The logo of the Christian church has been entrusted to the powers of Hollywood, and it's causing a stir of zealous activism. More than there are hockey rinks or doughnut shops in this country, there are churches, which everywhere mark their mission with a cross, so it's understandable that the faith community is on alert for how to manage The Passion of the Christ, coming to theatres near you on Feb. 25 (Ash Wednesday).

The main character in this movie is Jesus, the very son of God, played with deep emotion and complexity by Jim Caviezel. This is the story that history has never been able to kill, that millions of Canadians adhere to; it is, above all things, a supernatural event. The movie is about Jesus and His cross, the story focuses on the last hours of Christ's life, and the price He paid to wipe out the sin that blocks people from God.

Now we're about to discover whether the most popular religious symbol of all time can become a box-office hit. If it doesn't make it, it won't be because Christian clergy didn't co-operate with Mel Gibson and film distributors. I'm not sure who's using whom more, the profit-makers in Hollywood or those with an interest in conversion, but there is unparalleled church energy over this movie, and as a reporter with an ear on the evangelical beat, I'm about to pray "deliver us from e-mail" because I can't keep up with the buzz that's hitting my inbox over this film.

If the movie is a bomb, it will be because this is a frightening story to encounter. It is more than intense: This is the claim that people are separated from God, and that there is a way to reconnect to our Creator and live in love and healing in the world. This movie made me cry weeks later, and it could have the power to change the way people live. The alternative is that Joe Public would rather go on living without a knowledge of what God's claim for humanity is, and just stay home.

So for all our worries about who got to see the film early and who didn't, and where it is going and why churches have booked theatres for Easter Sunday on this, it's out of all our hands. Something supernatural is under way in the land, I don't say that lightly, but whether you see the movie or not isn't about a toss of the coin to make an entertainment decision. Attending this movie is a spiritual decision, and that's why the best of marketing will be at a loss to predict how this movie will play out. The content is just too personal and the message so extreme that it will take inner longings and determination to view it. Yes, I do think the devil will try to keep people from seeing The Passion, using anything as simple as a busy schedule, or as complex as a bad religious experience earlier in life.

In Canada, this movie should unite Jews and Christians, because we will understand each other's story better, and be more committed to the love we know our faiths are founded on. It's not so simple for countries that have a history of killing Jews, and for those audiences, this movie needs much interpretation.

The Passion is unambiguous in the historical account that Jews killed one of their prophets, Jesus. Christians have also killed their prophets, but we don't have those stories launched into the power of culture-shaping movies that could confuse a religiously illiterate public. If I could advise Mel Gibson in his final edits, which Reuters reported days ago he was still deliberating on, I'd say, "just leave out that bearded priest who says the blood should be upon the Jews" -- for it's that "blood curse," as it has come to be called, that Hitler used to insist that his evil was warranted. No wonder the bearers of God's first message to humanity, the Jews, are afraid of Mel Gibson's movie. 

I agree with those who ask that Mr. Gibson add this postscript to the movie. "During Roman occupation, more than 250,000 Jews were crucified by the Romans, but only One rose from the dead."

As I think through what happened in my mind while I watched The Passion, I decided that the whole experience was anti-religious; it was not a movie about faith systems. It shows clearly that God had a different plan than the one devised by the religious hierarchy for spiritual peace. It wasn't Jews who killed Jesus, it was the sin of humanity. The Passion opens with prophecy from Isaiah, written hundreds of years prior to the Crucifixion, which declares the future to be divinely decided -- that this, the death and Resurrection of Jesus, was how the script of history would be lived out. Spiritual hierarchy and gatekeepers are appalling in this movie; it made me, as a religious worker, squirm, because it strips away everything humanity created for access to God, and leaves me with the cross and Jesus. It is the ache of the Jewish masses, and in particular the women who have been touched by the grace of Jesus, that will resonate with those in the movie theatre.

A body would have to be supernatural to live through the beatings and torture Mel Gibson puts his Christ through. I hope that the violence and the blood are overemphasized, but I know we're just starting to hear from the academics about whether this is an accurate portrayal of history.

What is undeniably accurate is that the logo we so tritely wear around our necks, and use to adorn our churches and trinkets, is about to sweep into reality through our theatres and we will understand what the cross really meant. I'll never look at it the same way again.