Posted on 05/21/2006 11:07:18 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Roman Catholics and Evangelicals have challenged The Da Vinci Code for proposing that Christianity is a hoax perpetrated on the world for nearly 2000 years. The liberal National Council of Churches (NCC) is also concerned about the new movie, because it overlooks Jesus' supposed endorsement of its left-leaning political themes.
"Real-life scenarios are present daily that contradict the Gospel of Jesus Christ," the NCC announced in a special Da Vinci news release. "Too often it is those issues that have far-reaching affects on people's lives, and their faith, but they go without any word of protest or rebuttal -- issues like war, poverty, racial and economic injustice, the devastation experienced after hurricanes and tsunamis and the negative impact of global climate change, to name a few."
The real Jesus "cared for creation and called us to stand up for peace and justice in the world," just like the NCC, according to the NCC. Its latest causes include opposing the U.S. military presence in Iraq, demanding an increased minimum wage, opposing U.S. "torture" of war on terror detainees, and demanding U.S. compliance with the Kyoto accord. Apparently Da Vinci fails because it neglects to include Jesus' stance on these issues.
Of course, most Christian objections to The Da Vinci Code focus on its central thesis that the early church, coerced by the Emperor Constantine, took Jesus the man and turned him into Jesus the God. At the same time, according to Da Vinci, the church imposed the canon of Scripture, suppressing all the Gnostic gospels in favor of Matthew-Mark-Luke and John. The real Jesus, we are told, married and had children with Mary Magdalene. But the male-led church denied the existence of Mrs. Jesus, not wanting to acknowledge her mystical feminine powers and dilute its own preferred patriarchal emphasis.
According to Da Vinci, the church has kept all of this under wraps for centuries through coercion, blackmail, and murder, until Da Vinci's hero unravels it all.
Da Vinci denies Christianity's understanding of the deity of Christ, salvation, the church, and the Bible. But none of that apparently distresses the NCC all that much, or at least to enough to merit specific mention in its special Da Vinci news release. "In the midst of the media frenzy, let us not forget that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction that does not accurately depict the life and ministry of Jesus or the traditions of the Church," the NCC notes. But the distortions that concern to distress the NCC are that Da Vinci leaves out Jesus' supposed social justice advocacy.
"We pray that those who see this movie will want to know more about Jesus Christ," the NCC declares. "And, we call on our Christian brothers and sisters to uncover distortions of biblical truths not only in entertainment but in policies and actions perpetuated in our society every day. Neither The Da Vinci Code, nor any other work of fiction, will alter the beliefs, mission or work of individual churches or the National Council of Churches. We will not be diverted from the gospel imperative to care for creation, do justice and work for peace regardless of what the distractions of current culture may offer."
For the NCC, that is the real work of Jesus: lobbying, protesting, and organizing on behalf of the NCC's political agenda of the Left. Proclaiming the Lordship of Christ as the Son of God is not a major agenda item for the NCC. Indeed, it goes unmentioned in the NCC's Da Vinci news release. The NCC does note with hope that Da Vinci will provide "an opportunity for all Christians to share their faith when friends ask what they think about the movie." But one suspects that "sharing their faith," from the NCC perspective, entails talking about Global Warming and complaining about the Bush Administration's failures in post-Katrina New Orleans.
"The story of Jesus as told throughout the centuries is compelling," the NCC concludes, with all of the enthusiasm typically found in a perfunctory Christmas message from a member of the British royal family. The NCC cites "true biblical teachings," but does not explain them as anything more than the latest crusade to expand the welfare and regulatory state.
It is hard fully to understand what exactly the NC really finds so objectionable about Da Vinci. Deconstructing core Christian theology would not distress the NCC all that much. The NCC is lead by old-line Protestant churches whose seminaries and prelates led the way a century ago in denying Christ's literal deity, virgin birth, bodily resurrection and miracles, not to mention the authority of the Scriptures. The resulting "Social Gospel," which focused on political and economic justice from an exclusively left-of-center perspective, became the rallying cry of the NCC, which was founded after World War II by liberal Protestants who had discarded the old "fundamentalism."
Unfortunately for the NCC, the Social Gospel ran out of steam after the 1960s, and the NCC's pillar denominations have been losing members continuously for 40 years. Meanwhile, the old "fundamentalism" morphed into a new evangelical movement that has displaced and surpassed the old Protestant establishment.
A typical American Protestant today is more likely to be sitting in a mega-church auditorium than an old Episcopal gothic sanctuary. And that mega-church Protestant is far likelier to hear a critique of Da Vinci that is more theologically substantive than the NCC's regret that Da Vinci's version of Jesus is not sufficiently politically outspoken.
Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C.
Wow. With a Jesus like yours, who so warmly encourages so many things that are human nature to start with, what do we need a God or commandments for at all? Where in all that you are talking about it some call to rise above our baser selves? Respectfully, I find the direction of this thread to be bleak and dispiriting.
