In the matter of Mel Gibson’s controversial film “The Passion of the Christ,” Michael Heath, executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, recently made a couple of religious observations reported in these pages that I’d like to contest.

Heath stated that if the film is “an actual portrayal of Christ, it won’t be an issue. The crucifixion is not about the Jews or the Romans killing Jesus. It’s about learning it’s my sin that put him on the cross” (Feb. 16).

Coming from an avowedly Bible-believing Protestant leader, that has to be one of the most disingenuous statements I’ve ever heard.

To begin with, by all accounts the film truly is “an actual portrayal of Christ,” entirely faithful to the Gospel narratives of his passion (i.e., his suffering and death) – which is precisely why it’s an issue for some who’ve already seen it. But then, St. Paul himself calls the doctrine of Christ crucified “a rock of offense” (Romans 9:33), a doctrine surely known to Mr. Heath.

The Crucifixion, he maintains nonetheless, is not about the Jews or the Romans killing Jesus. Does this mean that Heath, whom I’ve always understood to believe that the New Testament is “God-breathed” in every part, now believes that certain details in the Gospel accounts of Christ’s passion are merely uninspired doodads of questionable historicity and thus of no real bearing on the faith of Christians?

This is one ex-believer who’d like to know.

William LaRochelle, Lewiston