- Should kids watch passion of the christ movie#
- Should kids watch passion of the christ professional#
I’m using the Gospel of Matthew as that is the liturgical year.Įach reading is about a dozen verses with us reading the resurrection on Easter Sunday. I upload it to this YouTube playlist soon after. Every day during Holy Week at about 2 pm eastern, I stream a short bible reading on my Periscope.
(I respect the privacy of my family members who are far less public than I am.) The result is Bible Storytime with Fr. Since I was recording a video for three nephews and a niece, I figured I could make it public so long as I didn’t say to hello to them by name. I noticed nothing for the age of most of my nephews and nieces so I decided to help them out. The predictable answer was an emphatic no.With most people in quarantine for Holy Week, I was seeing a bunch of initiatives to help various groups to live it. To put it into context, I asked the parent if they would expose their child to the infamous ten minute torture-ear amputation scene in “Reservoir Dogs”.
But this doesn’t mean the most violent film Roger Ebert has ever seen is appropriate viewing for that ten year old. To be sure, a ten year old who has already grappled with the dystopian future of “The Hunger Games” is world’s better than a five year old who trembled upon hearing “ Franklin and the Thunderstorm” read at bedtime. The creator of that show just spoke at my church. Angel Studios is great, dry bar is hilarious as well. I was prompted to write this article because I was approached the other day by a friend who asked whether Gibson’s film would be appropriate viewing for his ten year old child this Easter. It and Passion of the Christ are two of the very few pieces of Christian media that stand out as examples of great content, not just great for Christian content. And thus we have horrifying narratives like Noah’s Ark and the destruction of Jericho transformed into skip-a-long-stories and sing-a-long-songs. (For a look at the incongruity of this see my article “ Are cataclysmic natural disasters appropriate for the children’s choir?“) Tell the stories in sanitized, age-appropriate versions. The fact that an extremely violent event is given a particular dogmatic and/or narratival interpretation in a particular religious tradition does not mean it is appropriate to expose children to that violence.Ĭhristian subculture has an interesting way of dealing with the problem. But the core assumption needs to be challenged. Rarely is the exposure this extreme, the abuse this obvious. specific dogmatic and/or narratival significance - within their tradition. That was an extreme example of a general fact: many people of particular religious conviction seem to believe that it is appropriate to expose children to extreme violence so long as that violence is given a particular kind of theological interpretation - e.g. And for the next two hours he subjected his traumatized child to the unspeakable abuse unfolding on the screen. The man just smiled broadly at me and replied “yes”.
Should kids watch passion of the christ professional#
For some perspective on just how inappropriate consider that Ebert described it as “the most violent film I have ever seen.” (And that’s spoken by somebody who has been a professional film critic since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House.) But my pleas fell on deaf ears. I pleaded with the father to remove his child. As we were sitting there waiting for the film to start a family came in and sat down in our row … including a child of about five. (For the most part, Gibson leaves the theological interpretation to the audience.) What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of.”Īs for Ebert, so for me: Gibson’s film illumined in a uniquely powerful way the blood and flesh reality of the death of Christ, if not the exact meaning of it.
Christ suffered, Christ died, Christ rose again, we were redeemed, and let’s hope we can get home in time to watch the Illinois basketball game on TV.
Should kids watch passion of the christ movie#
“For we altar boys, this was not necessarily a deep spiritual experience. The movie has been given an R rating, which means that children under the age of 17 are theoretically not allowed to attend without an adult accompanying them. As Roger Ebert observed in his fascinating review: While it would be incorrect to say I “enjoyed” the film (in what sense would one “enjoy” watching two hours of torture and murder?), the first time I saw it I was riveted and deeply moved. The second time was just after it was released in theatres. The first time was at a private screening at a church before it was released into the theatres.
0 kommentar(er)
