Mel Gibson Slams Da Vinci Code

I have seen your posts here and from them I know you are a decent person. Lets just agree to diasgree, Ok?

What did Madonna do now?

I guess you don't get it. There is no right against being offended. In this country, we are free to publish whatever kind of religious criticism, satire, or insult we want. And while you can howl about it as much as you like, you can't legally prevent it. That's about as clear as it gets.

Ok, you peacemaker you.

Apparently in her new effort, she is hung on a cross.

Which, as from her earlier shock efforts, is purely to create a reaction of shock.

Apparently in her new effort, she is hung on a cross.

Ok, now THAT offends me..

Who is trying to legally prevent it? But, I will call it like it is - an effort to diminish the message of Christ.

And, I see no reason for me to be obligated to join in with the praises or attempts to draw patrons to such works.

If you want to join in their little efforts - feel free. But, I consider them an effort to offend, to ridicule others' faith for a buck.

Then you and I have no disagreement, except for our perception of the harm caused by films like this.

"The only way you know HIS truth is through the Church."

May I interject?

That's a load of crap.

"...you have no right to not be offended."

Exactly.

Not only that, but I am not obligated to live my life concerned with whether my actions, words, or beliefs offend others; as long as those actions are within the scope of secular law.

May I ask how else you know he even existed?

If the other guy has a knife and you don't, you are obligated not to flit with his girl, lest your blood make a mess on the barroom floor.

As much as the Church would like to place itself as the intermediary between God and man, He existed not because of the Church, but the Church exists because of Him.

I believe in Him, and that's sufficient.

"If the other guy has a knife and you don't, you are obligated not to fli(r)t with his girl..."

BS...he's obligated not to stab me, I am NOT obligated not to flirt.

Then why are you offended that we complain about the movie? You have no right to be offended by our actions.

Who is offended?

Have you either read the book or seen the movie?

Frank's BEST REVIEW AWARD... Enjoy (and please protect your pentacles!). Best Review for a Major Farce! Enjoy!

New Yorker Magazine
HEAVEN CAN WAIT
“The Da Vinci Code.”
by ANTHONY LANE
Issue of 2006-05-29
Posted 2006-05-22

The story of “The Da Vinci Code” goes like this. A dead Frenchman is found laid out on the floor of the Louvre. His final act was to carve a number of bloody markings into his own flesh, indicating, to the expert eye, that he was preparing to roll in fresh herbs and sear himself in olive oil for three minutes on each side. This, however, is not the conclusion reached by Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a professor of symbology at Harvard, who happens to be in Paris. Questioned by Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), the investigating policeman at the scene, Langdon starts rabbiting about pentacles and pagans and God knows what. But what does God know, exactly? And can He keep His mouth shut?

Help arrives in the shape of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a police cryptographer. She turns out to be the granddaughter of the deceased, and a dab hand at reversing down Paris streets in a car the size of a pissoir. This is useful, since she and Langdon are soon on the run, convinced that Fache is about to nail the professor on a murder charge—the blaming of Americans, on any pretext, being a much loved Gallic sport. Our hero, needing somebody to trust, does the same dumb thing that every fleeing innocent has done since Robert Donat in “The Thirty-nine Steps.” He and Sophie visit a cheery old duffer in the countryside and spill every possible bean. In this case, the duffer is Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who lectures them on the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D. We get a flashback to the council in question, and I must say that, though I have recited the Nicene Creed throughout my adult life, I never realized that it was originally formulated in the middle of a Beastie Boys concert.

Fache is not the only hunter on Langdon’s scent. There is also Silas (Paul Bettany), a cowled albino monk whose hobbies include self-flagellation, multiple homicide, and irregular Latin verbs. He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely secretive that its American headquarters are tucked away in a seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue. Silas answers to Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), who in turn answers to his cell phone, his Creator, and not much else. Between them, they track Langdon and Sophie to England, where a new villain, hitherto suspected by nobody except the audience, is prevented from shooting his quarry because, unusual for London, there is a gaggle of nuns in the way—God’s Work if ever I saw it, although I wouldn’t say so to a member of Opus Dei.

The task of the Bishop and his hit man is to thwart the unveiling of what Teabing modestly calls “the greatest secret in modern history,” so powerful that, “if revealed, it would devastate the very foundations of Christianity.” Later, realizing that this sounds a little meek and mild, he stretches it to “the greatest coverup in human history.” As a rule, you should beware of any movie in which characters utter lines of dialogue whose proper place is on the advertising poster. (Just imagine Sigourney Weaver, halfway through “Alien,” turning to John Hurt and explaining, “In space, no one can hear you scream.”) There is a nasty sense in “The Da Vinci Code” that, not unlike Langdon, we are being bullied into taking its pronouncements at face value. Such nagging has a double effect. First, any chance to enjoy the proceedings as hokum—as a whip-cracking quest along the lines of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”—is rapidly stifled and stilled. Second, one’s natural reaction to arm-twisters of any description is to wriggle free, turn around, and kick them in the pentacles. So here goes.

