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20 saturday may 29 2004 economist sun suntribune faith holywoo design conceptmike barrett movie studios look for second coming of passion box office by roy green stajf writer has mel gibsons passion kindled a new passion in hollywood for more movies about faith christianity good and evil and all things spiritual theres no question the passion of the christ now the seventh highest grossing film in box office history has gone far beyond the christian audience a demographic often ignored by the film industry suggesting there is a pentup demand for religious themed entertainment orisitjustafluke as bruce newman of the san jose mercury put it are studio executives driving around los angeles with bumper stickers on their benzes saying what would jesus watch already there are several jesus films in production including daughter of god based on a novel about a female messiah and mr gibsons own plans for a movie about judas maccabaeus a jewish warrior nbc has a pilot for a show called revelations based on the book in the bible that deals with armageddon and abc recently aired two movies that had been on the shelf for two years judas and jesus and paul ted baehr chairperson of the christian film television commission says hollywood has discovered the christian movie audience were happy they know its not to be dismissed as some ridiculous subculture within the society mr baehr said its the same way they discovered the christian music audience 10 years ago ron csillag athomhill jour nalistcolumnist who writes about religion notes a new inter est in religious themes in enter tainment theres been an increase in spiritual content in television with touched by an angel and joan of arcadia mr csillag said theyve struck a chord in young people and theres a general upswing in desire for spiritual programming among young peo ple jonathon bock founder of grace hill media a public rela tions firm that markets to reli gious audiences said mr gibsons film has inspired a pop- culture fad christian is the new gay said mr bock passions success is like when ellen degeneres came out on tv and in the wake of that gay characters were able to become main characters in shows maybe now christian characters can appear on main stream sitcoms and there will be story lines that explore their jour ney of faith but rabbi mendel kaplan of thomhills chabad flamingo cautions against defining film images as spiritual activity watching a movie is not wor shipping god rabbi kaplan said it may lead to it but only time will tell its like a fad and once that fad dissipates will peo- pie remain on the same high he believes a general societal shift away from religion has cre ated a need for spirituality moving away from ideas of see positive page 21 ron csillag faith evangelicals steamed for good reason t hey say politics and religion dont mix that depends if youre a voter or a politician if youre a politician you try to keep religion even if its your own as far away as possible the issue gets a lot of politicos tugging at their collars witness prime minister paul martins rather disingenuous statement in the house of commons this month in response to an accusation from a conservative mp the liberals were preparing to attack members of his party because of their religious faith let me say that faith religion has no room in politics the fact is that this gov ernment would never allow that whoops too late the liberals are kneedeep in faith- related issues almost all of their own making in the process even before campaigning for the june 28 vote began in earnest they have managed to further offend a massive bloc of voters already upset with the liberal agenda evangeli cal christians as if samesex marriage bill c250 which adds sexual orientation to defini tions of hate crimes leading many christians to fear the bible could be banned as hate propaganda and the availability of the morning after pill without a prescription werent enough to alienate a lot of evangelicals proba bly mainline christians too the liberals were caught this month polling voters on whether or not they would be more or less likely to vote for the conservatives if you knew they had been taken over by evangelical christians sec grits page 21 jg local news find that special something in the cjassifieds s read your favouritecolumnistthen email it to a friend uswooa -iiv-i-