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Henrie's Recipes
Boycott this blasphemy
Gideon Nieuwoudt
Posted Thu, 18 May 2006
With the international release of 'The Da Vinci Code' on Friday, it seems the world has climbed onto the same bandwagon that rolled around when 'The Passion of the Christ' was released.
At the time movie-goers headed to the cinemas en masse to watch a movie that graphically depicted what Jesus had to go through for mankind. The secular world stood on the sidelines and hurled insults like "Too graphic" and "Anti-Semitic" at Christians.
This time around the world once again flocks to the cinemas to watch a movie that is imbued with religious controversy — a brilliant marketing strategy to be sure — with Christians looking on in dismay as the entertainment industry engages in a frontal attack on Christianity, the Bible, and the persona of Jesus Christ.
The vehicle: fallacies being held up by 'The Da Vinci Code' as fact.
The basic "fact" here is the centuries-old "secret" that Jesus was married, had children, and wanted His wife to head up the early church — a fact that did not sit too well with His jealous disciples, who promptly banished Jesus’ wife and buried the truth to ensure the suppression of women and the continued control of men over society. The story continues, saying that the bloodline of Jesus intermarried with the French royal line and that somewhere out there descendants of Jesus are to be found today.
What is dangerous with this particular assertion, is not so much whether Jesus did have a wife or not, but rather that this notion, along with all the other "facts" found in 'The Da Vinci Code', blurs the lines between fact and fiction and ultimately sheds doubt on the validity of the Bible to Christians.
A student of Biblical facts and history will, however, find ample evidence to support the claim that the Bible is a historically accurate document and that it can be trusted by believers as divinely inspired.
To go into all the finer details of exactly why I say that 'The Da Vinci Code' is horrendously inaccurate in its "facts", would require the writing of a book. Anyone who wants to "seek the truth" — as the movie’s tagline ironically would have you do — should start by reading Erwin W. Lutzer's book, 'The Da Vinci Deception'.
In Lutzer's words, 'The Da Vinci Code' is so dangerous because: "Dan Brown’s agenda is not so thinly veiled: This book is a direct attack against Jesus Christ, the church, and those of us who are His followers and call Him Saviour and Lord. Christianity, according to Dan Brown’s novel, was invented to suppress women and to turn people away from the 'divine feminine'."
In his book, upon which the movie is based, Dan Brown changes the facts to suit the story he wants to tell, something that a lot of authors do. But as author John Fisher said in a recent article: “(Dan Brown) has concerned himself more with building an entertaining story than with the truth," adding, "that his story pretends to be a legitimate conspiracy is more of a brilliant marketing scheme than a significant attack on history. You have to remind people where they found this book: in the fiction section.”
In other words, not to be confused with the truth.
Tom Hanks, star of the movie adaptation of Brown's novel, recently lashed out at criticism by Christians in an interview and said: "It's a damn good story and a lot of fun... all it is, is dialogue. That never hurts."
If you were watching 'Alien' then such a comment would ring true, because no matter how you immerse yourself into that movie, it's a very far stretch of the imagination to say that it is real. When the person of Jesus is attacked, however, it becomes a whole different matter. You’re touching the foundation of what is held sacred to millions of people the world over and a direct attack like this cannot just be shaken off with a comment like "it's only a story".
The true danger in the end is not the attack on history (yes, there is enough proof to support the validity of the Bible as historically accurate in all it’s references, including the divinity of Jesus Christ), but rather the blurred lines between truth and fiction to the uninformed. If one were to actually go and "seek the truth", you'll find that there is ample evidence to support what the Bible teaches about Jesus.
The problem is, however, that most people won’t do this. They’d much rather wrongly assume that what the media and Hollywood feeds them must be the truth, negating any further studying of the matter. One argument goes like this: surely the fact that it got published must mean it’s true. Ironically, this argument actually supports the Bible’s claim to the truth more than it does Dan Brown’s novel, because the Bible is the bestselling book of all time — by a long margin.
Let’s not beat around the bush and call 'The Da Vinci Code' by any other name than what it is: a direct attack on the person of Jesus Christ, the truth found in Him, and the validity of the Bible. In fact, perhaps the tagline of the movie should be changed to more accurately portray what the movie stands for: “Instead of searching for the truth, maybe you should just ignore it.”
Many movie-goers will probably go and watch this movie because of the story, saying that it’s just entertainment. I won't be joining them, because for me, having the blood of my Saviour trampled upon for entertainment’s sake is blasphemous beyond compare.
