The DaVinci Code is Cracking Catholics

And they need to get a grip on themselves. Catholic voices ranging from Vatican officials and Nigerian Cardinals to church scholars have increased their attacks on Dan Brown's best-selling novel just in time for the film. How long will it take people to realize that loud denounciations and calls for boycotts do nothing to subdue a film's public-drawing power? In fact, typically the opposite happens. "The Passion of the Christ" comes to mind immediately: the feverished, whiney screams of anti-semitism about Mel Gibson's phenomenal film no doubt helped propel it to the greatest profits ever for an R-rated film.

Make no mistake: I have read The DaVinci Code, and I believe it to be a fascinating story with a lighting-fast plot; it's no wonder the book kept me reading late into the night. However, as literature the book is lacking. It is low on character development, and the writing simply isn't stellar. In addition, the characters and plot line in The DaVinci Code are pathetically similar to its prequel, Angels and Demons--which I blogged about last year. Yet there is a bigger problem with the book. I won't detail Dan Brown's deceit and dishonesty here--plenty of other have done that. This post concerns the folks who have crossed the line in their opposition to the book and the film. According to this article,

Cardinals, speaking with the authorisation of the Vatican, have called for the Hollywood version of Dan Brown's bestselling novel to be boycotted.

First mistake. A boycott will only increase peoples' desire to see the film, and those (Christians) who do abstain will only be shooting themselves in the foot by being ignorant of an important discussion. One Catholic got it half right when he described the novel as "stridently anti-Christian" and called for believers to "reject the lies and gratuitous defamation" in the book. Agreed: reject the lies, but instead of boycotting anything DaVinci, engage the discussion! The wimperings about attacks on Christianity, without being coupled with an intellectual response, harken back to the days of William Jennings Bryan, who said in the 1925 Scopes Trial, “I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion, that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it.”

A common response to Christains' claims about The DaVinci Code is that the book is only fiction. Indeed, the film's star came out with such a defense:

[Tom Hanks said] the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense...If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake.

That's exactly the point: this "loaded with hooey" story (the book, at least) is packaged as factual, which it most definitely is not. Even the mainstream media has researched and exposed as false some of the basic historical assertions in the novel. Yet many religious leaders (especially Catholics) have called for measures against the film that would be completely counterproductive; some have even called for legal action!

[Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze said] Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and forget. Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical...Some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others.

Oh, please. Legal action because a movie innaccurately portrays Christianity? This is perfect fodder for the lefties who claim equivalance between Christians and the Islamic response to the Danish cartoons. Riots are quite different from threatening legal action, obviously, but any unreasonable response by Christians to the DaVinci controversey reflects negatively on them. Fortunately, there are plenty of reasonable responses to this issue. Three off the top of my head: Josh McDowell's book, pastor Mark D. Roberts' blogging on the subject, and Focus on the Family's roundup of valuable articles.

Of course, not every Christian leader opposed to the film/book do so for the standard reasons, or so goes the claim:

Another eminent Catholic, socialite Claus Von Bülow, said: "I am not going to see The Da Vinci Code. This has nothing to do with its historical claims but because I found the book unreadable."

I find that hard to believe.

Tags: DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, Catholics, Christians, Tom Hanks, Angels and Demons, Josh McDowell, Mark D Roberts, Focus on the Family