MB Civic

By Rev. Ian Alterman

 

As with any alternative view of Christianity or its foundations, The Da Vinci Code has stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy, not least within the evangelical Christianity community.  There are actually two separate issues here, one “temporal” and one “spiritual.”

 

The temporal issue is: What should be the Christian reaction to the book and film?  It may surprise you to find that I agree with those who believe that the current broad-based reaction of the Christian community to the book and film is a “tempest in a teapot” or “making a mountain out of a molehill.”  (Don’t you just love clichés?)  However, I would go further by suggesting that any Christian who gets “bent out of shape” every time an alternative/controversial view of any aspect of Christianity comes along – The Last Temptation of Christ, Dogma, The Gospel of Judas, even The Life of Brian – actually displays a serious weakness of faith.  Indeed, one could argue that such a reaction lacks humility, forgiveness and patience – three of the primary tenets of Jesus’ ministry.  Those with strong, but “humble,” faith can “take a joke” or, in cases where serious “foundational” questions are being raised, simply accept that such controversies are part and parcel of being a believer.  This does not mean that Christians should not participate in discussion and debate on these issues; indeed, doing so forces one to sharpen his/her “foundational teeth.”  It simply means that their reaction should be one of confidence and humility, and making an effort to engage (since both sides might learn something), rather than take a knee-jerk confrontational or adversarial position.

 

That said, there are two caveats.  First, there is a difference between being satiric or irreverent (or simply offering a scholarly challenge) on the one hand, and insulting or profane on the other.  Profanity – literally, the conscious, deliberate, spiteful and/or malicious denigration of another person’s faith or strongest-held belief system – is always inappropriate, and any (non-violent) reaction it provokes is completely understandable.

 

Second, the real problem with “faction” (the blending of fact and fiction) like The Da Vinci Code is that it sets up the potential for a kind of “historical revisionism” that can leave a very strong perception, especially with those who have limited knowledge, that all of what is being purported is “truth.”  And as psychology has discovered, perception can be even more powerful than reality.  For example, 17% of the American public still believes that there was a direct link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda (despite the fact that this claim has been thoroughly and utterly debunked even in many of the most conservative publications) simply as a result of the constant repetition and reiteration of that claim, despite any solid evidence to support it.  In the same way, when a book or film is as pervasively popular as The Da Vinci Code, there is an increased danger in creating a popular perception that many of the fictional elements are fact – especially when the line is blurred as deliberately as it is in this particular case.

 

The “spiritual” issue is how such controversies affect those who are new to the faith – i.e., those who do not have a requisite knowledge of the history of the Judeo-Christian construct to be able to discern fact from fiction, or even supportable, scholarly “theories” from insupportable or questionably supportable ones.  This can, and does, have the effect of causing unnecessary, and potentially harmful, confusion in those who are seeking an understanding of their faith, and the foundations therefor.  However, this is a complex issue, and will be saved for another time.

 

I am not suggesting that debates about the history of Christianity are “bad” or wrong in any way. Indeed, such debates are healthy, and ultimately tend to strengthen the foundational truths of the orthodox Judeo-Christian construct (i.e, the most widely-accepted scholarly theories of early Christianity) – even if some aspects of the history of that construct have turned out to be incomplete if not incorrect.

 

However, the replacing of those foundational truths with “faction” that has little or no evidentiary support is not only a bad thing, but, as noted, a potentially dangerous thing, as it sets up an almost Orwellian historical revisionism that co-opts the past in the present, with the result that, intentionally or not, it creates a pre-determined future – one that has little similarity to or relationship with the facts and truths of the “pre-perception” past.

 

Comment and discussion are welcome.

 

Peace.