uses the phrase "Jew and Greek" to denote inclusion of God's plan of salvation for people of all races and ethnicities. In this sense "Jew and Greek" is a contrasting inclusive phrase for "all mankind."
So the fact that Jews and Greeks both killed Jesus is a great symbol of all mankind's culpability due to UNIVERSAL sin.

I would also like to point out something a Christianity Today Weblog commentator did recently: No one even thought of anti-Semitism in regards to the Passion until the activists started bringing it up. Christians portray the Passion in various forms every year, and have for many years, and anti-Semitism is not running amok. No one I've ever heard of enters a play at Easter and emerges hating Jews.
IN FACT, evangelical Christians tend to be the biggest non-Jewish supporters of Israel and the Jewish people. Why Jews are being so adamant about crying "anti-Semitism" is really strange to me.
Good Christians don't hate Jews and most Christians don't read the Gospels in light of the traditional intepretation and end up "blaming the Jews." So I wish people would quit telling them they do.

Thanks Tim and Jared...I haven't had time to respond to Leon, but you did a much better job than I could.

Leon, what do you want Christians to do? Do you want us to bowdlerize the Gospels, which we believe to be the truth, so that they do not offend you? And religious leaders of all kinds of different faiths have done terrible things throughout history. Why is it so unthinkable that the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus' day could have done wrong?

And finally, there have been many other movies that portrayed the events in the Gospels. Why is this movie causing such an uproar? Why the demand that Gibson toss the Gospels aside and do a less "offensive" telling of the Passion story?

Suppose a filmmaker like Gibson took seriously the idea that Christians and everyone are responsible for Jesus' death. How could he show this? One thing he could do is give himself a cameo as a Roman soldier or other gentile who helps nail Jesus to the cross. That would be the equivalent of singing a hymn like the one mentioned above. But I doubt very much that Gibson would take such a courageous move.

Well, Leon, it looks like Gibson has done just that. From an article in Chronicles Magazine:

But nothing I have read about Passion suggests that Gibson is making this movie to blame anyone. I was moved by the interviews Gibson and Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Christ, gave EWTN, where they spoke of their desire to use the film to glorify Christ. Indeed Deal Hudson has written that “one of the two glimpses of Gibson in the movie is when you see his hand placing the stake on Christ’s palm—thus underlining Gibson’s own guilt, which in Christian theology he shares with all mankind, for the death of Christ.”

Emphasis mine.