Hey, What Happened to My Jesus?

Okay, I admit that I was raised in the church of the wishy-washy. My early years spent in Sunday school at the United Church involved creating Jesus effigies (and his disciples) out of construction paper, pipe cleaners and white glue.

The wall posters at my Sunday school depicted images of Jesus Christ as a smiling, bearded man in a white robe, hands stretched out in love, and offering guidance for the children and the wee lambs scurrying about his sandal-clad feet.

No crown of thorns gouging his head.

No spikes through his ankles and wrists.

No bodily flesh ripped from days of Roman whips.

My Jesus wasn't bloody with a face full of pain and anguish. My Jesus was just hanging out with the wee children and the wee beasties. In my childish eyes, he was not destined to be spiked to a cross. Suffering was not something I related to since my church never depicted a crucified Jesus on the altar.

So imagine my surprise at the boffo box office success of Mel Gibson's horror fest "The Passion of The Christ." Last week in The Examiner, one of many astute tabloids at the supermarket check-out, it was reported that Mel's Movie has generated wondrous miracles and emotional conversions to Christianity. Another tabloid suggests Gibson is going to be made a saint.

Wow. Forget the Bibles in the motel rooms. Make a movie instead with a tormented Jesus covered in blood to easily gain converts and religious market share. If the Catholic Church were smart, they'd be showing a cheery recruitment trailer to draw more priests to the diminishing ranks of their clergy.

Where's 'the friendly church'?

Generally the 18 to 25 male and their disposable income is the target market for blood and gore flicks. With no competition this spring in the B & G genre, young male movie-goers chose the next best thing. The marketing campaign for this demographic seemed to be: It's Gladiator meets The Last Supper!

But believe me, this flick has legs with the older and milder set, too. In my neighbourhood, a certain United Church markets itself as "the Friendly Church." That didn't keep my mother, a United Church Elder, from recently going to see The Passion with a busload of seniors from her congregation.

In Canada, the new religion is either the mall or the movie house and the savvy Gibson has tapped into our spiritual vacuum with the passion of the zealot. A recent study of our habits found that after work and home, Canadians spend the third highest amount of their waking hours at the mall, where you're most likely to find movie theatres these days. Perhaps the $13 ticket price for The Passion of The Christ is the movie equivalent of the collection plate offering.

Go rent Life of Brian

It makes me miss the days of satirical or artsy movies about Jesus, the kind that inspired wild-eyed fundamentalist Christians to protest in front of cinemas with placards waving sanctimoniously.

Give me Monty Python's "Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life," or Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ."

Monty Python poked fun not at Jesus, but at anyone who pursues religion with sheep-like deference. Maybe now the Pythons will make a sequel that follows church groups as they charter-bus to cinemas on Saturday afternoons to feast on Jesus' pain, again and again.

Scorsese's film explored the controversial "what if" premise that Jesus was an ordinary man with wife and children. For his troubles he was castigated as a heretic. Gibson, meanwhile, is hailed for his equally personalized interpretation. Indeed, The Passion of The Christ is required viewing for good Christians who rave about its "accuracy" and emotional appeal.

But how does director Mel Gibson know what really happened?

The truth is, we can't know. So we cling to the image of Christ we find the most emotionally satisfying in difficult times like these.

Although I choose not to attend the Christian church anymore, I'm still culturally Christian; it's hard to shake. I know all the stories and the names of the characters from my time reading the Bible as a child. A personal favourite was Taylor's Bible Stories, a weighty tome given to me by my grandmother, where bearded, ZZ Top-esque dudes could be found herding sheep in their 900th year.

If I find my fantasy version more comforting than Mel Gibson's blood-soaked interpretation, please, Lord, forgive me.

D. Grant Black also writes for Air Canada's enRoute, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. He still reluctantly gets hauled off to church when he visits his mother.