Judas, DaVinci and other Assorted Stuff

Tis the season to dis the gospels.  As if the DaVinci Code wasn't enough to cool your hearts toward Jesus and the gospel accounts, we have a new entry in the historical-fiction-that-is-treated-as-fact genre, with the Gospel of Judas. 

Mark Roberts was going to let "The Gospel of Judas" slide, thinking it to be a tempest in a teapot, but it has gotten way too much press to let it go, especially during Holy Week.  So, he has put up an extensive FAQ on the Gospel of Judas with which he hopes to inject some fact into all of the ficiton flying around.

Also, this FAQ on the Gospel of Judas is part of Mark's larger series called The DaVinci Opportunity.  Mark is the man, I wish I was half as smart as him.  Maybe I can be his caddy someday.

While we're talking DaVinci stuff Justin Taylor points us to an e-mail from Brian Godawa suggesting an alternative approach to the DaVinci Code movie.  My buddy the Cavman has also picked up on this. Brian got this from an unnamed Hollywood screenwriter and it basically suggests that, on the day the DaVinci Code is released, we all go to see a different movie.  I suppose that would tell Hollywood that we are  not taking the DaVinci Code as seriously as they are.

I think this unnamed Hollywood screenwriter must be Barbara Nicolosi, or someone who ripped the idea off of Barbara.  She wrote about her desire to help the DaVinci Code movie become a non-event back on February 11th. 

Barbara really has some good thoughts on this which are a good balance to Mark Roberts' words.  Here are some of the things she has to say in response to the usual suggestions that we need to see the film.

Folks, there is no dialogue here. The dialogue which might have happened involved Sony and Imagine making changes in the story, that would have reflected some kind of fidelity to history or fairness. They didn't make those changes. Basically because they wanted to bash Christians.

Secondly, I don't agree that "everybody" is going to see this film. I found the script somewhere between idiotic and way too cute. I didn't find it half as clever as National Treasure....and that wasn't exactly a work of cinematic genius. As 80% of America is Christian, if they don't get us in, the movie basically tanks. And most of us probably weren't going to be going -- until we were told "Every Christian must!!!" All in the name of "dialogue."

Further, we absolutely do not need to see the film to talk about Jesus. No more than we need to see porn to talk about human sexuality. Or to read Mein Kempf to decide whether we can have an opinion about gassing Jews. Besides, it would be dignifying a really inane story. Da Vinci Code is so ridiculous in its premises, that it is giving it a false gravity to even take it seriously enough so as to argue about it. ["And tomorrow, the Christians will be offering a hermenutic of moral praxis as can be gleaned from next week's episode of WWF Smackdown. Ahem."]

Barbara then talks about that website that someone set up (I think it was Sony and I think George Barna was somehow involved, ahem) that allows Christians to post refutations of the DaVinci Code.  I forgot where the site is, hence the link lackage.

Now, Christians being coaxed into writing anti-DVC pieces on a stupid web site (like, well, this one) are meekly accepting that they are being given "a seat at the table" in some grand cultural discussion. Duped! There is no seat folks. There is no discussion. What there is, is a few p.r. folks in Hollywood taking mondo big bucks from Sony Pictures, to deliver legions of well-meaning Christians into subsidizing a movie that makes their own Savior out to be a sham.

The masses who will see this film will not be coming to the web site. They will go in to the theaters, eat handfuls of popcorn, and then come out marveling that millions of people for 2,000 years could have been so duped by a lie. They won't go to any web site. They won't be coming to any Christian forum.

I love how we Christians have moved from all agreeing that DVC is evil, to now arguing about what cultural engagement means. Ha! Fabulous! It is a plot twist worthy of Da Vinci Code (if, you know, it were a really clever book with good plot points...)

I gotta say how much I love Barbara's comments and I think she is right on. 

I know that Mark Roberts sees some opportunities with the movie, and Dan Kimball is excited about the potential evangelistic impact of the movie.

I think Mark is right that there is an opportunity here but I am going to have to respectfully disagree with Dan on the potential evangelistic impact.  Rick Warren and Mel Gibson promised me and every other pastor in America that the Passion of the Christ presented the greatest evangelistic opportunity in history.  I'm still waiting for the revival that was ignited by that one to hit my town.  We are a small town so maybe we're just going to be hit with the great revival a little later and we'll start seeing great evangelistic impacts from the movies just like all of you who live in big towns have been experiencing for the last couple of years.

Ditto for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  We even bought a new set of doors for the church because people were going to be knocking our current doors off their hinges after that one came out, but alas, we seem to be stuck with new doors.

But seriously folks, I am with Barbara - I doubt that non-believers will be coming to any kind of Christian forum to learn the truth.

On the other hand, even if we do see a different movie on May 19th, lots of people are still going to see the DaVinci Code.  They won't be coming to the church to talk about it, but they will be talking about it with their friends.  I sat by a guy on an airplane back in January who told me about all of those other gospels that didn't make it into the New Testament.  So, this stuff is in the air already and it will be more in the air come May.

So, I plan to address the issues raised by the DaVinci Code and the Gospel of Judas later this spring.  It's not because I think tons of non-Christians are going to rush to the church to hear about it, although I hope our folks will invite them. 

It's because Christians are particularly ill-equipped to answer the issues raised by the DaVinci Code and other such stuff.  My main goal is to buttress the faith of believers so that they won't get pulled away. My assumption is that alot of folks are going to see the movie anyway. 

I am concerned with a couple of potential responses on the part of believers.  One potential response is that some believers may get rattled and start to wonder if in fact this stuff is true.  The other is an anti-intellectual combative response that basically says "nuh-uh and you are evil for thinking that."

So, though I think Barbara is basically right, that we really aren't gaining a seat at the table in this, that there probably isn't going to be a lot of dialogue and that not everyone is going to see the movie, I still think the ideas that are present in the DaVinci Code are permeating our world more and more and we need to address them for the sake of believers and secondarily to give believers the wherewithal to answer the issues their friends, family, neighbors and co-workers might raise as a result of seeing the movie.

In that respect I think Mark Roberts is right on - we do have an opportunity here.  It is an opportunity to ground believers in some much needed areas of truth.

Related Tags: Books, Current Affairs, Film, Religion, Movies, DaVinci Code, Gospel of Judas, Gospel, Gospels, Christian, Christianity

Comments

[Rusty Lopez]

...we do have an opportunity here. It is an opportunity to ground believers in some much needed areas of truth.

Exactly.

Maybe, then, we should be praying for more DaVinci Code movies, and fewer Narnia ones?

[Ken]

Recently saw an essay on an online zine called Inzpire that had a humorous dig on DVC and the "Jesus is my boyfriend" school of CCM "praise choruses": They're evidence for the DVC -- "Mary Mag's love songs".

Seriously, I've heard of problems with DVC fanboys; seems the tour guides in Rome have had their fill of them and then some. While doing their tour spiel of some site or history in the city, they keep getting interrupted with "No! You're Wrong!", followed by the tourist/fanboy pulling out a copy of DVC and quoting "The Truth (TM)" at them chapter-and-verse.

Priests have also occasionally been accosted by DVC fanboys waving copies of "The Truth (TM)".

But what really gets me are the Protestant Christians (usually independent Evangelical types) who jump on the DVC bandwagon to "Stick it to those Catholics".

[rob]

This is why we created DiscussDaVinci.com so that we can have disucssions like this...engage others and talk about fact from fiction.

[Seven Star Hand]

Are you ready for the truth?

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