"The last thing we want to do is promote an action that undercuts American values" of free speech, said Rabbi Marc S. Dworkin, executive director of the American Jewish Committee's Orange County chapter. His group will pair rabbis and priests to see the film and discuss it with Catholic and Jewish congregations.
Rabbi Mark Diamond said what's important isn't who sees "The Passion" but how they discuss it later. "We don't want the movie to stand in the way of 40 years of progress between Jews and Christians," said Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. "We have too much invested."
Daniel Frankforter, a professor of medieval history at Penn State Erie, said the fusing of a movie star and organized religion breaks with historical distrust.
Through the 1950s, "Hollywood self-censored its products to ensure that churches would not urge their members to boycott," Frankforter said. Beginning in the late '60s, though, filmmakers were more daring about portraying Jesus' humanity and did well enough at the box office to dispel "the myth of the church's power over the ticket-buying public." The rise of the evangelical churches set the stage for a project such as "The Passion."
"I'm not at all surprised that when Gibson throws them a piece of raw meat like this, they jump on it," Frankforter said.
Gibson's movie figures to be successful, Frankforter said, because it contains the violence and gore of contemporary pop cinema and "serves the old conservative agenda of persuading viewers of the literal historicity of the gospels."
Yet he and other observers wonder whether the film will be successful as an evangelical tool or merely a devotional work for the faithful.
"It's fascinating that Christian churches are shelling out thousands and thousand of dollars to purchase tickets for an R-rated movie," said Jonathan Bock, president of Grace Hill Media, which markets mainstream movies to faith groups. "The question is, is this going to be an isolated event or are churches going to be the force in the marketplace that they should be?"
Jacob Bonnemas, 26, who, along with his father, Arch, paid $42,000 for 6,000 tickets to "Passion" for the 22,000-member Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano as well as thousands of interested strangers, has no doubts.
"This is a life-altering movie, and I think that when Hollywood sees people coming to this movie in this volume ... they'll see a gigantic marketplace looking for real meaning in life," he said.
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Correspondent Dana Calvo contributed to this report from Texas.
