Return of the King of Kings

Is it just me, but doesn't James Caviezel as Jesus looks a lot like Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies? However, from what I've seen of Caviezel in interviews, he has his head on a lot straighter than Mortensen.

One of the things that this movie will do over the next few weeks is get the conversation around Jesus. Not male headship or homosexuality or marriage, but about a man on the cross saving the world. It's going to be OK to talk about Jesus in public this Lent (my prayers are with all of you more litergical folks who will be giving something up for the next month and a half) like it hasn't been in my lifetime. I'm not sure how many lives will be changed by this film, but it opens up a great avenue for discussion and witnessing around the water coolers and break rooms of America and any other country that it's showing in.

Jesus is making a comeback. Not that He's even gone away, but he is returning to the American converstaion in a way that I cannot recall in my lifetime. The only other Hollywood production that created this level of potential societial change was Roots. I'm not sure if it was just me, but that showing in early 1977 (IIRC) changed a lot of attitudes about race relations; some of that move away from the combative years of school busing was starting to get behind us, but that miniseries seemed to help take a lot of steam away from racism.

The Passion of the Christ may do for the culture war what Roots did for racial animosity. Issues of abortion or gay marriage aren't discussed in this movie at all, but as people come back to the issue of Jesus and his teaching, a bit more old-school attitudes on morals will come to the fore. They will come as a byproduct of changed lives from folks thinking about a God who sent part of Himself to die for us. A lot of other social pathologies may diminish as well as people draw closer to Christ as a result.

This movie isn't good news for Mayor Newsome or John Kerry.

It's even worse news for the Devil, for Jesus is going to be Topic A for a while in the US.