After The Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences

by Shawn J. Landres (Editor), Michael Berenbaum director, Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University (Editor)

Overview

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ topped box office charts and changed the American religious conversation. The controversies it raised remain unsettled. In After The Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences, leading scholars of religion and theology ask what Gibson's film and the resulting controversy reveal about Christians, Jews, and the possibilities of interreligious dialogue in the United States. Landres and Berenbaum's collection moves beyond questions of whether or not the film was faithful to the gospels, too violent, or antisemitic and explores why the debate focused on these issues but not others. The public discussion of The Passion shed light on a wide range of American attitudes—evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish—about media and faith, politics and history, Jesus and Judaism, fundamentalism and victimhood. After The Passion Is Gone takes a unique view of vital points in Christian-Jewish relations and contemporary American religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759108141
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	11/20/2004
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	9.28(w) x 6.18(h) x 1.11(d)

About the Author

J. Shawn Landres is a research fellow at the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the University of Judaism. He co-edited Personal Knowledge and Beyond: Reshaping the Ethnography of Religion. Michael Berenbaum is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust and an Adjunct Professor of Theology at the University of Judaism. He has written and edited fifteen books, most recently A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction Part 2 Part One: The Context of The Passion 3 Introduction to Part One 4 Almost a Culture War: The Making of the Passion Controversy 5 Passionate Blogging: Interfaith Controversy and the Internet 6 Living In the World, but Not Of the World: Understanding Evangelical Support for The Passion of the Christ 7 The Passion Paradox: Signposts on the Road toward Mormon Protestantization 8 Is it Finished? The Passion of the Christ and the Fault Lines in American Christianity Part 9 Part Two: The Passion in Context 10 Introduction to Part Two 11 The Journey of the Passion Play from Medieval Piety to Contemporary Spirituality 12 The Gibson Code? 13 "But is it Art?": A Prelude to Criticism of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ 14 Antisemitism without Erasure: Sacred Texts and Their Contemporary Interpretations 15 Theologizing the Death of Jesus, Gibson's The Passion, and Christian Identity 16 Manly Pain and Motherly Love: Mel Gibson's Big Picture 17 Imago Christi: Aesthetic and Theological Issues in Jesus Films by Pasolini, Scorsese, and Gibson Part 18 Part Three: Jews and Christians: Reframing the Dialogue 19 Introduction to Part Three 20 Theological Bulimia: Christianity and Its Dejudaization 21 A March of Passion, Or, How I Came to Terms with a Film I Wasn't Supposed to Like 22 The Exposed Fault Line 23 Crucifying Jesus: Antisemitism and the Passion Story 24 Five Introspective Challenges 25 No Crucifixion = No Holocaust: Post-Holocaust Reflections on The Passion of the Christ 26 The Passionate Encounter: The Ethics of Affirming Your Faith in a Multi-Religious World 27 Reframing Difference: Evangelicals, Scripture, and the Jews 28 Afterword: The Passion of War

Editorial Reviews

Amid the astonishing abundance of public commentary on Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, this collection of essays is noteworthy for presenting a rich and varied selection of religious, historical, cultural, and artistic perspectives, thus expanding the possibilities for fruitful reflection and dialogue.

Journal of Religion & Society

After The Passion is Gone . . . 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

Journal of Religion and Popular Culture

The Passion has raised passions, some that share the peace of our prayers and faiths, some that do not. The challenge is, with the guidance of prayer and of prayerful and disciplined reasoning, to learn to separate the one from the other. After The Passion is Gone is a worthy effort to pursue this learning. Addressed broadly to a North American readership, this book is of particular use to Jews and Christians who reflect soberly and piously about both the inner light and the public consequences of their devotions.

Peter Ochs

After The Passion is Gone . . . 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.

Journal of Religion and Popular Culture - Hollis D. Phelps IV

Amid the astonishing abundance of public commentary on Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, this collection of essays is noteworthy for presenting a rich and varied selection of religious, historical, cultural, and artistic perspectives, thus expanding the possibilities for fruitful reflection and dialogue.

Journal Of Religion & Society

Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ unleashed a tsunami of commentary that revealed a great deal about our passions, our fears, and our stereotypes. Commendably, the thought-provoking essays in this volume both analyze and expand that conversation. A most worthwhile book.

Randall Balmer

After The Passion is Gone. .. 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 and Popular Culture

The Passion has raised passions, some that share the peace of our prayers and faiths, some that do not. The challenge is, with the guidance of prayer and of prayerful and disciplined reasoning, to learn to separate the one from the other. After The Passion is Gone is a worthy effort to pursue this learning. Addressed broadly to a North American readership, this book is of particular use to Jews and Christians who reflect soberly and piously about both the inner light and the public consequences of their devotions.

After The Passion is Gone . . . 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.

Amid the astonishing abundance of public commentary on Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, this collection of essays is noteworthy for presenting a rich and varied selection of religious, historical, cultural, and artistic perspectives, thus expanding the possibilities for fruitful reflection and dialogue.

Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ unleashed a tsunami of commentary that revealed a great deal about our passions, our fears, and our stereotypes. Commendably, the thought-provoking essays in this volume both analyze and expand that conversation. A most worthwhile book.

From the Publisher