Does The Passion of the Christ Violate the Second Commandment?
(Part 1) Part 1 in the series: “Visual Arts in Faith and Worship” Posted at 9:38 p.m. on Sunday, February 29, 2004 Brad Jones of the delightfully entitled “Infinite Monkeys” blog has thrown down the gauntlet to several Christian bloggers, including me. He wants us to respond to the charge that The Passion of the Christ violates the second commandment. This charge has appeared in several Christian publications, including a pastoral letter that Brad has posted on his website. The second commandment, by the way, prohibits the making of “graven images,” to use the good ol’ language of the King James Version (Exod 20:4). So the charge against The Passion of the Christ would be that making images of Jesus on film is making “graven images” and is contrary to God’s will. This charge, incidentally, would apply to any and every film that pictures Jesus, including Franco Zeffirelli’s classic Jesus of Nazareth and even the extraordinarily popular Jesus film.
