I probably won't be going to see The Passion. This seems almost like a sacrilege on my part, I know. It's just that I don't think I would be able to stand the sheer horrific brutality of it. I suppose the film might be a great evangelism tool, as everyone is saying, but its focus on the last 12 hours of Christ's life, to the exclusion of His three year ministry--proclaiming the Kingdom of God, healing, teaching--does run the risk, it seems to me, of skewing the Gospel message somewhat. Rammesh Ponnuru, writing for The National Review Online, writes the following about the movie's usefulness as an evangelism tool:

Some of my friends have asked me whether I thought the movie would make non-Christians reconsider their faiths or unfaiths. It is not beyond the Lord's power to reach people's hearts in this way. But I suspect that Christ crucified will remain folly to the Greeks. The movie may make Christianity seem more, rather than less, alien and strange. As powerful as I believe this movie is, I have no doubt that there will be those who choose to mock it. There are Christophobes among us; and these are not people for whom the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. They are people who, for various reasons, some of them understandable, all of them sad, are alarmed by any sign of increased Christian vigor.

What do you think?

By the way, click here for an interesting and, it seems to me, balanced review.