Why I won’t be showing my youth group ‘The Passion of The Christ’ this Easter

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This morning I accidently flicked toothpaste into my eye. It was stupidly painful and more than a little humiliating. That, however, was not the reason for the toothbrush or the toothpaste – I wanted to clean my teeth! The 2004 Mel Gibson film, The Passion of The Christ – in some odd way – is much like my unfortunate brush with the toothpaste. A significant emphasis on pain and humiliation that largely loses the reason behind the story.

I first watched The Passion of The Christ alone in my brother’s room when I was seventeen. I had a pretty mature Christian faith, and I was plugged into a good youth group. The initial post-movie shock lasted me about three hours. I remember guilt, fear, gratitude, and floods of tears. After that it took over my mental processing for weeks. There were just aspects of it that I couldn’t work out or square away.

On the whole, I believed it was generally a more helpful than unhelpful experience at the time. And that’s the thing – I wouldn’t say that The Passion of The Christ is a bad film, or even – on the whole – unhelpful for a lot of Christians. There are some very precious parts of the film that were handled with real grace and care. The question today, however, is whether we should show it at our youth clubs to groups of 11–18-year-olds? And linked to that question – does it honestly display what really happened to Jesus in those last days of His life?

A youth club staple?

I’m part of an online forum of youth workers who addressed this very question just last week: Should you show The Passion of The Christ at youth clubs? The debate drew very strong opinions from both sides. One person said the film was ‘manipulative and traumatizing’, to which someone else responded ‘you should try the source material sometime.’ Ouch! A parent raised concerns too, saying ‘absolutely not… I have a daughter that would be traumatized.’

Although this was just last week, it is an old debate. The argument usually goes back and forth between, yes show it, it’s important to see with accuracy the pain that Jesus went through; and no, don’t show it, it’s too violent, and it’s inappropriate for young people.

I have sympathy for both of these views. I think it is important to know how much tragic pain, violence, and humiliation the cross inflicted on Jesus, and for young people to be able fit that into their faith language. However, that should be done with 1) accuracy, 2) necessity, and 3) sensitivity as measures. Unfortunately, I think these are all found wanting in The Passion of The Christ.

Accuracy

The Passion of The Christ promotes a myth of accuracy though claiming loyalty to the Bible as its source material and historical meticulousness. There are, however, plenty of accuracy issues in The Passion of The Christ, from the clothes and beards to the languages and customs, to the off-kilter presentation of both the Jews and the Romans, to the reoccurring (and frankly creepy) anthropomorphised images of the devil. Sorry, I’ve got a soft spot for Christian mysticism, but 40 year old baby-Satan was just weird!

There are just far too many details that are inaccurate to take the film as solid history. However, it’s not just a case of ‘if you can’t get the small things right…’ There are also a few much more significant problems. For this post, I’ll focus on just one – and it’s a big one!

The film’s particular and extended image of ‘scourging’ – repeated lashes with something akin to a cat-o-nine tails embedded with pieces of bone or metal – does not come from either the Bible or historical authorities. As archaeologists Berlin and Magness comment ‘there are neither descriptions, pictorial representations, nor physical evidence for the brutal implement that is used at length and to such horrific effect in The Passion’s “scourging” scenes.’[1] In fact, the only implement the Gospels’ mention is a ‘reed’ (Matt. 27:30; Mk. 15:19), and the only example of a weapon anything like what’s displayed in the film is ‘the whip’ used by Jesus to drive people out of the temple (a ‘φραγέλλιον’ in Jn. 2:13 ). This, however, was a collection of leather chords, not a metal-encrusted torture device.

Although the image of a torture weapon with multiple chords and chains and with bone or metal hooks is widely shared in Bible studies and on the internet, in reality there is very little evidence of the Romans using anything like this in the time of Jesus. The closest thing we have from archaeology is a ceremonial instrument carried by pagan priests (which wasn’t used for torture) or a 4th Century ‘plumbate’ whip, which wasn’t around in 1st Century Palestine. It wasn’t really until the 15th or 16th Century that the Church began to speculate on this kind of torture weapon. Our understanding of the ‘cat-o-nine-tails’ scourge is, in reality, an invention of medieval art, not Roman antiquity.

