From cult screen actor to major movie director, Mel Gibson has firmly secured his place as a Hollywood player. His latest directorial project, The Passion of the Christ, has landed him centre stage once more, and author Wensley Clarkson reveals Mel's views on the controversy surrounding it. In addition, he'll uncover: the years of girlfriends, drinking and gambling; the inside stories of Mel's Hollywood business deals and how powerful Hollywood figures helped him to overcome his addictions to alcohol and cigarettes, plus the details of his marriage to Robyn and the secrets of his life with his many children. Mel Gibson: Man on a Mission provides an in-depth glimpse into the life of an actor who is a fiercely private man about whom relatively little is really known.

Biblical scholars Timothy K. Beal and Tod Linafelt, along with an esteemed group of contributors, offer a provocative range of views on The Passion of the Christ. The book is organized in three parts. The first analyzes the film in terms of its religious foundations, including the Gospels and nonbiblical religious texts. The second group of essays focuses on the ethical and theological implications of the film's presentation of the Christian Gospel. Finally, the third section explores the film as a pop cultural phenomenon.

HE'S A HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR . . . A CONTROVERSIAL FILM DIRECTOR . . . ONE OF THE SEXIEST MEN ALIVE (AT LEAST ACCORDING TO PEOPLE MAGAZINE) . . . AND NOW MEL GIBSON WANTS TO HELP YOU BE ALL YOU CAN BE! When Mel Gibson wakes up in jail after being arrested for DUI, he doesn't quite remember what happened the night before, but he's not worried. After all, he's Mel Gibson! Whatever he might have said or done, he's confident it will all blow over. Because if there's one thing Mel knows for sure, it's how to live the charmed life he so richly deserves! And since Mel has a couple of hours to kill before his lawyers show up, he's decided to share his secrets of happiness with you mere mortals. Here you'll find Mel's exclusive tips for career success, romance, keeping fit, facing your fears, money matters, and even surviving a nuclear apocalypse! With a foreword by Jesus Christ Himself and an appendix of Mel's favorite cocktails (like the Tequila Sunrise: Take one bottle of tequila, drink 'til sunrise), this is the definitive guide to living the good life, Mel Gibson-style. (This book is not in any way affiliated with or authorized by the real Mel Gibson. Or Jesus Christ, for that matter.)

Some essays are from a symposium held Mar. 30, 2004 at Purdue University.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ has become one of the most controversial films ever made, and it is already a blockbuster of cinematography. Its defenders passionately regard it as one of the most moving and influential pieces of religious art ever created. But its detractors argue with comparable vehemence that the violence and gore it contains, its alleged anti-Semitism, a particular take on the Christian message, and the lack of historical and Biblical accuracy, make it nothing more than a kind of political propaganda. Father Thomas Rosica hailed as one of the great masterpieces of religious art, but the secular humanist Paul Kurtz thinks of it as a political weapon in the hands of the religious right. Film critics are divided in their judgment, giving the film anywhere from no stars to five stars. Regardless of what one thinks of the film, however, its impact both personal and social is beyond question.