catlover said:
It's called "Steps To Christ."
Do Adventists as a whole object to "The Passion of Christ".
Oh. Steps to Christ is the basics of the gospel, it has been used as an evangelistic tool for a long time. If you have not read it yet, I would highly recommend it. I doubt that most evangelical Christians (SDA or not) would have any disagreement with it. It does not touch upon controversial doctrines and it basically just points to Jesus as our savior.
I think most SDA's would consider "The Passion" to be a fair depiction of what really happened, but one legitimate problem with it is that it is impossible to accurately portray the true sufferings of Christ which were more spiritual than physical. His separation from the Father and the inexpressible pain that He was forsaken by God was more of an agony to Him than any of the physical torture He endured. But unfortunately, the movie emphasises the physical aspect to the point where we are led to believe that it is the whole reason for His agony.
Many other people have suffered terrible physical torture as well. In that sense, Christ cannot be sympathized with any more than anyone else who has endured torture. But when you consider that He was with the Father in heaven from eternity, and had never been separated from Him even while on earth until the crucifixion, you can begin to understand what it might have been like to descend from bliss to hell. None of us has or ever will experience such a loss. Also, the weight of the world was literally on His shoulders. The movie could never hope to illustrate how much He loved us all, even those who were killing and maiming Him.
The book "The Passion of Love" (Desire of Ages) does a good job of making Christ's sufferings real to us, and it does so in more than just a physical sense like the movie. It also makes us appreciate what He did, instead of just making us sympathize with Him, as the movie did.
I don't have not made enough posts here to post a link, but go to the E. G. White Estate and pick the on-line books link. Then go to "Desire of Ages," and pick link (Chapter) #74 (Gethsemanie).