In the film, however, Jesus is lashed, flogged, and scourged across several positions, with several embellished tools, around one-hundred times. If the film is correct, and Jesus was tortured in such an unprecedented and remarkable way – and one that diverges so much from Roman custom – you would have thought that one of the Gospels would have mentioned it?

Going back to the youth workers’ forum I mentioned earlier, one person said, ‘If anything [the film] doesn’t show half of what suffering our savior went through!’ and another, ‘[The] Passion of the Christ doesn’t hold a candle to what actually happened but is the closest thing to it.’ Sorry guys, I appreciate your passion, but if you’re using either the Bible or historical record, then the scourging scene was overdone, exaggerated, and largely fabricated.

This isn’t to make light of Jesus’ flogging. By no means! But it is a matter of focus. Whereas the Gospels focus on the teaching and person of Christ without overly concentrating on his physical pain, The Passion of The Christ completely reverses this emphasis. It dials up the torture to a degree that is indefensible from either historical or biblical evidence – and loses the purpose or person of Jesus behind it. There is accuracy in some of the drama presented, but much of it is heavily embellished.

Necessity

My second issue is contextual balance. Theologically, the film places so much emphasis on the physical, human-flesh suffering, that it loses the eternal battle for souls almost entirely. It’s mostly important that we know that Jesus died for us, and then it’s definitely meaningful to remember that that was an intense and unfair death. But the pain experienced is not the point! When we super-over-hyper focus on any single aspect of the gospel to this extent, we throw the perfect balance of the story out of whack, and we lose the narrative power of the whole.

If you put rocket fuel in Ford Mondeo, you’re not left with a faster, cooler car. What you actually have is a very messy explosion! Even if The Passion of The Christ was mostly an accurate depiction, the severe overemphasis on Jesus’ torture and death without any explanation or context loses the wider story of His incarnation, crucifixion, atonement, resurrection and ascension.

The most glaring issue throughout the two-hour violent depiction of Jesus’ torture and death then, is that at no point does the film address the question why? For what reason did Jesus die? If you’re going to use The Passion of The Christ as an evangelistic tool, then that’s a really significant hole. And considering the intensive emotional state that your young people are going to be in after watching it, are you going to be able to then explain what’s missing? You might get a positive-looking immediate result (“they were speechless!”), but you also might be unpicking it for years to come.

Put another way, if you’re going to justify over-emphasising  gratuitous violence for theological reasons, you’d better make sure your theology is on point. This is especially true if you’re working with vulnerable young people.

Sensitivity

Entertainment Weekly ranked The Passion of The Christ as ‘the most controversial film of all time.’ I’ve heard Christians say this is because the gospel is offensive and divisive, but that’s not the reason the magazine gave. It was ranked this highly because of its extreme depictions of torture and violence. For context, they ranked this ahead of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, a film for which the phrase ‘ultra-violent’ was invented.

The question that comes to focus here then is why do you want to show it to your young people in the first place? Because of the extreme violence and gore, it’s an 18-Rated (R in America) film that has been deemed unsuitable for younger audiences. This means you would need a very good reason to show it to them. If that reason isn’t accuracy or necessity, then what do you have left? My fear is that it stylises Jesus in such a way that invokes a response – and if we were really honest, that’s why we show it.

Even in a teenage world of ‘Call of Duty’, ‘The Hunger Games’, and ‘Game of Thrones’ our responsibility to safeguard the development of our children should not be dialled down. Even if they are exposed to violence in the media, it is not an excuse for us to jump on the same bandwagon and attempt to disciple them pastorally by exaggerating the violence of our own tradition. While a wide range of gruesome violence exists in the Bible, taking in a movie laden with visual effects and featuring real actors is an entirely different experience.

