I was kind of hoping this Davinci craze would die down but apparently it is still causing quite a stir in the Christian community. My quest for a new church led me to Northpointe Community and the sermon this morning was on the Davinci Code. A couple weeks ago I heard almost the exact same sermon at the vineyard church and my old church is doing a series on it as well.
All this attention is fine and good because most people do not know the truth and it does draw the attention of the average person. But I wonder if all this fuss is really worth it. I mean is the church that worried that a work of popular fiction will really lead people estray? Is our faith so weak? On the other hand, if the church won't get worked up when someone actually blasphemed our Lord then what will it get worked up over? So I can kind of see both sides.
What this reminds me of is a lesson I read in the Screwtape letters. That book is about a young demon apprentice learning from his uncle the ways of the world. The Uncle instructs his pupil that direct assaults at Christianity are often not the best approach. Instead he suggests that he focus on the perimeter issues and slowly chip away at Christianity. In this case, the Davinci Code is a direct assault and it has awoken a resounding response from the church. But what about all the other movies that contain large amounts of sex, violence, materialism and other worldly teachings. Is the church doing a sermon series on these movies? I propose that those movies are having a much larger impact on our culture than the Davinci Code.
One final observation about this recent trend is that it appears the church is responding to the culture instead of the other way around. Since when do we let Hollywood set the debate on the large issues of the day? Shouldn't the church be more proactive in setting the cultural debate? Mel Gibson succeeded with this by making the Passion and I hope that others will soon follow. I know that we are supposed to engage the culture and we should take every opportunity to make our teachings relevant to a mass audience. But these teachings are always relevant and we shouldn't need the Davinci Code or any other movie to motivate us in conveying this truth.
2 comments:
Fetz - an analogy.
The hype surrounding the davinci code is much like the all too loving father of an ugly child.
What does he do? Every time he sees you, he shows you a new pic of the hideous child, or underwhelms you with the lastest new thing the beast-boy discovered. As you tearfully hold down your burrito, you choke out something nice to say - "nice shirt", or "wow, he walked backwards on his own, huh?"
So, whenever I consider the davini code, I just laugh, and laugh very heartily at the Christians and churches that are making a fuss over it. For all accounts it is a hastily made silly movie that was poorly acted. The storyline, while seemingly popular, is just fictional rabble from a very lucky writer. In fact, nobody would give a rip about it if the Christians would just shut their collective pie holes.
(To the parents of the kid, I laugh in secret.)
God bless you Fetz, you give me serenity in a world of chaos.
I guess I never worried about the DaVinci code. I made fun of it and mocked those that believed (well not really mocked but in that neighborhood).
The reason is because if you knew what the truth is and you didn't want the truth you would look for any and all excuses not to believe. That's the reason the world fights against the idea of Intelligent design and the reason for the Da Vinci Code.
The other reason they love the Da Vinci Code is because Christians blow their gasketts way to easy. The Christians that are the loudest seam to be the ones that don't know what they believe and why.
That's why in my post about the Da Vinci Code I said like the Last Temptation of Christ this too will pass.
Although, I have wondered how many Christians were actually protesting the movie and how many who were objecting was a publicity stunt.
But that's just my plug nickle's worth of wisdom on the subject
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