A Tie-In Made in Heaven

On a page linked to "The Passion's" website, Outreach founder Scott Evans, who quit a job with a high-tech company a decade ago to become a missionary, encourages churches to exploit "perhaps the best outreach opportunity in 2,000 years.... I encourage you to prayerfully consider how to make the most of this moment. Ask God: How will we as a church encourage people to experience this film?"

The website is full of suggestions: Buy a block of movie tickets and invite members and their friends to attend; ask the theater owner if a pastor could address the audience after the screening; give a "Passion"-related sermon on themes such as forgiveness or everlasting life; distribute "Passion"-themed New Testaments; hold a "Passion" question-and-answer session at church addressing questions such as whether Jesus was a great man, or actually God; blanket a neighborhood with "multiple prayer teams"; and leave "Passion" door-hangers at each home.

This week, supporters of the film announced plans for a satellite-broadcast "training event" for churches on Feb. 7 featuring Gibson and promising "a complete 'boot camp' of information and insights on how to be involved with outreach opportunities tied into 'The Passion.' "

The outreach has not extended to some of those who have been most vocal in their concerns about the project. For example, Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, resorted to sneaking into a screening at a pastors' conference in Florida. But the movie has been in plain sight to many Americans, with numerous screenings before church groups and even a showing for a conference of self-professed film geeks. The movie also has been shown to the pope, setting off a debate over whether the pontiff in effect endorsed the movie's historical accuracy. All of this has stirred Hollywood's most valuable box-office currency: word of mouth.

Church-based marketing has grown increasingly sophisticated, especially in the last decade, under the influence of evangelical Christians, who have used rock 'n' roll, videos, movies and the Internet to deliver Gospel messages. This formed two parallel entertainment worlds -- secular and Christian -- that rarely met. It also stirred among evangelicals the dream of crossover Christian entertainment. Often, however, Christian offerings have been of a lesser quality or creativity than leading entertainment-industry fare. This has been true particularly in movies.