Coming back to the true cross

We must teach Jesus and we must teach the cross. There is nothing more essential for us to do! But let’s begin and end with the real Jesus and draw them to the cross of the Bible. It’s there where true power is found, and a lifetime of passion is fuelled.

The cross was a violent, gruesome, humiliating, and unfair treatment of our saviour. It was an incredible amount of suffering! However, we do not need to embellish the details, bypass the facts, ignore the theology, or neglect context to tell this story. It’s important that we share the fullness of who Jesus truly is.

Good youth work doesn’t rely on easy wins. Rather than depending on these intensive (and insensitive) ‘jumpstart’ moments, let’s instead do the real work of building relationships with young people that will draw them close to Jesus with integrity, love, and longevity – rather than guilt, fear, and confusion.

It’s not a terrible film, and some of it I really value, but I won’t be showing it to my teenagers this Easter.

 

[1] A. Berlin & J. Magness (2004), Two Archaeologists Comment on The Passion of the Christ. The Archaeological Institute of America. Available at: https://www.archaeological.org/pdfs/papers/Comments_on_The_Passion.pdf

 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Youth Event Generator!

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Tired of feeling creative? Need a break from the constantly spinning world of social creation? Fear Not! The Ultimate Time-Saving Youth Event Generator has you covered!

Do We Really NEED Another Youth Event?

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Do we really need another youth event?

I know they’re fun (if you’re an extrovert) and they’re cool (if you’re a faux-hipster) and an ego-bump (if you’re a youthworker) and they look like you’re doing something (if you’re a trustee) – but do we really need another one?

A big flash-bang-wallop youth crowd event is something like a rite of passage for a youth worker: ‘you just haven’t made it until you’ve done one!’ You haven’t properly broken in your adrenaline-soaked, caffeine-fueled, slightly-demented Youthworker brain until you scored over 100 on the attendee register.

It also needs to be big – with big names and big people and big broken guitar strings and big florescent jackets and big lanyards… oooo the lanyards. It needs to have an explosive name, like … explode! Or a cool revitalising, flavored water sounding name like … revitalise (spare no creative expense here).

 A big flash-bang-wallop youth crowd event is something like a rite of passage for a youth worker

How Long Can We Keep It Up?

After the dying glow sticks are cleaned away and all the lollypops have been swapped for fake email addresses; after you’ve had the requisite three weeks to sleep it off – and the requisite shouting match with your treasurer about your doctored event-expenses; after the event is done and dusted – what do you do then?

How many of those young people do you ever see again? How many ‘seeds’ were really planted? How long can you keep competing with the ‘youthphoria’ nights that the local nightclub keeps running? How long can you keep telling people, we really need this event! How long can you keep telling yourself that this is what successful Youth Ministry looks like?

Smelling The Rat

I was brought up in event-driven youthwork culture. My youth group was a youth church with full-on band, lights and comfy chairs. We regularly ran big nights with famous Christian bands and speakers. We got shed loads of young people there and had a whole bunch of leaders too. I eventually became a leader in this setup, carried on the tradition and furthered it by working with events across London. But somewhere the novelty wore off, and the young people started to smell the cheep, imitation rat.

How long can you keep telling yourself that this is what successful Youth Ministry looks like?

My Beefs With Crowd Events

Don’t get me wrong – youth events can do things that other programs can’t… with some thought. There is a place for them… sometimes. Some kind of crowd interaction is needed in a successful, healthy youth ministry… somehow, somewhere.

My big beefs though, are these:

  1. They are often flat-packed, copies of something else with no evidence of any thought put into the local context at all.
  2. They drain things: people, money, resources, time, effort, program shapes. You need to have a Godly approach to stewardship but crowd events tend to throw this out of the window.
  3. They only cater to part of the young people population and psyche – often the popular-hungry extrovert. Whereas the solitude-seeking introvert is hiding in a corner wanting the floor to swallow them up.
  4. They often don’t fit into a broader youth work strategy of followup and discipleship.
  5. They often steal from from other groups without thought for their own programs or relationships.
  6. They tend to present a dishonest view of the Gospel though the sugar-vibe. That’s lots of crazy, hyped up experiences that model ‘look, this is what Christianity really looks like’. Reality check: it doesn’t
  7. They thrive off crowd-driven mentality, but they seek individualistic responses. Want to guess which overrules the other?
  8. They can encourage passive ‘entertain me’ young people, rather than productive, participatory, experience seeking young people.
  9. They often compete/dilute with secular consumerist culture which simply does it better.
  10. They mostly simply don’t work. On their own, with no thought to context or strategy they fumble, burn out and die – taking people with them.

