How Christians Plan to Respond to the Da Vinci Code Movie
The movie based on the “Da Vinci Code” will soon be out. It alleges that Christ was not really the Son of God — thus directly challenging a basic tenet of Christian beliefs. Christian leaders, inspired by the riots over cartoons depicting Muhammad, plan to riot, pillage, and kill.
Oh, wait — no, they are planning this instead:
Evangelical churches across the nation are launching an aggressive effort to save souls by talking about a fictional murder mystery that many regard as blasphemous.
“Talking” about it??
Pastors are setting out doughnuts and sandwiches and inviting non-Christians to come discuss “The Da Vinci Code” bestseller. They’re creating hip marketing campaigns to draw nonbelievers to sermons about the thriller. They’re even giving away free iPods loaded with their commentary on the novel.
And if that doesn’t work, it’s on to Plan B: rioting, pillaging, and killing.
the protagonist in “the da vinci code” wasn’t very bright. instead of traipsing around europe with the french chick for 300 pages while trying to align the letters on the sides of the cylinders correctly, he could have just put the concentric cylinders on end in the freezer, taken the madamoiselle to the boudoir for two hours, during which time the vinegar in the inner cylinder would have frozen, trapping the vial with the map safely at the bottom, at which point the top could be removed with a band saw. that’s called thinking outside the cylinder!
assistant devil's advocate (4937f2) — 5/11/2006 @ 11:32 pmThere’s no claim in the book that Jesus isn’t the son of God. Rather, the claim is that the church covered up the nature of his actual life and teachings.
I certainly hope that the movie is better made than the book was written. Brown was supposedly an English teacher, but he gets tripped up by grammar on a regular basis, and frequently employs… odd usages of words.
Ian Hamet (cd95a8) — 5/12/2006 @ 2:47 amIan:
The book claims that the early church did not believe in the divinity of Jesus.
“My dear,” Teabing declared, “until that moment in history [the counsel of Nicaea], Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet…a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.” – Chapter 55
At the request of a friend, I had posted an independent commentary on the book on a xanga site. I have just moved it here – although I am still developing the new site.
Amphipolis (fdbc48) — 5/12/2006 @ 5:40 amI’ve read one book by Brown (not TDC). It was written in the headlong, breathless, not-too-well-edited style of the ’30’s pulps. The protagonist came off as a combination of Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Doc Savage. On the basis of text alone it’s hard to see what people are so upset about.
Of course it isn’t just about text. It’s about the relentless criticism of Christianity by people whose faith(s) (Marxism and/or Radical Islam) are a hundred times as mendacious and murderous as Christianity at its historical worst. It gets under your skin until your final reaction is far out of proportion to the final irritant.
These old heresies (TDC and The Judas Gospel) are fantastically unimportant compared to Christianity’s record at the front wave of civilization. The attacks on Christianity are escalating because the Liberal Twits are painfully aware that their slip(s) is showing. Multiculturalism is swill, and there’s nothing like the relentless attacks of a bunch of violent religious bigots to expose something like that.
C. S. P. Schofield (c1cf21) — 5/12/2006 @ 7:22 amWe’re arguing over fiction here right? I don’t see what the big deal is.
actus (35bc24) — 5/12/2006 @ 8:13 amactus:
We are talking about fiction. Most people laugh off the crazy claims of the book and just enjoy the story.
But some don’t. Brown has so manipulated the background of the story, such as misquoting historical documents, that people have asked me why I thought the claims are not true. It’s a big deal to them.
I am not arguing with a work of fiction. I am arguing with the bogus ideas people have taken from a work of fiction.
Amphipolis (fdbc48) — 5/12/2006 @ 8:28 amIn general, a good approach to religions fiction.
actus (35bc24) — 5/12/2006 @ 8:37 amIn general, a good approach to religions fiction.
The life of Jesus fulfilled over 300 old testament prophecies about the Messiah, such as the time and place of his birth and how he died. The odds of that being a coincidence are astronomical.
Gerald A (bdfba2) — 5/12/2006 @ 9:52 amMy church excommunicated Kazantzakis because of “The Last Temptation of Christ”. I think it’s a great literary work. Do I believe a word of it? No. I learned my religion from my mother and some ink smears on paper are not going to compete with that. [On the other hand, there’s this passage early in the book, when Mary’s father, in response to her complaint that she prays for her son but it does not seem to do any good, says, “Mary, if God heeded mothers’ prayers we would all be rotting in safety and luxury”. Just this passage alone makes the book worth reading.]
Dostoevski’s “The Grand Inquisitor” is an incomparable literary, philosophical and psychological masterpiece. Do I believe a word of the anti-Catholicism Dostoevski threw in? No. He was just rounding out the character of one of the Karamazov brothers.
“The DaVinci Code” is a time-waster for the commute on the train or the dentist’s waiting room. It may be believed by people who believe that Frodo really saved the Middle Earth from Sauron. What can we do about that? The Grand Inquisitor faced the exact same problem. The text (of “The Grand Inquisitor”) is available for free on dozens of sites on the internet. I highly recommend it.
nk (bfc26a) — 5/12/2006 @ 10:04 amI understand that the book/movie and it’s manifold inaccuracies will be the subject of the sermon at my church on the 21st….
