The wait is over. The movie opens today.
Here is a link to a very brief article I wrote about the public response to The DaVinci Code for a great film site; The Conversation. The site features reviewers & film critics Andrew Campbell and Philip Tallon.
I titled my piece, The DaVinci Code . . . picking up where Luther left off?
Peace, dwight
da vinci code . . . picking up where luther left off?
Dwight,
Thanks for your post!
Go here ( http://the-conversation.blogspot.com/2006/05/pop-fiction-oracle.html#c114803612721211154 ) for my response.
http://www.ats.wilmore.ky.us/_pdf/publications/Herald_Spring.06.pdf
Phil.
Hmmm… I think it is a short-lived, highly localized, and dramaticaly over-rated issue that no one will remeber next summer… But, until then I believe that, as a Christ follower, I (as well as the rest of the eschatological communion) confront, adapt, assimilate, and recycle the book towards the glory of God and the furtherment of the Kingdom.
I was very disappointed with the film. Yawn. Thanks for the link.
Peace,
Jamie
Thanks for these thoughts. I referred folks here and offered some along those lines this morning.
i too went last to see the movie . . . quite frankly i didn’t think that all the hype was warrented . . . of course the movie is not a “recommended” source for church history lesson . . . true enough but its a movie not a seminary textbook . . .
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people have read and will watch the new movie The Da Vinci Code, as an experience in shared frustration with a religious status-quo, a mostly male-dominated, power-oriented, cover-up-prone organized religion. That is as difficult to write as it is difficult to read. But there is on some level difficult truth in this statement. The Da Vinci Code can only gain traction in a nation where careful explorations of challenging concepts like the virgin birth and the deity of Christ have been exchanged for mere motivational speeches, and where “easy steps to better living” sermons dominate the landscape of our pulpits.
If we are truly “Christian” it’s important that we honestly ask ourselves why the vision of Jesus portrayed in Dan Brown’s book is more interesting, attractive, and intriguing to some people than the vision of Jesus they hear about in church. Is it possible that, even though Brown’s fictional version misleads its audience in many ways, it at least serves to open up the possibility that the church’s conventional version of Jesus may not do Him justice? I’m afraid that’s true.
For all the error in Brown’s book, (and there is plenty!) I think the reaction to what he’s doing is suggesting that the dominant religious institutions have created their own “caricature” of Jesus. And I think “John Q. Pew” has an unspoken sense that that’s true. It’s my honest feeling that anyone trying to share their faith in America today has to realize that the air is polluted with inaccurate assumptions that the church has created. The name “Jesus” and the word “Christianity” are too often associated with something judgmental, hostile, and angry, that’s not to mention the hypocritical, negative, and even defensiveness we all too often perpetuate. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, are actually upholding something that’s distorted and false. Again, those are difficult words to type and hear, but I believe that they are true too.
“The response to the book may be to modern Christianity what Babylon was to the ancient Hebrews, or what persecution was to the early church.”
dude… christians in the early church were flayed, burned, crucified, eaten. surely you would never seriously compare such a dull film to such passion??