“The Passion of the Christ” has been described as a movie that even adults cannot handle, yet unfortunately children continue to fill theatre seats.
It is a film about the last 12 hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life. There are three scenes that are very extreme in detail: the betrayal of a limping Jesus in shackles where he is spit on and punched by the crowd continuously until one eye was swollen shut and his face was black and blue, the moment where Jesus is handed over to the Roman soldiers to be beaten with whips and a claw-like object until he is unrecognizable, and lastly, the crucifixion of Jesus.
The eyes of uncomprehending children should not see those brutally graphic scenes. The movie will not bring children closer to God, as some parents may think. If people feel that seeing this movie will make their children want to be more Christ-like, their plan is backfiring because it is only horrifying the children by seeing Jesus in such a dreadful, bloodied condition. It is difficult and confusing for them to see him beaten and treated with such cruelty when he is thought of as almighty, more powerful than anyone or anything.
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion about religion, but to scare a child into being a Christian is ridiculous. While adults are moved by this powerful movie, children are closing their eyes, clutching their parents for dear life because of the graphic depiction they are witnessing.
Worst of all is that before the movie even reached theatres, parents were warned about its content and advised to leave their children at home. Yet they did not heed the advice. And even if they never saw the warnings on commercials and the news, the movie has an “R” rating, meaning that this is a film created for mature adults and is not suitable for children. Parents continue to ignore the warnings, which ultimately damages the child’s idea of Jesus.
Children should be able to form their own opinion of Jesus and not be turned away from it because of a terrifying movie experience. Although it is a story told in the Bible, there is a big difference between reading and seeing. Children do not have the ability to understand the movie as a religion lesson. Rather, they are overwhelmed with the extreme violence. Parents allowing their children to go see “The Passion” should think hard about what the film is really teaching their children.