The movie The Last Temptation of Christ is still half a year away from theaters, but it already has some Christians seeing red.
Universal Pictures began receiving critical letters, calls, and boycott threats after announcing plans to distribute the movie, which is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. The movie studio has enlisted the aid of Christian consultant Tim Penland, who helped promote The M ission and Chariots of Fire to the evangelical market.
“The desire of Universal and director Martin Scorsese is to make a faith-affirming movie,” says Penland. “Filming is completed, but nobody has seen the film. We’re asking Christians not to prejudge the film, and not to criticize it until they can comment intelligently.”
Penland will fly a handful of evangelical leaders to Hollywood for an advanced screening of the film in the spring. “I’m hopeful they will be able to embrace a film that shows the human side of Christ yet affirms Christ as Savior,” says Penland. “But if the movie is blasphemous, or if Christian leaders feel it would be damaging to the cause of Christ, that will be the end of my involvement with this project.”
Much depends on how Scorsese, who studied for the priesthood before turning to film, interprets the novel. Time magazine described it as “shocking,” while Kazantzakis wrote in a prologue: “I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, better than ever before, love Christ.”
Scorsese says, “This is a motion picture I have wanted to make for 15 years, both as a filmmaker and as a Christian. I am making a deeply religious film which is an affirmation of faith.” But Scorsese’s previous films, such as Taxi Driver (1976) and The Raging Bull (1979), have been more bleak and pessimistic than positive.
Some say no movie of The Last Temptation of Christ could be truly Christian. “I’m skeptical,” says Christian writer Steve Lawhead. “It’s a bleak book that portrays Christ as a deluded, sunburned idiot. Unless they take great liberties of personal interpretation, it would be very difficult to get a faith-affirming story out of that book.”
By Steve Rabey.
