Responding to The Da Vinci Code
With the premier of the movie version of The Da Vinci Code less than a month away, my seminary has unveiled a new web site: thetruthaboutdavinci.com. The purpose of the site is to provide a point-by-point refutation of many things in the book and (presumably) the movie that are presented as historical “fact” about Jesus, the Bible, and the Church. While the site is up and running now, it’s official public unveiling will take place the week of the release of the movie, with an advertising campaing to include a full-page ad in USA Today.
Anyone keeping an eye on this topic will already know that this is hardly a unique effort. There is already a virtual cottage industry of evangelical books, DVDs, seminars, and web sites devoted to responses to The Da Vinci Code. On the one hand, I’m encouraged that, for the most part, the evangelicals have seemed to have learned their lesson that the “ban the movie!” approach of past responses backfired. On the other hand, I wonder if we aren’t once again giving our culture’s latest flash-in-the-pan more attention than it deserves.
Representative of the best responses to the DVC was an article last summer by N. T. Wright in Seatlle Pacific University’s magazine Response. N. T. Wright approaches Jesus first of all as a historian, second as a theologian. This alone has made him suspect to many in the part of Christendom where I live, where Jesus seems to exist for some primarily as a category in a systematic theology. However, we should all see Wright’s role as a great friend to the “Christian cause.” The New Testament presents the Christ not as a “concept” but as a person very rooted in history. The whole Bible can be seen as a record of God’s decision to reveal himself in and through human history. Therefore, a historical approach to Jesus is not only helpful, but probably essential.
Of course, that approach has, in the past, led down some dead ends when it was taken up by those who started with anti-supernatural presuppositions. Wright’s quest (dubbed by some as the “third quest for the historical Jesus”) is refreshing because it is willing to subject the story of Jesus to honest historical investigation while remaining open to the possibility that the New Testament is not setting out to deceive us; Jesus might actually be who the NT writers claim him to be.
Even Wright’s most virulent critics in conservative Christianity (because of his controversial views on certain doctrines of soteriology) have to admit that he’s done the greatest service of anyone recently in two areas: the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth as a real person in first century Palestine and the bodily resurrection of the same as a historical event.
All that being said, just how useful are such evidences in the present generation? I think it is clear to most of us that the “classical” approach of “winning a debate” with unbelievers is pretty ineffective in the West today. People really aren’t interested in winning debates. Few present-generation unbelievers are going to walk out of the DVC movie and instantly engage their Christian friends in debate over the “facts,” nor are they likely to go seek out refutational web sites to balance the view presented in the DVC.
So what is the value of things like Wright’s article or thetruthaboutdavinci.com web site my seminary did? I would say primarily NOT as things for unbelievers to look at (because they won’t), nor as weapons to confront them with, but rather as information for believers so that when they are involved in natural conversation with their unbelieving friends about the book or movie, they can speak with some intelligence. I would stress that even there their aim should not be to win a debate with the unbeliever, but rather to be able to keep the conversation going with the idea that there are alternatives to the views expressed in the book and movie.
The main thing pomos are going to take away from the DVC is not a “list of facts about the real Jesus” but rather an overall impression that confirms their most deeply held belief: all power structures are inherently corrupt and deceptive. The goal, therefore, of the Christian in conversation with such a one is not to overwhelm them with “facts,” but rather to winsomely demonstrate, over time and through conversation and relationship, that true Christianity is not just another power structure, but rather the ulitmate meaningful relationship.
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April 15th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Cool! Thanks for the link.
April 15th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
for some reason i am not happy with the glut of Christian responses to the DVC. on one level, the book itself does not need to be taken that seriously. i read it, my wife read it twice. we are still Christians. we enjoyed it in the same way we enjoy indiana jones or star wars movies. i do realize that for many folks who get their theology from indiana jones, star wars and the best seller list this sort of response might be helpful. i don’t know though. seems like evangelicals are gearing up for an apocalypse that i doubt will come. the movie might be awful and no one might see it. then all the worry and cash dumped into things like this website will be for naught. the sheer number of Christian responses next to the DVC at Barnes and Noble make me nervous as to how much money has to do with the rhetoric thrown around by the authors of those books. remember how many people were supposed to become Christians as a result of the Passion of Christ and Narnia? i still haven’t met any. sure, some were probably impacted by those movies but was cutting all those trees down to print up literature on how Christians can use them as evangelistic opportunites really worth it?
April 15th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Jeb, I see the progression something like this:
As evangelicals, we feel a responsibility to “win the world for Christ.” So we went on crusades and campaigns, but the world refused to be won.
If you can’t win them, beat them!
So we pounded them for their blasphemous and offensive art/TV/movies/novels. We protested and picketed and boycotted. We wrote letters. We sent forwarded emails to our friends (more often than not about crises that actually didn’t exist). The world barely felt a tickle.
If you can’t beat them, join them!
