Gospel Realism

From Do You Recognize This Jesus?:

"Watching 'The Passion of the Christ,' Mel Gibson's new movie, I kept thinking the following: it is Christians, not Jews, who should be shocked by this film.

"Mr. Gibson's raw images invade our religious comfort zone, which has long since been cleansed of the Gospels' harsher edges... In sermons... the emphasis all too often is on the smoothly therapeutic: what Jesus can do for me.

"[T]he love of God, as Dorothy Day liked to put it, 'is a harsh and dangerous love' that requires real transformation. It is not the sort imagined by today's spiritual seekers who are 'into' Asian religions.

"Significantly, the Passion and death of Jesus is the chief element in the Gospel story that other religions cannot accept. In Islam, Jesus does not die on the cross because such a fate is considered unfitting for a prophet of Allah. By Hindus and Buddhists, Jesus is often regarded as a spiritual master, but the story of his suffering and death are considered unbecoming of an enlightened sage. Like the Buddha, the truly liberated transcend suffering and death. But Jesus submits to it — willingly, Christians believe — for the sins of all."