Passionate

You, yes you, can right now purchase a truly stylin' sepia-toned "Passion of the Christ" cross-adorned coffee mug, an exact replica of the one Jesus Himself used every morning at the Jerusalem Starbucks. You can buy "witnessing tools," including lapel pins labeled in indecipherable Aramaic (yay Aramaic! What a comeback! Who knew?) and lapel pins with crucifixes, and packs of "witnessing cards" to swap with your Jesus-happy friends, just like the Disciples did when they sat around the holy campfire, swapping tales of sad lost goddesses and making s'mores with communion wafers and pink Easter marshmallow peeps. But nothing says "slightly masochistic Jesus fanatic" like adorning your fine self with a two-inch silver pewter crucifixion-nail pendant, hanging 'round your neck from a nice 24-inch leather cord.

Mark Morford - in fine form, as usual....
See The Movie, Buy The Nail

And you know what? Hawking the sacred as cheap cheeseball tchotchke is nothing new. Every religion in the world does it, shamelessly, from Buddhism to Taoism to the psycho Scientology cult. Hell, the Vatican has been doing it for centuries, passing the plate and guilting the throngs into empowering the church to further guilt the throngs into empowering the church to buy massive amounts of property and political influence and some nice new robes and a huge team of pedophilia-defense lawyers. No, the lesson here is not that it is unacceptable to try to do for Jesus what "Finding Nemo" did for clown fish. The lesson here is not merely that Mel Gibson is a religious bonkjob with a great eye for miserable, bloody battle scenes and giant nails being pounded through bloody hands by sadistic Roman thugs in hideous slo-mo. The lesson here is simply a reminder, easily forgotten amongst the hype and the creepiness and the busloads of devout Christians who are finally getting their very own "Apocalypse Now," a film that has found a perfect mode by which to market a particularly harsh, ruthless religious view via well-worn channels of pop consumerism...It might be as simple as saying, you know, the last thing anyone really needs hammered into them right now is more brutal, fanatical sanctimony on a string.

And that's all the press I'm going to give Mel's brilliant marketing move, I mean movie.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.