The Da Vinci Code Othercott

May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor.

What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I'm going to offer you the usual choices -- and a new one.

The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood's point of view, you don't count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen.

The problem with this option: It doesn't work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots. And again, protests and boycotts do nothing to help shape the decisions being made right now about what movies Hollywood will make in the next few years. (Or they convince Hollywood to make *more* movies that will provoke Christians to protest, which will drive the box office up.)

C) We can discuss the movie. We can be rational and be ready with study guides and workshops and point-by-point refutations of the lies promulgated by the movie. ........

The problem with this option: No one's listening. They think they know what we're going to say already. We'll lose most of these discussions anyway, no matter how prepared we are, because the power of story always trumps the power of facts (why do you think Jesus taught in parables?!). And once again: rational discussion of history does nothing to affect Hollywood's choices regarding what movies to make.

Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st -- that's the day the ballot box closes. You'll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.

Use your vote. Don't throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won't have a choice.

The major studio movie scheduled for release against DVC is the DreamWorks animated feature Over the Hedge. The trailers look fun, and you can take your kids. And your friends. And their friends. In fact, let's all go see it.

Let's rock the box office in a way no one expects -- without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let's show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.

May 19th. Mark your calendars now: Over the Hedge's opening weekend. Buy a ticket.

And spread the word. Forward this e-mail to all the Christians in your address book. Post it on your blogs. Talk about it to your churches. And let's all go to the movies.

What's it like, knowing that anything that doesn't offend you can't possibly offend anyone else unless, you know, they are somehow deficient?

I certainly don't feel that way. I fully understand that rational and inteligent people of faith can have contempt for the content.

But the only problem I have is that some, not all, of the people angered act as if Dan Brown was the inventor of the books premise.

The Sangreal Documents, The Knights Templar, Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus, Da Vinci's secret messages all have been the subject of legend and lore for centuries with literally thousands of works of literature and art chronicling them.

Even the modern Priory of Sion has been around since the 1950's.

Dan Brown simply employed this legend and lore into the plot of his novel.

What I find most crazy about all the hysteria is that when Leigh and Baigent filed a plagiarism suit against Brown, the The Da Vinci Code's detractors routed for them. Think about that for a moment, the writers of a book sold as nonfiction which accuses the Catholic church of perpetrating a 2000 year old hoax, that ridicules Rome and it's followers, and that Christianity and the divinity of Jesus is a complete and utter fraud were being heralded as the good guys. How screwed up is that? Unbelievable!

Well, I've rededicated my life recently and in my search for truth I've found many interesting things,,, some of them disturbing,,, with the many adaptations made by various rulers and governments to Christian practices and beliefs. In particular, the co-opting of pagan holidays and shifting of holy dates in order to bring more people into the Christian fold and distance Christianity from the Jewish faith. The DVC touches on some of this(as well as a bunch of flat out ridiculous assertions) but I'd like to hear what scholarly Christians have to say about it. If anybody here could point me towards some good information, I'd be very grateful!.

Here's some of what I've read:

“Historians still marvel at the brilliance with which Emperor Constantine converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagan symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties.’

‘Transmogrification,’ Langdon said. ‘The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual— the miter, the altar, the doxology, and the communion, the act of ‘God-eating’—were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions.’

Teabing groaned. ‘Don’t get a symbologist started on Christian icons. Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras—called the Son of God and the Light of the World—was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity’s weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans.

‘Originally,’ Langdon said, ‘Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan’s veneration day of the sun.’ He paused, grinning. ‘To this day, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god’s weekly tribute—Sunday," from pages 232- 233 of the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, published by Bantam.

The previous quote is in a fiction novel but is not fiction. A person can argue Church history all day long, but the facts remain. History shows that shortly after the death and resurrection of the Savior, the Roman Empire harshly persecuted the early believers. The more the faith was persecuted, the more it grew. The maltreatment continued until the time of Constantine the Great, who blended the true faith with pagan ideas and evil institutions. Most people are familiar with the story of how Constantine “the Great” conquered the known world with his Roman rule. During a religious experience, he reportedly saw the vision of a cross in the sky. Shortly after this, Constantine declared the entire empire “Christian” and stopped harassing believers. Instead, Constantine proved the old adage, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” And join them he did, but not without making many changes to the true faith.

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