Peter Edman
I should start with the disclaimer that I personally am inclined to the camp that thinks the book and movie of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code are best ignored lest further efforts to debunk his scholarship and historical claims actually contribute to the publicity campaign. But there’s no ignoring the fact that the publicity he’s already earned from the lawsuits and the dozens of debunking books and websites—combined with the novel’s own narrative drive, the human weakness for conspiracy theories, and the perennial desire to create a more comfortable form of religion—has made it a cultural force to be reckoned with.
Senior Fellow Bill Edgar is taking the lead for a new Da Vinci response site sponsored by Westminster Theological Seminary, The Truth About Da Vinci, which will also be including articles and multimedia from a variety of people we like, including Trinity Forum co-founder Os Guinness. The site looks winsome and non-defensive, attempting, as it says, to create “doubt about doubt.” But Bill & Co. are not the only ones out there—not even the only ones from the Reformed stream of the faith—making a stand.
There seems to be a whole cottage industry of Brown-debunkers (it’s useful, it’s fun, and it’s ever so easy!), both independent, like the Westminster folk, and “official” like those on the Da Vinci Dialogue website kindly or crassly sponsored by Sony (which also includes participation from some people we like, like Frederica Mathewes-Green).
I’ve seen books out from across the theological spectrum, ranging from Nicky Gumbel of Holy Trinity Brompton and Alpha to D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries to Josh McDowell and Campus Crusade to Amy Welborn. And it looks like the indefatigable Bishop Tom Wright has one coming out just before the film hits (probably an expansion of this article). (Amy Welborn notes that Catholic scholar George Weigel recommends Wright’s Challenge of Jesus as a singular go-to book for those troubled by Brown’s portrait of Jesus.)
And it would be wrong to omit the pioneering and tireless efforts of the folks at Ignatius Press, publisher of The Da Vinci Hoax and host of the Da Vinci Hoax Blog. Also on the Catholic side is The Da Vinci Antidote and a more official response from the UCCB, Jesus Decoded.
I guess it’s nice to see something that all the various types of Christians can rally around.
Sightings, Arts and Culture, Faiths and Worldviews, Wed 19 Apr 2006
When I was a child, I admired clever people. Now that I am an adult, I admire kind people.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Israel-Lebanon: A Clash of Cultures
America’s Most Important Export
Christian Realism and the United Nations
The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up by Don Eberly.
A sweeping and hopeful overview of the extraordinary new forces that are prying open closed societies and cultivating democratic norms across the globe.
Christopher Nolan’s Achievement: The Dark Knight: “The title of the Nolan’s latest Batman film calls to mind medieval chivalry in a postmodern key. The dark knight embraces extraordinary tasks and fights against enormous odds; his quest is to restore what has been corrupted and to recover what has been lost. In so doing, he takes upon himself a suffering and loneliness that isolate him from his fellow citizens and inevitably court their misunderstanding and scorn. He is a dark knight, in part, because the world he inhabits is nearly void of hope and virtue, and, in part, because some of the darkness resides within him, in his internal conflicts between the good he aspires to restore and the means he deploys to fend off evil. Of the many filmmakers designing dark tales of quests for redemption, Christopher Nolan is currently making a serious claim to being the master craftsman.” (Thomas S. Hibbs, First Things: On the Square • 2008 07 22)
Unplanned Parenthood: “Hall offers a faithful reconception of parenthood that resists notions of the “progressive family” and instead summons the church to lovingly and actively incorporate all children. She uses the doctrines of Creation, salvation, and eschatology—namely, that all children bear the image of God, that adoption is God’s form of salvation, and that God secures the future of the church—to move the church beyond mere biology and more deeply into its baptismal identity.” (Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom reviewing Conceiving Parenthood by Amy Laura Hall, Christianity Today • 2008 07 21)
What makes a supervillain?: “We’ve exposed all the stories we know as a culture to several peanut-butter-thick layers of ironic reimagining by now, parodying and re-parodying them until there’s nothing left to appreciate with any sincerity, but rather with a smirk and a knowing grin. So how, I wonder, does this culture manufacture more sincerity? How do we create something new that isn’t a parody of something we saw as kids?” (Brian Tiemann, Peeve Farm, on Joss Whedon’s excellent Internet-based musical, Dr. Horrible. • 2008 07 19)
Pope’s Speech at Barangaroo: “Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose (cf. Gen 1:28)! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this - in truth, in goodness, and in beauty - that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.” (Pope Benedict XVI, The Catholic Herald • 2008 07 17)
• Hollywood’s Hero Deficit (2008 07 17)
• The Return of Religion (2008 07 16)
• Food for Thought (2008 07 15)
• Sir John Templeton: iconic innovator in finance and religion (2008 07 12)
• Running on Faith (2008 07 11)
The Definition of Christianity by John Lennox.
Designed to help the reader grasp the historic facts at the heart of the Christian gospel, including topics such as: the world's fatal flaw, magic and the gospel, and Christ among the philosophers.