There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command of basic, unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s right.) You could dismiss that first stumble as a blip, but consider this, discovered on a random skim through the book: “Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.” What is more, he does so over “a half-eaten power lunch,” one of the saddest phrases I have ever heard.

Should we mind that forty million readers—or, to use the technical term, “lemmings”—have followed one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text? I am aware of the argument that, if a tale has enough grip, one can for a while forget, if not forgive, the crumbling coarseness of the style; otherwise, why would I still read “The Day of the Jackal” once a year? With “The Da Vinci Code,” there can be no such excuse. Even as you clear away the rubble of the prose, what shows through is the folly of the central conceit, and, worse still, the pride that the author seems to take in his theological presumption. How timid—how undefended in their powers of reason—must people be in order to yield to such preening? Are they reading “The Da Vinci Code” because everybody on the subway is doing the same, and, if so, why, when they reach their stop, do they not realize their mistake and leave it on the seat, to be gathered up by the next sucker? Despite repeated attempts, I have never managed to crawl past page 100. As I sat down to watch “The Da Vinci Code,” therefore, I was in the lonely, if enviable, position of not actually knowing what happens.

Stumbling out from the final credits, tugging nervously at my goatee, I was none the wiser. The film is directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman, the master wordsmith who brought us “Batman & Robin.” I assumed that such an achievement would result in Goldsman’s being legally banned from any of the verbal professions, but, no, here he is yet again. As far as I am qualified to judge, the film remains unswervingly loyal to the book, displaying an obedience that Silas could not hope to match. I welcome this fidelity, because it allows us to propose a syllogism. The movie is baloney; the movie is an accurate representation of the book; therefore, the book is also baloney, although it takes even longer to consume. Movie history is awash, of course, with fine pictures that have been made from daft or unreadable books; indeed, you are statistically more likely to squeeze a decent movie out of a potboiler than you are out of a novel of high repute. The trouble with Howard’s film is that it is far too dense and talkative to function efficiently as a thriller, while also being too credulous and childish to bear more than a second’s scrutiny as an exploration of religious history or spiritual strife. There is plenty going on here, from gunfights to masked orgiastic rituals and mini-scenes of knights besieging Jerusalem, yet the outcome feels at once ponderous and vacant, like a damp and deconsecrated Victorian church.

This is grim news for Tom Hanks, who has served Howard gamely in the past. How does the genial mermaid-lover of “Splash,” or the jockish team player of “Apollo 13,” feel about being stranded in this humorless grind? Apart from Paul Bettany, who finds a leached and pale-eyed terror in his avenging angel, the other players seem bereft. Molina, so violently vulnerable in “Spider-Man 2,” is given no room to breathe, and, as for Audrey Tautou, it is surely no coincidence that Howard sought out and hired almost the only young French actress who emits not a hint of sexual radiation. “The Da Vinci Code” may ask us to believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that she bore him a child, and that the Catholic Church has spent two thousand years not merely concealing this but enforcing its distaste for the feminine (and thus for all bodily delight), but did the movie have to be quite so pallid and prudish about breaking the news? Whose side is it on, anyway?

Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, except at Columbia Pictures, where the power lunches won’t even be half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy once more, while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous fraud that it is, will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members of Opus Dei, some of whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain.

No, and will not waste my money on that kind of "entertainment".

I tend not to pay for movies that have outspoken liberals sprouting off against my President, my country and I tend not to attend movies that disrespect the life of Jesus. I also tend to not attend movies that glorify sexual depravity, the drug culture, and glorify law breaking.

So, means there are very few movies I go see. Seabisquit was good.

"No, and will not waste my money on that kind of "entertainment"."

So, you are offended by a book you haven't read and a movie you won't watch?

Basically, you are offended because you're told by someone else to be offended then.

Don't you just love mindless followers?

Excellent review, indeed. Thanks for the PING.

This one is more theological and very good as well...