So we tried to imitate their culture with Jesus stamped on it. We got our own rock groups, TV networks, radio talk shows, and publishing industry. Strangely, the world was never attracted to ten-year-out-of-date imitations of itself.
So if you can’t join them, critique them!
And thus is born the latest evangelical craze.
Me? I suggest you wait until this summer to buy all your anti-DVC resources. Your local Family Positive Life Center Shoppe will be sure to have them on clearance to gain shelf space for our critique of the next Big Bad Anti-Christian Media Production!
April 15th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
While not disagreeing with all the above, once you’ve met someone whose fragile faith has been seriously shaken by DVC, having some resources at one’s fingertips doesn’t sound half bad.
But I agree - there is a lot of overkill in these sorts of situations.
April 15th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Barb,
Have you actually run across such a person? I ask because most of the members of a Christian message board in which I participate doubt that any such person exists. They can’t believe that anyone would take DVC as anything more than just a novel.
April 15th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Yes, I have.
The message board doubters, long-time, well grounded Christians, are probably insulated from evangellyfishicus vulgaris, that shy species found hiding in fissures and under fallen branches along the banks of the pond.
April 15th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Ah, well then, good fishing! And be careful, I hear sometimes they bite back.
April 16th, 2006 at 8:50 am
For what it’s worth, I have parents at my son’s baseball games (lawyers, doctors) who know I make a living at “something to do with the Bible” asking me about DVC and the Gospel of Judas. They really have no clue and assume all this is true. There is a missional niche for this sort of website, esp. in the postmodern, internet age. I am glad WTS is engaing it rather than thinking we shouldn’t lower ourselves.
On the other hand, I am as much concerend about the “cottage industry” mentality and seemingly automatic defensiveness that besets Christians when confronted with cultural challenges. I am hoping the WTS sponsored website will have an air of sophistication not only in terms of academic responses but also show a true apprecaition for literary license, how good stories are often times a mix of fact and fiction, etc., etc. I am reading now Anne Rice’s “Christ the Lord.” Yes, the vampire lady, after 30 years of atheism, has returend to the Catholic church, and has written a book about Jesus’ early years from the perspective of a 7 year old Jesus. The first 4 chapters (as far as I’ve gotten) are filled with a mixture educated guesses based on historical scholarship, pure conjecture, use of apocryphal stories (Jesus turning clay swallows into real ones), etc. Given the genre, it is an attempt to–if I can put it this way–make you think about Jesus from a differnt angle. But, the big difference between Rice and Brown is that the former’s book is one that few people will be able to misunderstand as anything other than a story, and not an attempt to “set the record straight.” In my opinion, I don’t think Brown’s conscious agenda is to undermine the faith. But, his clever and seamless transitions from talking about etymologiers and symbols, that seem entirely plausible, to Jesus and Mary had a child, is too much for the non-discerning mind to take in.
April 16th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
after reading enns’ comment i wonder if maybe i spend too much time with cynical Christians.
April 17th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
This discussion would be a good one to continue up to and through the opening weeks of the movie which may add to impact that the book has had.
While we don’t know about the movie yet, what is apparent now is that the book has created opportunities for conversation about the Gospel and that the movie is likely to create more, especially with Tom Hanks in the leading role. With Forrest Gump and Jim Lovell, and Captain Tom MIller of Saving Private Ryan all wrapped up in Langon’s character, some amount of plausibility and credibility is likely imbued to whatever the film asserts— and folks will have questions.
So a good measure of the site might be how it helps people to engage in these conversations, not just with information but also with the ethos of Mark’s words:
“to winsomely demonstrate, over time and through conversation and relationship, that true Christianity is not just another power structure, but rather the ultimate meaningful relationship.”
Very nicely said, even for a bald guy.
April 18th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
True to Westminster East, the site upholds the Free Will of Man, Sacramentalism, and Sacerdotalism!
http://thetruthaboutdavinci.com/know-the-truth.html
“”How You Can Receive the Truth
If you’d like to know the God of truth, lift up the empty hands of faith and trust him for your salvation. Come to him on your knees and pray this prayer:
O Lord, I am lost without you. My life is empty without your truth and your love. I commit my life to you. Forgive me for all my offenses and give me the power to do good. Reconcile me with yourself. Look at me only through the work of Jesus, and enable me to live for him. Thank you that you care for someone like me. Thank you that you welcome me into heaven, because your love knows no bounds. Help me to grow in grace and guide me in all my ways. In Christ’s name, Amen.
How You Can Continue in the Truth
Now that you have committed your life to the Lord, it is important that you identify yourself to a leader from a Bible-believing church in your area. You have begun an amazing journey. The church is there to ensure that you grow and enjoy the Lord in fellowship, and not alone. The church will help you understand more about all of these things, and will guide you into the life of worship and the celebration of the sacraments.”
There is no mention of the Holy Spirit, of Christ’s atoning work.
