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As the student activities coordinator on a college campus, I spend a lot of time researching what a friend of mine refers to as "cultural spasms." I'm particularly interested in how evangelicals interact with and respond to popular culture, so I've had a field day with the spasm du jour—the release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ.

Weeks before the film opened in theaters, the media buzzed with speculation about anti-Semitism, gratuitous violence, and an almost hypnotic religious zeal. The hype was inescapable, particularly in Christian media outlets, some of which touted The Passion as "the greatest outreach opportunity in 2000 years" and ardently defended Gibson's vision, giving tearful accounts of the VIP screenings they'd attended.

At first, I was encouraged by the excitement over the film. After all, evangelical Christians are usually in the habit of either condemning pop culture outright or dismissing it as irrelevant to lives of faith. But after taking in story after story, I began to notice a disturbing pattern.

Very few Christians were actually evaluating The Passion as a film, as a work of art. We've heaped rapturous praise on its portrayal of Christ's sacrifice, its evangelistic qualities, its faithfulness to the Gospels. But by and large, evangelicals have not truly engaged with the movie. On The Passion's faithfulness to its medium, we have been strangely silent.

Or maybe not so strangely. Though it's disappointing that the film's cinematic merit seemed unimportant to Christians, it's not surprising. On the surface, it seemed unusually broad-minded that pastors were teaching their congregations that a film was about more than its R rating, that evangelicals were flocking to theaters en masse to experience, rather than just view, a movie. But actually, evangelicals' unequivocal embrace of The Passion is the latest indicator of a long-standing evangelical shortcoming: we don't have a context for understanding art.

Although there are exceptions, evangelicals tend to have few means for situating artistic appreciation among the virtues of their faith. As our collective flying leap into Passion-mania demonstrates, we fall short in assessing the value of a work of art beyond its resemblance to the original text, its potential for evangelism, and its affirmation of values we hold dear. This is not a condemning statement, though—it is an invitation to a teachable moment. The Passion gives us, the church, an opportunity and an imperative to learn how to see art through the sharpening lens of faith.

Now that opening-week frenzy has died down, what can we learn from our reaction to The Passion? There are several positive responses to this film that, if applied only to this movie, will perpetuate not-unfounded stereotypes about the self-referential, insular nature of the evangelical community. My greatest fear is that Christians' collective appreciation of this movie is a one-time-only deal, because it tells a specific story (about Jesus) in a specific way (with a salvation message). I am concerned that when The Passion leaves theaters, pastors will once again endorse an unspoken ban against R-rated films. I worry that Christians will retire to their churches until the next big-budget Jesus movie comes out, offering an opportunity to hear our own story and exhort others to get saved. If we choose this path—undoubtedly the easiest one—we risk, as Spencer Burke of emergent church ministry TheOOZE points out, appearing hypocritical and bigoted to non-Christians. But we also sell ourselves short; our calling is higher and broader and deeper than this narrow, convenient understanding of art.

We are on the right track with some responses to this film, however. We are learning that art is more than just personal preference—"I liked it" or "I hated it." We are learning that movies can be more than entertainment. If we allow God to transform these reactions, we will make significant progress in not only understanding art in the form of film, but understanding the world in which God wants us to be active participants.

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