Where's the Outrage?

Evangelical Christians were among the most ardent supporters of Mel Gibson as his movie The Passion of the Christ was being attacked for anti-Semitism. Now that Gibson has blurted out anti-Semitic remarks after being arrested for drunk driving, many evangelicals are completely silent on the incident.

One of the few to address the issue completely missed the point. Christian movie critic Ted Baehr argued that Gibson's career was not over. Baehr also encouraged Christians to pray for Gibson's struggle with alcoholism. However, no mention is made of praying for Gibson's anti-Semitism.

Baehr does not even condemn the remarks but instead downplays them because Jews are not as powerful in Hollywood today as they used to be. He argued:

The industry is not the industry of the founding fathers of the movie industry, which was predominantly an industry controlled by people out of the garment district who were Jewish.

It would be nice if Baehr would seem more concerned about anti-Semitism than about Gibson's career. This is an important time for all evangelicals to stand up and say that anti-Semitism is wrong, and that what Gibson said is wrong. If we look the other way we will prove some critics of The Passion of the Christ to be correct about us after all.


It is also important to note that ABC has apparently pulled the miniseries Gibson was working on about the Holocaust. Let that be another reminder about the potential consequences of shooting off one's mouth.