Movies touch the awe in us

Whether you saw "The Lord of the Rings," "The Passion of the Christ," or skipped them both, it's unlikely you've been able to escape some kind of discussion regarding your feelings about them unless you've spent several weeks outside the United States.

And though they didn't have any hand in orchestrating the avalanche of discussion regarding the films, or people's reaction to them, faculty at the Salt Lake Theological Seminary couldn't be happier about it. In fact, they hope to capitalize on what many see as an unprecedented public discussion of Christianity, and its attendant debates regarding good and evil, in a series of lectures beginning this week.

David Pasco, marketing director for the seminary, says "The Passion of the Christ" in particular helped spawn a four-part lecture series titled "Moving Beyond the Movie," that kicked off Friday at Westminster College. (See accompanying box.) The seminary also sponsored a discussion of "Lord of the Rings" on Thursday night.

"When we realized it was going to be more than simply a niche movie in an art theater — which is what I thought ("The Passion") was going to be — that it would actually have broad appeal and was being seen as an evangelistic tool," faculty realized it "would likely raise a whole lot of questions around the story of his suffering and death that weren't answered in the movie," Pasco said.

Some may want to know whether the film is historically accurate, whether the church itself has changed the scriptures through the ages to make Christ divine, why he had to suffer such a bloody and brutal death and what "Atonement" means, Pasco said.

Others may wonder how the Jesus of celluloid relates to the Jesus of scripture, or modern society's reluctance to contemplate suffering, he said. "That's the last thing we want to do. Our culture is all about avoiding suffering and pain, anesthetizing ourselves and turning a blind eye. In some ways the events of 9/11 have become a watershed. We can't turn our eyes away because it's happening in our own backyard."

Scholars want to help viewers "build a platform underneath people's feet of logic scholarship and thought to help ground the emotional impact most people are likely to have," when they see the film, he said.

Faculty member Ron Huggins addresses "The Resurrection of the Historical Jesus" on Friday, taking participants through a detailed overview of "The Passion" by addressing specific scenes, imagery, symbolism and metaphor depicted in the film. He has gone back and watched some of the older Jesus films regarding their depiction of Pilate or Caiaphas, and believes the "violence is really probably closest to historically accurate depiction that I've ever seen."