 

So Is There No Place For Them?

Of course there is. My problem with events is that most that I’ve seen advertised to my young people, and most that I’ve worked with are cookie cutter and haven’t come out of seeking to fill a real intentional need.

“The gathering of worshipers is an amazing missional tool – when done right.”

Crowd events can be amazing when they create safe space to develop family, mimic the celebration of heaven and seek to give secular culture a run for its money. The gathering of worshipers is an amazing missional tool – when done right.

 

So How Do We Do Events Right?

Start by asking the big questions:

  1. Do we really need this right now? // Is this where we are in our Youth Ministry Journey?
  2. Do we have a core group of developed relationships with young people to build out from? // Are our current young people going to grow though this in fellowship, worship, prayer, mission and discipleship?
  3. Has God given us the resources needed to create this properly? // What other opportunities are we inadvertently closing the door on?
  4. For what purpose do we want to run this // What need is it fulfilling?
  5. Have we talked to local pastors and youth workers about potential harmony with their programs? // Is this crowd event genuinely serving the unity of those who are working with members of that crowd?
  6. What else could we do creatively with the resources that we have? // Are their other, creative options that better fit the people and context that we haven’t considered?
  7. How do we intend on doing followup? // And who are we doing that with (see 5.)?
  8. Do young people here really care who these ‘Christian big names’ are? // What else could we spend the money on?
  9. Are we trying to represent who we are? // Are we trying to use this as an opportunity to repackage/reinvent who we are?
  10. Are there already things in the area that we can partner with? // What about other things that will be sucked dry if we don’t partner with them?
  11. How will the Gospel be presented and how will other elements help or hinder this? // Whoops – did we think about presenting the Gospel clearly?

 

There’s obviously a bunch of other bits n’ pieces to throw in, but I felt a wee bit ranty – so this is all you get! Enjoy 😉

The Christology of Soul Survivor

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Another year, another quality trip to Soul Survivor! We always go and we always love it, and this year was no exception. Brilliant people, great messages, passionate responses and more cheeseburgers than you could fling a ketchup sachet at.

All this said, the ol’ theology student in me still twinges a little bit during these trips. I used to be quite critical and unnecessarily found issues with lots of superfluous areas, but even after maturing deeper and understanding better, a niggle still remains.

It’s like there’s something missing, a foundational ‘something’ that should be holding the pieces together more coherently. This elusive piece shows up in the messages, the seminar choices, and really the whole structure. And I think I may, perhaps have finally put my finger on it.

Its Christology. Or rather lack thereof. See if you can see a pattern from the keynote messages:

  • The first main message of the week was all about responding to Jesus like Levi did.
  • The second was about being brave and expectant with the supernatural and not being afraid to have a go.
  • The third was focused around worry and anxiety, and how to live intimately in the moment with God.
  • The fourth message was about how Jesus loves the broken and wants to fulfill their lives.
  • Message number five was an exposition of tongues and how to pray with tongues.
  • Message six (my favourite) talked about the need to be wowed by God, experience woe at our brokenness, and then go into the world as an evangelist.
  • The final message was about going ‘all in’ for Jesus – giving him your whole life.

Did you notice it? They are all about us. Focused on us as followers and our lives and responses in light of Jesus. There was very little in the messages actually about the specifics of who Jesus is.

Unpacking The Problem

These were all good messages by and large, but they all came across individually and collectively like there was something missing. A perspective off, or a direction reversed. It’s almost like listening to a car enthusiast speaking about high performance sports cars, racing around a track without quite understanding the nature of gravity. You recognise the cars – and the passion for them, but you realise something is a little off in the explanation.

