USVI: Public retarded?

Do USVIers need to be told what to think? What kind of nonsense is this? Surely everyman has a Bible and a brain and can pick sense out of nonsense for himself? Why should the opinions of clerics shape the opinions of anybody on anything? Is the USVI the Arab world?

Some bemoaned the prolonged gore, others the artistic license taken, but after previewing the "The Passion of the Christ" on Wednesday at Caribbean Cinemas, faith leaders could not come up with a united statement to guide the public's interpretation of the film.

Some of the idiotic comments offered by the faith leaders indicate precisely why they should not be guiding anybody's thought on anything much. The problem with the Christian Church is that it has lost sight of the magnitude of the sacrifice on the Cross. Jesus has been reduced to a moral teacher who provided a great example. Many have lost sight of or are turned off by a vigorous and angry God; in their view, God is love and only love. Instead of accepting God as He presents Himself, they've replaced the complex God, who will kill to save, with a Santa Claus who accepts everything and stands for nothing.

The wonder of Mel Gibson's Passion is that it restores the understanding and the necessity of that once and forever bloody sacrifice to Christianity. Moreover, The Passion, in its uncompromising and open declaration of spiritual warfare, leaves Christians with the utter absolutism of Christianity. It is a faith of either/or; of only One Way; of no other God but Me. Even amongst the clergy, that actual view of Christianity might be too much to bear. After all, who could live with God as He depicts and presents Himself to us? It's far better for us to have a god we can live comfortably with. That illusion of the comfortable God is ripped away in the bloody imagery of The Passion.