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=051806C

Jesus Christ as Poached Egg

By Stephen Bainbridge :18 May 2006

Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code is one of the most popular best sellers in recent history and the Sony motion picture to be released this Friday (May 19) is expected to be the first major blockbuster of the summer (given how relatively poorly MI3 performed). All this despite -- or, perhaps, because of -- being pervasively condemned by Christian leaders.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Archbishop of Genoa, has called DVC "shameful and unfounded." Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, the Archbishop of Manila, denounced DVC as "blasphemous." The Greek Orthodox Church's semi-official Ana news agency says that "from a religious and historical point of view" the DVC "is wholly false." A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church told reporters that DVC "borders on blasphemy and is an insult to the feelings of believers." Evangelical leader Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, says DVC "slanders Jesus Christ and the church." And, of course, Catholic Cardinal Francis Arinze, a leading candidate in the recent papal election, drew an explicit comparison between the Mohammed cartoon controversy and the DVC when he opined that: "Those who blaspheme Christ and get away with it are exploiting the Christian readiness to forgive and to love even those who insult us. There are some other religions which if you insult their founder they will not be just talking. They will make it painfully clear to you."

It is hard to remember a book or film that drew such widespread condemnation across such a broad spectrum of Christian thought as DVC. Only Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ comes even close. What it is about DVC that has Christian leaders so worked up?

DVC is a murder mystery in which the Holy Grail serves as a MacGuffin. As protagonists Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu unravel the mystery, they "learn" that the Bible was not divinely inspired by God but rather was politically inspired by Roman Emperor Constantine. They also learn that Jesus' divinity was a late-developed doctrine foisted on Christians by the Council of Nicaea. Instead of being divine, Jesus was a merely human prophet who married Mary Magdalene and had children by her. The Holy Grail is actually Mary Magdalene's blood line.

DVC thus is a thinly fictionalized amalgam of many ancient heresies, of which two are most prominent:

Arianism: A very old heresy associated with Bishop Arius of Alexandria (circa 320 AD). Christ is a creation rather than part of the Triune God. It was to address Arianism that the Council of Nicaea was called 325. At that Council, a statement of faith was adopted that became the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains what happened next:

All the bishops save five declared themselves ready to subscribe to this formula, convinced that it contained the ancient faith of the Apostolic Church. The opponents were soon reduced to two, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais, who were exiled and anathematized. Arius and his writings were also branded with anathema, his books were cast into the fire, and he was exiled to Illyria.

Gnosticism: The origins of Gnosticism are somewhat obscure. Some historians view it as a Christian heresy. Others claim it originated pre-Christianity and then absorbed some elements of the Christian faith. In either case, its basic tenet is the pursuit of gnosis (i.e., "special knowledge"). Numerous Gnostic Gospels circulated in the early Church but all were rejected by the Church as heterodox as the final Biblical canon evolved.

Both Arianism and most strains of Gnosticism, like DVC, thus reject the divinity of Christ. In contrast, all orthodox (using the lower case o to differentiate orthodoxy from heresy) Christians believe that Christ's divinity is the basic tenet of their faith. Two centuries ago, a famous Baptist statement of faith claimed that "Only believe the divinity of Christ, and every other article becomes easy: deny this, and the language in which the Spirit was supposed to lead the sacred penmen to express themselves, appears incautious, over-strained, and unaccountable; so that Christianity itself seems scarcely worthy of credit or regard." More recently, and more colloquially, Roman Catholic Cardinal O'Connor preached that "once you deny the divinity of Christ, everything falls apart."

Contra DVC's claims that Christ's divinity was cooked up at the Council of Nicaea, moreover, orthodox Christianity claims that Christ's divinity was affirmed by the earliest gospels and writings of many pre-Nicaea Church Fathers.

Ignatius of Antioch (circa 110 AD): "For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God's plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit."
Melito of Sardis (circa 177 AD): "The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures."
Clement of Alexandria (circa 190 AD): "The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning -- for he was in God -- and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things"

(A more complete collection can be found here.)

In a very real sense, there thus is nothing new in DVC, except a novel whose literary merits have been questioned even by secularists. What I suspect Church leaders find most galling are Brown's repeated assertions that his novel is premised on deep historical research. To be sure, while Brown on the one hand claims to be making "no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters," on the other hand he posits "that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit." And, as the International Herald Tribune reports, Brown has managed to convince many readers that DVC is "largely true." Indeed, as the IHT also reported, it is precisely the truth claims that attracted the attention of Sony executives: "The amazing thing about this book is it's provocative: Is it all true? Isn't it true?"

Perhaps no one has ever captured the basic problem with the truth claims made on behalf of DVC and its ilk better than C.S. Lewis, who observed in Mere Christianity that:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

All Dan Brown, Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, and that whole crew have accomplished is getting richer by saying that "really foolish thing."

Steve Bainbridge is a Professor of Law at UCLA. He writes two popular blogs: ProfessorBainbridge.com and ProfessorBainbridgeOnWine.com. For readers wishing additional information on the Da Vinci Code, he recommends Amy Welborn's book De-Coding Da Vinci.