In a message dated 9/4/2001 10:28:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

writes:

> Subj: [CHRISTIA] New Jesus Movie: anyone know about this?

> Sender: (Practical Christian Life)

>

> There is a movie that is coming out in 2001 claiming that both Jesus and his

> disciples were gay. There is already a play that went on for a while. The

> play and movie are titled “Corpus Christi” which is Latin and translates to

> “Body of Christ”. This is sickening and revolting to all true believers!

> We can all do something! Please send this to ALL of

> your friends to sign to stop the movie from showing in America.

> Already certain areas in Europe have started to ban it from

> coming to their country and we can Stop it too! We just need a

A few years ago, a movie was produced called “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Many Christians thought it deeply offensive, and protested it. The producers defended it as a legitimate exercise of free speech as guaranteed by the Constitution, and said that those who were offended by it were missing the point of the movie. It made quite a lot of money. One professional movie critic, asked about the film, said:

“Actually, it wasn’t a very good movie, judged as art or entertainment or by any secular standard. If there had been no attempt by Christians to stop it, it would probably have gotten a minimal audience, and quietly disappeared from the theatres in less than a month, and been totally forgotten. However, the Christians made such an uproar that everyone heard of the movie, and many people figured that it must be something pretty sensational, so they went to see it. I would have written a review advising my readers not to waste their time and money on a dud, but if I had, everyone would have assumed that I must be a fundamentalist, and here in Hollywood you can’t afford to be known as a fundamentalist. Other critics I know also said privately that it was a turkey, but they couldn’t say so in public. The movie owed its success to the Christians who made it seem like a big deal by trying to shut it down.”

I remind you of the book, “Satanic Verses,” by Salman Rushdie. It was offensive to Muslims, and Iranian religious leaders declared that Rushdie ought to be assassinated. After that, the book was well known and sold fairly well. Do you know of anyone who had heard of the book before the Muslims tried to stop it? Do you know anyone who has looked at the book and thought it interesting or worth reading?

I remind you of numerous television series on which the advance word was that they were going to be very daring and very offensive. Most (not all) had something sensational in the pilot episode but largely quieted down after that. What they were after was the publicity that came with controversy before the show started.

I remind you of the movie, “Eyes Wide Shut,” starring Tom Cruse and his then wife Nicole Kidman. For weeks in advance we were told that the movie went to unprecedented lengths of sexual explicitness, but the studio took great care not to let the critics see the film before it actually opened in the theatres. The first week it was shown, the crowds were huge, but they dwindled abruptly when the word got out that the raciest scenes in the film were the minute or so that everyone had already seen in the “Preview of Coming Attractions,” and that the film itself offered neither hot sex nor an interesting story.

Arguably, the best thing Christians can do is to ignore the whole thing and leave it to flop on its own merits, or lack of them.

Yours, James Kiefer