Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Campaign to add postscript to The Passion

This item from WorldNetDaily reports the attempts of the ten Boom Holocaust Center in Haarlem, Holland to begin an internet campaign to persuade Mel Gibson to add a postscript to The Passion of the Christ:

Needed: 1 million Christians to write Mel Gibson
By Mike Evans

The extraordinary thing about this is that according to an earlier report in the same journal by the same author, Mike Evans, Mel Gibson had already agreed to do this very thing (see blog entry on and WorldNetDaily article on) at Evans's suggestion. So did Evans get the agreement from Gibson or not? If he did, why the need for the campaign? If he did not, why the original report?

Update: an article from the LA Times answers my puzzlement:

'Passion': Christians join the call
Tim Rutten
Evans said he decided last week to publish an account of the meeting with Gibson on the website WorldNetDaily.com, after reading accounts of Anti-Defamation League officials' dismay over a cut of the film they saw during a screening for Protestant clergymen in Orlando, Fla. When no response from Gibson or his representatives was forthcoming, Evans said he "became concerned. Mr. Gibson has never communicated to me that he had changed his mind."

Over the weekend, Evans and his group set up a website, www.melj.net, that invites like-minded Christians to "thank acclaimed actor-director Mel Gibson" for "working closely with leaders concerned about anti-Semitic tones in the movie 'The Passion of the Christ.' " Readers are then asked to read, sign and return a copy of a letter Evans and the Jerusalem Prayer Team plan to forward to the filmmaker.

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