Watching “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson’s film about the last 12 or so hours of Jesus’ life, I was reminded of the depth of human misery and evil in the world, and what it is that Christians have to say about it. They claim nothing less than that God himself was tortured gruesomely and killed. They also claim that human beings are saved from the mess they are in by that very process.

Gibson’s passionate belief in this second claim led him to describe the first in all its graphic detail. This is a violent, gory movie. It deserves its R rating in every respect, and it is absolutely inappropriate for children. On the other hand, there is no way to depict a crucifixion accurately without the graphic detail. Crucifixion was graphic. So are many other kinds of human suffering. In the case of Christ, Gibson could not have made any other film given his beliefs. As a pastor I saw the movie with observed, it’s not that the violence detracts from the message. The violence is the message.

This is an action movie in the purest sense. The actors and even the dialog take a back seat to the raw, nonverbal symbols coming at us from the screen — blood, weeping, cruel laughter, anguished cries. True to the action genre, the characters are basically functionaries. The difference is that one of them is God in human form.

Because the importance of every other person in the story is subordinate to this fact, I think the charges of anti-Semitism are entirely misguided. True, SOME Jews, the elites of the time, wanted Jesus out of the way and strenuously cooperated with the Roman authorities to make it happen. But the whole point of the story is that it had to happen. Jesus became the focal point for all forms of human evil, and thus we see everyone getting involved in the torment — bystanders, Roman soldiers, children, even animals. Christian theology teaches that he had to be killed by the very people he was trying to save. Otherwise, his revolutionary teachings to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” – which Gibson uses effectively in a flashback — have little meaning. Those who claim the Gospels as a pretext for anti-Semitism violate their own core beliefs.

The negative reaction of many critics says a lot more about them than it does about Gibson or the film. It was brought home to me in the theater that this is not a Hollywood movie. In many ways, it’s an anti-Hollywood movie. This was reflected in the behavior of the audience. Those who bought snacks left them uneaten. There was no talking or giggling or cell phone bantering, even from the two teenage boys sitting next to me, who seemed frozen to the back of their seats. The sounds of sniffling were the only auditory evidence that anyone was there at all. When the credits rolled, people filed out quietly, no “awesome film” or “How’d you like it?” to be heard from anybody, and I fancied that people were more thoughtful than usual as they exited.

Gibson has accomplished what few other religious filmmakers have. He has made a religious film that doesn’t smack of religiosity. Most other celluloid portrayals of Jesus turn him into a sappy do-gooder, a great guy who hugs children, preaches a message of love, and reappears after a tragic but sufficiently sanitized death, so that we can walk out of the theater saying “How beautiful” and “What a wonderful story.” As a teenager, I always thought there was something ridiculous about Jesus movies. How can you possibly encapsulate, I mused, the explosive story of Christ in the nice, neat, life-affirming package of a film?

Somehow, Gibson does, but I’m not going to attempt to explain how. Like the other moviegoers making their way back into the sunlight, I too was silenced. Gibson’s film is powerful enough to shut people up. Whatever you may believe about Christian teaching, that’s surely something to admire.