I carefully and gently suggest that what is ‘a little off’ is Christology; the understanding and expounding the person of Jesus Christ directly – and not just in relationship to our responses.

Soul Survivor constantly reminds us that Jesus loves us – and that we should love Him too. Twice during the week, Mike Pilavachi carefully and expertly explained the Gospel, clearly saying what Jesus has done for us. One of these times he did so – I think – because the speaker was calling people to follow Jesus without an explanation of what that actually means. Christology, however, is much more than understanding these Gospel formulas and the essential basics of Jesus’ character.

If Jesus doesn’t work in real life then Jesus doesn’t work. This means we need a real life, relatable Jesus with a full character arc, clear personal traits, and high definition colour individuality: A Jesus that draws the whole Bible together and is tangible and active in the present.

Christology needs us to have arrived at some measure of organic agreement on the who, what, when, where, why and how of Jesus – beyond the formulas and basics. Who is Jesus really, why did He do what He did, what does it look like today specifically, what does this following of Jesus actually look like beyond ‘tell people about Him, worship and adore’. Who is He, who is He, who is He?

When you walk with Him – how do you describe Him? Is it easier to talk about the specific tangible qualities of your wife, husband, mother, father, children or friend? Can you talk about Jesus that clearly and coherently?

A Subtle But Essential Distinction

You can probably tell if an organisation hasn’t got a clear and coherent understanding of Christology when most of the message focuses are placed on people responding to Him, rather than to Him directly.

Did you see the last solar eclipse, or did you watch people watching the solar eclipse? Which one of those two – if you were there – would you describe? Would you focus on the people standing still in the street, gazing up at it, and taking photos? Or would you talk about the eclipse, specifically and in detail?

There is a theological imperative to know the subtle differences between talking about the Jesus we relate to, and talking about the relationship with Jesus. Soul Survivor talked about and engaged with us as the participants – rather than a clearly presented Jesus.

Do We Recognise Your Jesus?

We looked at what it means for us to follow Jesus and to be loved by Him, but without really saying much about Him specifically. This meant that I didn’t always recognise the Jesus they spoke about, because they said very little actually about Him.

I challenge Soul Survivor – and seriously challenge myself – to put more than a bare-bones skeleton of who Jesus is to the young people who will listen.

I want to leave Soul Survivor knowing more of Jesus, not through just a ‘touch of the Holy Spirit’ or a constant reminder of His love (as valuable as these are). I want the messages, and the coherent shape of the entire festival to celebrate the specific qualities of who Jesus really is.

If we’re going to get something right, and have something to celebrate on the last night – then lets pour our energies, passions and efforts into this deeper understanding of the Jesus we relate to, not just the relationship mechanisms themselves.

I asked 40 youthworkers in 3 countries how many events they run – here’s what they said…

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I have had a lot to say on the subject of youth events over the last couple of years. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s that I think they are often flat-packed, overused, resource draining and strategy defining. I don’t mind them if they are a carefully considered idea off the back of a clear strategy… but yea.

I asked:

“How many one-off ‘events’ do you have in a year?

Classing an ‘event’ as something specifically youth ministry related, but less regular than a project, takes a whole lot of specific planning, and has an aim to bolster your regular ministry.”

Results:

  • 23 Youth workers said – 3-5 a year.
  • 10 said 6-10,
  • 5 said more than 10
  • 1 said 1-3
  • and 1 person said upto 1

Events ranged from $150 – $10,000 (USD) and often larger groups were associated with more events. Some of these were classic concert style, whereas others were special ‘pizza nights’ or trips out.

A few additional comments were left by people who now run less events than they used to, or now run no one-off events at all. The reasons they gave pointed to busy schedules, burnout, clashing with school, and the inability to form deeper consistent relationships.

Events can be very successful – but they do need to be carefully thought-though and cultivated within a clearly defined cultural context.