What Has Mel Gibson Got Against the Church?

For the Christian viewer, the biggest question about Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto is: why does its hero turn away from the Cross at the end?

All in all, there's not a lot of Christ — passionate or otherwise — in Apocalypto, Mel Gibson's first film since The Passion of the Christ. But a crucifix finally shows up at the film's end, and the film's response to it is surprisingly equivocal.

The
movie tells the story of a peaceful 16th-century jungle-dweller named
Jaguar Paw. The first quarter of the film presents his idyllic village
as a kind of Eden. The second quarter is a vision of Hell, as a raiding
party for