Posted on 04/11/2006 3:41:19 PM PDT by Rockitz
WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAY 19TH?
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.
Here are the usual suspects:
A) We can ignore the movie. ........
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.
B) We can protest. ........
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.
But there's a fourth choice.
D) On May 19th, you should go to the movies.
Just go to another movie.
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 The DaVinci Code. 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.
More significantly, Christ was judged in the Cross with the sins of all mankind imouted upon Him. Had he not been sinless, upon His descension into Hades, the Perfect judgment of the Father would not allow His ressurrection nor His ascension. Likewise, the Holy SPirit would not have had the freedom to raise Him from the dead and rejoin the soul with the body.
Morality is not an issue of sinfulness, but an issue of good and evil. Sin was judged on the Cross, but good and evil are resolved over time.
Truly our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus was not only sinless, He lives today as God and as man and remains obedient to the Father and in that sense, sinless, although he was sin for us in the eyes of the Father.
Some thologies discuss the 'old sin nature', or 'the natural man', or the old self, when discribing that nature we have within our selves,..a propensity to sin.
This was not in Jesus Christ. This is not to be confused with temptation.
The Talmud wasn't written down yet, therefore you have no idea what the contemporary oral tradition said. And Jesus rejected the oral tradition.
Go and learn so you won't be an ignoramus anymore.
If you are referring to questions about such things as the marriage of Christ theory, I would have to agree with this statement, even though his questions and mine about this are the same. I cannot speak for Hodar, but as for myself, while I know that this whole theory and line of speculation is irrelevant with regards to faith (in fact, I think we have been saying that all along), I am interested in it simply as a matter of curiosity. No reason beyond that. Whether it be true or false will have no bearing upon my faith... will change nothing of what Christ told us or how I think about it.
I have no problem with you giving a clearer response. Yours is, of course, the accurate answer.. I was merely being lazy. No offense taken. ;)
Good point. I did exercise a poor choice of words. My apology to Hodar and others.
IMHO, if one advances to say a Jr. High school equivolency in Christian faith, there are thousands of other pertinent issues that would evolve from any speculation of the DiVinci Codes, yet, the issues publicized by the DiVinci Code, IMHO, are at less than a third grade equivolency in Christian faith or learning.
For this reason, I find the questions posed by the DiVinci Codes to be rather irrelevant in one's study of Scripture. Even worse, those NatlGeographic and History Channel specials which discuss many of these same topics, all display an array of PhD and worldly experts in religion, yet most appear as though they lack even the beginning faith of a recently regenerate spirit.
It's sortof like looking at 500 cable TV channels with nothing to watch. I'm amazed by the lack of faith displayed by powerful worldly institutions when they stumble upon issues that actaully have some significant interest amongst more mature faithful believers.
1870 is early?
in fact ALL doctrine preceeding the Reformation was catholic
So four out of five Patriarchates never existed?
Not all christians, believe it or not, hold only to the New Testament Canon, as decided by the RCC, as the ONLY scriptures.
Non-Marcionites, for example.
Friend, I can't think of a reply more damning to your position than repeating the above.
The sparkling crystal of proud ignorance of history is all contained in the disconsonance of this single statement.
Huh. I missed where he said anything about killing people. Sounded like he wanted to exercise his free speech. But I'm sure you wouldn't LIE to us, so I'll just wait patiently for you to prove your point with a direct link to the comment where he advocated killing people.
1. New Testament Greek had no cases.
2. Jesus didn't speak those passages, Paul wrote them. And the Pastorals are probably the last Epistles Paul wrote, so there were other New Testament books already.
I wasn't aware the New Testament was written in 1003.
Ancient Greek and Latin weren't dead yet during the Patristic period. Actually, neither ever did die, they just changed into the Romance languages and Modern Greek.
Ah, paul, I stand corrected, thank you.
If, as you say, some of the New testament books were in existence at that time, and i will, for the sake of discussion take your word for it, there was still no "official" canon at that time, so it could not be applied as meaning the canon of Nicea. If you can give me the passages from the books that compose the Bible which state the authority of any such council to determine what books are Holy, and which are heretical, I would like to see them.
(yawn)
Yet they were not even CLOSE to being the language of the masses. Printing of the Bible in the vernacular was forbidden by the Church, specifically for the purpose of keeping it out of the reach of the common man. Most persons not within the priesthood were illiterate in those languages, including most royalty.
It especially couldn't have meant the canon of Nicea because there is no such canon. Nicea had nothing to do with canonicity.
But I bored you, so I'll try to provide you with more entertainment :)
Research, if you will, to find just what "language was legible to the masses" in the second century of our era.
You don't know what "Patristic period" means, do you?
What I was referring to when I spoke of the Church keeping holy writ in languages that were not available to the masses, I was not referring to the first two centuries, I was trgrtting to the centuries from roughly.. what.. 700a.d (or earlier?) until the Reformation. I think you were aware of that, but I will choose to think that perhaps we each misunderstood where the other was coming from. The fact is, a vast portion of the territory presided over by the RCC throughout the course of it's history did NOT speak latin nor hebrew. The RCC forbade translation into those languages and kept the vast majority of the masses in ignorance.
Yes I do, but see post above.
Your hits keep on coming. Where do you get this stuff?
Please read my previous reply to Hodar on this tripe.
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