[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

And every movie that encourages people to worship material things, use God's name in vain, glorifies murder and mayhem, promotes casual sex and adultery, is not blasphemous?

I mean I'm no fan of this movie, but the attack on this specific movie compared to all the other garbage that is not attacked is getting ridiculous.

[Meadow Muffin]

READ MY LIPS......It is a fiction movie, based on a ficton book.....I can't belive all the hype...it is FICTION..it is a fictional movie, it is a fiction book....calm down, take a deep breath....

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Well, go ahead and "attack" the other movies too. I think it's a sad position to demand no one ever criticize Hollywood. Or that if we criticize one particular movie for specific reasons, we must criticize all the flaws of all the other movies. What's that about?

[McBuff]

I think the outcry is significant. . .but for a reason that I don't think I've heard anyone articulate. It has to do with the image of Jesus as a married man. . .that somehow is thought to be, inherently, an affront to his divinity. It reveals that Christian culture is fundementally at odds with human sexuality. ..sexuality is estranged from the divine as a result of certain theological assertions: Jesus was born of a sexless conception, thus was "pure" and the son of God.

In truth, the Gospels never link the miracle of Jesus conception with his sinless state. The sexless nature of his conception was indicated "as a sign" that he indeed was the hoped for Messiah that Isaiah had spoken of.

It is true that the Gospels do not reveal any evidence that Jesus ever had a wife or children. However, it is equally true that the Gospels neither definatively assert that Jesus never intended to marry or that there would be no great meaning to that blessed event. Jesus never stated that he was disqualified for marriage.

Why, then, if there is no assertion, no evidence for either position, do we so forcefully and unequvically insist that our Jesus would have nothing to do with marriage and sex? It is because of the assumed linkage between sexual intercourse and sin. Sexual intercourse, even in marriage, mind you, is considered a step away from the divine.

The irony is that it is this unclarity in traditional theology that stands as one of the contributing factors of the decline of the family (and the rise of aberrent sexual models). . .Many Christians today are not offended by Jesus being associated with the ideal of marriage and family. . .the DaVinci Code opens the door to that discussion and it is a vitally important one.

When we see Jesus on the cross, if we speculate that he may have not only offered his blood, but also his spouse, his children and all the loves of a perfect family life that never was, we not only are magnifying the sacrifice of Christ but we are also magnifying the value of the family. Thus, when we take up the commitment of marriage and family we do so in the knowledge that this holiest of sacrements is rooted in the shed blood of Christ. Society would only be strenthened by that assertion.

[af_vet_rr]

I mean I'm no fan of this movie, but the attack on this specific movie compared to all the other garbage that is not attacked is getting ridiculous.

Ironically enough, the people who are most upset about it, are the people who act like they are most secure in their faith.

We saw the movie this past weekend with several friends, two of whom are Jewish, and two who were Catholic. What followed was an interesting conversation.

One of our Catholic friends brought up the marriage issue. One of our Jewish friends asked her why she would have a problem with Jesus being married - would it cause her to stop believing in God or to immediately change her life?

That caught her off guard, and he went on to explain that because Jesus was Jewish and considered a Rabbi (and even addressed as a Rabbi, I believe Peter and others did), that it would have almost went without saying that he was married. He mentioned that Jesus spoke of how important marriage was, that Jewish law of that time would have practically required him as a Rabbi to be married (some considered Jewish men of a certain age who weren't married, to be always thinking of sin), and that Mary Magdalene had to have been married to Jesus or one of his followers, because unmarried Jewish women of that time would not have traveled as she did.

It was very interesting, and he made a good point - that even if Jesus was married, it should change nothing - after all, he was raised by a man and woman, he lived among men, he did not really start teaching until after he would have been married, and that he followed all other customs befitting a Jewish male of that time.

Obviously our views diverge over the issue of whether he was the Son of God, but he pointed out that God did promise David that David's line would continue forever, and Jesus was descended from David through Mary, and he pointed out that the Gospels didn't explicitly state that he wasn't married, and that those writing the Gospels would not necessarily state the obvious.

Everything he mentioned, he said, was based on Jewish history and tradition and beliefs, and not some fake documents found in France in the 1800s or taken from some fictional novel.