Jesus -Mel Gibson's film

Yeah this is it if you've heard the rumours -some Jewish groups are said to be unhappy about Mel Gibson film. Now I can't yet comment; not seen it, however I have also heard that having seen it, many Jewish viewers have left a lot happier -though I can't lay my hands on that report as yet [let me know if you can].

What is interesting, potentially, about this is the inteface between belief/religion and offensive attitudes and behaviours. That is where someone's belief is offensive to someone else. In this case -assuming the film follows the gospels and doesn't dump all the blameorthe crucifixion on the whole Jewish race [and I probably need to say that I have never taken the mesage of the gospels in that way -it's clear that human beings are in the frame and in a sense we are each and every one of us implicated -but that's another story]- the only way this could be is that some might object to Jesus being portrayed and the Messiah as offensive to Jewish faith, or to the crucifixion as offensive to Muslim faith, as would portraying him as claiming or assenting to be called "Son of God" [the latter is blasphemous in Muslim eyes]. There's no getting away from the fact that some beliefs aill not only contradict others but that those contradictions may be in some way offensive, implicitly.

In universities -where I have a stake as a chaplain- we have in the last couple of years seen an attempt by and admittedly 'out of the mainstream' muslim leader to seek to ban proselytising or defaming other faiths in British universities. You may think that this is okay -but how will it be defined? What would happen in effect would be the freedom to express contrary views such as alluded to above would be eroded for everyone and academic freedom would be eroded along with it. That's not to say that we should allow aggressive or underhand recruitment or proclamation -but usually such behaviours are covered in harassment/bullying policies.

But I would worry about any policy that made it possible for someone to take disciplinary action against me for simply expressing in a conversation that I believed Jesus to be the Son of God because another party to that conversation held a belief system in which that claim is blasphemous. If we are not careful in the way we frame policy we run that danger.