The church and the Passion of the Christ …

Spencer seems to have a nice argument with himself over the question, “Is The Passion of Christ over-exposed and over-hyped?” First explaining the mindset of the Christian masses, and then refuting it with his heightened sense of awareness. The same pattern can be found in a macro sense of his article — First he becomes agitated at the excessive exposure and attention on this movie, so he responds by writing an article featuring it.

Additionally, I’m not sure how the diatribe about R-rated movies really fits. His suggestion that movies depicting rape and graphic violence have equal merit based on reality factor is insulting. To his credit, his style remains consistent — first applauding the church for ‘endorsing’ an R-rated movie, and then arguing against a ridiculous R-rated policy (that he himself contrived) a couple paragraphs later.

Unfortunately, I’m not clear what he concluded. Buried beneath all this unfocused debate are some interesting points about hypocrisy, the focus of the church, and commercialization of spirituality. Ironically, in this article the movie seems to attract attention only to then distract from the focal points. I’d like to see him write a follow-up article that focuses on these points that he only ‘flirted with’ in this article. “Come on Spence; tell us what you ‘really’ think….”