More On The Passion

I was just surfing around the 'Net and discovered that Phil Valentine, a Nashville radio talk show host and one of the heroes of the Income Tax Wars a couple of years ago (It was he that State Representative Marsha Blackburn called with her famous cry "Rally the troops."), has seen the Mel Gibson movie The Passion. He posted his thoughts here. Sample quote:

I've been to a lot of movies but never have I seen a picture where grown men in the audience openly sobbed. We men love to pride ourselves on being able to contain our emotions and I tried to hold out as long as I could. One particularly poignant moment, where Mary watches helplessly as Jesus struggles with the cross, brought another dimension to the story into clear focus. We often forget that Jesus was also a mother's child. That's down at a level where we, as parents, can easily relate. The exchange between mother and son at such a desperate time pierced my stiff resolve like a sword. As tears streamed down my cheeks I thought, “What if that were my son?”

I predict that this movie will be huge in terms of box office and audience impact. But it will be handled by the media merely as "controversial," as they buy into the ADL's propaganda that it is anti-Semitic. You watch. They'll minimise the force with which Christians react to it and play up the conflict with their selected grudge groups. And it'll be snubbed in the 2005 Oscars.

Coming February 25.