Jeff (fccab8) — 5/12/2006 @ 10:06 amThis is my favorite part, about the Knights Templar at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (chapter 37):
For almost a decade, the nine Knights lived in the ruins, excavating in total secrecy through solid rock.
OK, but at that time both the al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock stood at the site.
oops
the idea of protection of pilgrims was the guise under which the Templars ran their mission
But they fought there for another two hundred years after the sangreal documents were supposed to be removed. I guess they never got the memo. And they were never told about the divine feminine stuff, either – they were not permitted to be alone with any woman of any age, and they were not even permitted to kiss their mothers. There were no female Templars.
I have way too much fun critiquing this book.
Amphipolis (fdbc48) — 5/12/2006 @ 10:12 amPlan C:
Visit Challenging Da Vinci a Sydney Anglicans production. The content is attributable to Dr Greg Clarke of the Centre for Apologetic Study and Education (CASE).
For those without the time to read through this piercing, but even handed, criticism of The Da Vinci Code, you can find a talk (in MP3 format) from the Sydney Anglicans Podcast.
More historical information provided here.
Personally, despite the litany of historical errors in the book, I found the book a rivetting read. I had to read it three times, in quick succession.
Manny C (0eabdc) — 5/12/2006 @ 3:51 pmSo people get another reason for the riots and that too on fiction. What would have happened if it was a non-fiction! What is beyond killing and rioting!
joe (222f2a) — 5/13/2006 @ 12:51 amI found it strikingly similar to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries of my youth.
Much ado about very, very little.
heldmyw (5a5839) — 5/13/2006 @ 6:12 amBrown ripped it off from “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. He’s a hack, and his books read like movie scripts.
Also, read his description of the main character, Robert Langdon. Now flip the book over and look at his picture. The arrogant jerk is trying to describe himself.
John Ekdahl (1fe18c) — 5/13/2006 @ 6:46 am“Holy Blood, Holy Grail” – explicitly cited in DVC – was considered non-fiction.
Amphipolis (346a88) — 5/13/2006 @ 8:59 amrectus,
the difference between how muslims react to “blasphemy” vs how christians react to it isn’t fiction, is it?
Carlos (98df3a) — 5/14/2006 @ 8:59 amSaying that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God is blasphemy. As for the argument that one should take seriously obscure cartoons, but not an international bestseller that asserts that its blasphemous portions are true — read this.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 5/14/2006 @ 10:26 amIs fiction the enough reason for the Christians to not react in that manner? Whatever is said is actually blasphemy. It has nothing to do with fiction and non-fiction.
emma (20b861) — 5/15/2006 @ 3:17 amI don’t understand what fiction has to do with blasphemy. What is wrong is wrong and can’t be correct in any way!
annie (faa56a) — 5/16/2006 @ 4:23 amThe Palestinians have been steeped in their own culture of oppression, poverty and religious innocence (or ignorance). Their society has not yet learned to be as tolerant as ours on matters of faith.
A good number of people who came to America in the early years weren’t Christians, but Deists and members of other religious sects. (Heh. Heh. Sects. Yeah, sects. Cool, heh.) So religious tolerance has been learned in our culture from the beginning.
But it wasn’t too long ago in our short history when we were legally burning people alive for religious reasons. Our country’s not the shining example of religious tolerance either.
Psyberian (dd13d6) — 5/16/2006 @ 5:06 amPsyberian:
Actually, our country IS a shining example of religious tolerance …. when you compare it to the rest of the world in the same historical period.
The New England Witch Hunts (which usually ended in hanging, not burning) are horrifying ….. but consistent with the times that they happened in. Yes, there is a history of religious intolerance. It has never been as bad here as it was in Europe during the same period. And don’t even get me started on the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. While some intolerant jerks were bending the law in New England to hang ‘witches’, the Japanese government was, as a matter of policy, CRUCIFYING Christians.
Are we, or have we ever been, perfect? Hell no! But we can reasonably take pride in being better than the rest of the world, and we should guard against throwing out the real good in vain search for the phantom perfect.
C. S. P. Schofield (c1cf21) — 5/16/2006 @ 6:53 amPsyberian, as CSP Schofield points out, witches weren’t burned in the New World. And the witch hunts weren’t really what you would call religious persecution. Those accused of being witches weren’t singled out because they had religious beliefs that were different than the ones that prevailed in their community. The fact that the law invoked was one that had its basis in religion doesn’t make its enforcement “religous persecution.” The witch hunt hysteria in New England collapsed, at least in part, because it did not single out those whose beliefs put them out of the mainstream, but instead more or less indiscriminately targeted ordinary citizens. Once it became apparent that something as petty as a dispute with a neighbor could put you in the dock as an accused witch, fewer people thought it was a good idea. Also consider that only those who defiantly insisted that they conformed to the community’s prevailing religious beliefs ended up dangling from the rope (confessions usually saved the accused’s life). Religious hysteria? Sure. Religious persecution? Well, some certainly occurred in our history, but the witch trials don’t fit the description of it.
TNugent (6128b4) — 5/16/2006 @ 8:35 am