This essay draws on Lacan's theory of enjoyment and his understanding of metaphor and metonymy as rhetorical forms. It details the circulation of tropes, affects and practices of seeing constituting an evangelical public around Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ with special attention to the ways in which the film operates as one node in an affective economy that articulates tropes of victimhood and intimacy within the public practices of evangelicalism. This essay also suggests that reading publics through the lens of an economy of trope and affective investment provides significant insight into the production and durability of public identity.