I do, however, agree with you that Jesus' call to charity is for personal action, not socialism. But I also feel that he is calling for us to use Love in our solutions to our problems and I do not, in the text, find him coupling Love with punishment.
They have more brains than the remaining churches.
Thanks.
Funny - I met a Methodist minister at a recent social event. The first words out of my mouth were, "So... You're a member of the NCC?"
Tehee... you should've heard him trying to explain why his church is still involved and how hard he's working to get out!
GOOD FOR YOU! Glad to hear it.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I suggest that you research a newly formed group, CCT. It stands for Christian Churches Together. As Christians have caught on to the NCC, the CCT was formed consisting of the same denominations, same agenda. Except they have one big addition.....the RCC.
I do not claim to know God's will. But from the OT and NT it seems that we are commanded to be peaceful, unless God commands us otherwise ;-)
The Savior gave the best example of loving his enemies by laying down his life as the sacrificial lamb. There are also examples in the Bible when God told Israel to wipe out all the inhabitants of a City, Men women and children in war. Murderers and Rapists were also put to death. The bible says there is a time for Peace and a time for War. True peace will only come by following God. I believe many in the world believe a counterfeit peace.
The counterfeit usually involves promoting some form of personal immorality on a grand social scale. I disagree strongly with Socialist/Communist inspired Peace as it has led to the slaughter of close to a billion people in the the 20th century alone. Perhaps members of the NCC really are trying to follow Jesus the best way they know how. But I don't really trust anyone who adopts the creeds of known mass murderers.
All good thoughts. It seems to me it's just as dangerous to jump right from the NCC to the Politburo as it is to jump from the NSA to the Gestapo. Both jumps get made too often and do bad things to civl discourse.
Respectfully I don't understand your point at all. What good are the commandments if they can never be enforced? They're just noise and scribbles on a rock.
Being slow to anger is NOT human nature and it certainly IS a call for us to rise above our baser selves. God is slow to anger as was and is Jesus, but both do get angry and neither entirely rules out violence as a solution. We know this from their behavior in the Old Testament, John 2, and Revelation. "Wrath of God" is not just an empty threat. If we are saying it is never necessary, then we are saying we are somehow better than God.
I think Jesus just makes the crucial point that anger and violence is not necessary anywhere near as often as human nature leads us to believe. But I seriously doubt he wants us to cut back 100% on violence, just 99.9% with the 0.1% very carefully thought through in advance whenever possible. We are not to be ruled by our temper, emotions, pride, greed, ego, etc., all of which the 99.9% represents. So don't make me out to be some bloodthirsty yahoo -- I get physically ill when I see a fight in the street. But I'm just not a pacifist.
Speaking of which, if we are to take the Quaker view of 100% pacifism (and I'm not saying this is your view because I don't know) where all violence is always wrong regardless of the context, then that leads to parents standing idly by and pleading with a rapist as he tortures and sodomizes their child instead of doing whatever is necessary to stop him. It means we cannot and should not have a police force or a military. It means we should have done nothing to stop Hitler and that we should do nothing to stop Al Qaeda, Saddam, and Iran. It means that a woman should not resist a rapist. It means we cannot stop anyone we see in the act of committing a crime. It means we cannot defend our homes and families from violent intruders. It means teachers and parents can't even defend our children from bullies or pedophiles when they are caught in the act. It means we are to be mindless ostriches.
I do, however, agree with you that Jesus' call to charity is for personal action, not socialism.
Yes, agreed.
But I also feel that he is calling for us to use Love in our solutions to our problems and I do not, in the text, find him coupling Love with punishment.
Again, see Revelation. Jesus very much loves his enemies, more than any man or woman could, but in the end he very much does punish them far beyond the capacity of any man or woman. Already has in some cases -- he took out the Roman Empire ("Babylon the Great") and it was not done gently.
I do not claim to know God's will. But from the OT and NT it seems that we are commanded to be peaceful, unless God commands us otherwise ;-)
BINGO! YOU GOT IT! 100% agreement! (Except that I believe there are situations as described in my previous post where God gave us the common sense to get a little unpeaceful without waiting for a direct order in real time.)
The Savior gave the best example of loving his enemies by laying down his life as the sacrificial lamb. There are also examples in the Bible when God told Israel to wipe out all the inhabitants of a City, Men women and children in war. Murderers and Rapists were also put to death. The bible says there is a time for Peace and a time for War. True peace will only come by following God. I believe many in the world believe a counterfeit peace.
The counterfeit usually involves promoting some form of personal immorality on a grand social scale. I disagree strongly with Socialist/Communist inspired Peace as it has led to the slaughter of close to a billion people in the the 20th century alone. Perhaps members of the NCC really are trying to follow Jesus the best way they know how. But I don't really trust anyone who adopts the creeds of known mass murderers.
Can't find much to disagree with in this post. Some of it is downright profound. Where did we disagree again?
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