David Starling offers these notes from the diary of a pastor on what to make of the Mel Gibson passion film.

The violence
As everyone had warned me, it was a violent film - much more violent than I’m used to watching at the movies. Parts of the film I just couldn’t watch. In other parts, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a film, not the real thing, that the actor was just an actor and the blood was just make-up. Nevertheless, the fact that I could cope with watching as much of it as I could made me wonder whether I’ve seen more screen violence than is good for me over the years—enough to desensitise me even to such a graphic portrayal of the torture and and killing of Jesus himself.

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