However, there is:
1. The necessity of man’s ability to act upon his own initiative and go to God: lift up those hands, brothers!
2. The sacerdotalistic injunction to find that ‘leader’ in the church who can help you–God forbid only a ‘layperson’ might be there mowing the lawn! (Rome can find no disagreement with this ‘gospel’ as presented…)
and
3. Make sure the sacraments are mentioned! Once again, Rome has no differences here!
3.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
Ron:
1. How did you find out that “the work of Jesus” refers to something other than “the atoning work of Jesus”?
2. The hands are “empty.” So there isn’t much effort on man’s part there.
3. Since sacerdotalism has to do with the mediate relationship of God to the soul, and the WTS site presupposes that the person going to the leader in the church is already a believer, how is this sacerdotalism? Should leaders in the church ever help people who don’t know much about their salvation?
4. Do the sacraments matter, or not?
April 18th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Mark:
I gotta say that while Wright’s historical work is helpful, his decidedly unhistorical speculations into Jesus’ self-consciousness are (a) unhelpful, (b) troubling, (c) bad scholarship.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Ron,
Would you please share with us how you would share ‘the gospel.’ What prayer would you have someone pray? Please share with us an appropriately Reformed and non-Roman prayer of salvation and instructions for a new believer for his growth.
Thank you.
April 18th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Ha! Stephen, I asked him the same thing on my blog. I’m truly curious about how Ron would write for someone who wants to know God.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
And that has anything to do with this topic….how??
April 18th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
And now from the It’s All Been Done Before Department…
Cottage industry? It’s more like Amway!
Hot tips if you’re planning on starting your own Da Vinci Code response web site (and who isn’t?): 1) Use the color scheme of Dan Brown’s book and 2) Be sure to have a picture of Mona Lisa on the home page.
The site I linked above doesn’t have the cheesey annoying “scary” background music that the WTS site has, so you get extra points if you throw that in to!
April 19th, 2006 at 8:49 am
“What prayer would you have someone pray? Please share with us an appropriately Reformed and non-Roman prayer of salvation…”
First of all, Barb should know, being ‘reformed,’ that no one WANTS to know God.
Second, I know of no example or principle in Scripture that requires that in order to be saved one must pray a prayer.
Third, faith, saving faith, is belief of the truth as it is proclaimed IN CHRIST.
In other words: the Gospel is the forensic, objective declaration of the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness imputed to AN INDIVIDUAL and His offering of himself for the remission of sins. The phraseology is not so important as the content. Whatever language one chooses, there must be in the sinner the reception of a new heart, which takes place in the ‘hearing of faith.’
This answers the first part: prayer is antecedent to conversion. It is what the pious, regenerate soul does after the gift of saving faith is bestowed. Hence, I can offer no prayer as requested.
“…and instructions for a new believer for his growth.”
It wouldn’t be, “seek out a leader in a Bible-believing church.”
It would be something to the effect of:
If you believed on the Lord (believed the Gospel), you must now:
1. Read your Bible daily.
2. Pray daily.
3. Seek out the fellowship of those who profess the true religion (join the church ‘esssential’).
I make this last distinction because a church properly ‘constituted’ may not be a reflection of the true Church: the Body of Christ.
For instance, the Roman Church-State is a church constituted, but doctrinally she is Babylon and the place of harlotry.
Moreover, a church with officers isn’t ESSENTIAL to growth in grace, although it is the desired and Biblical circumstance for the visible church.
Rather than telling those who believe the Gospel to rely on the Holy Spirit speaking in God’s Word for staying in the Truth, the Da Vinci website in question doesn’t even mention it. This is hardly a Reformed presentation.
This is all I have time for now.
April 19th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Mark:
It has anything to do with this topic in this way: At the end of your apology for N. T. Wright being an all-round good guy you said:
“Even Wright’s most virulent critics in conservative Christianity (because of his controversial views on certain doctrines of soteriology) have to admit that he’s done the greatest service of anyone recently in two areas: the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth as a real person in first century Palestine and the bodily resurrection of the same as a historical event.”
And my point is that not everything he does with the historicity of Jesus as a real person is helpful. Some of it is harmful/speculative.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
OK, I gotcha Jason. I guess philosophical speculation about “what did Jesus know and when did he know it?” was not what I was including under the heading of historical Jesus research, but I understand how you’re making that connection.
April 20th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Have the gainsayers been silenced? I am surprised that no one has engaged my post….
April 21st, 2006 at 1:46 am
Don’t ever mistake the lack of response for victory.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Like Dr. Enns, I run into many people who take the DVC seriously. The WTS site is great - my students (I teach undergraduates) are pretty into the DVC point of view - they like the book and seriously wonder whether it is true, and so I’ve led them through some of these issues and they were appreciative. Just learning that not everyone believes the DVC is helpful for them.
I agree, though, that some of the Christian responses on the rack at B&N are a bit fluffy.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:53 pm
As someone who teaches at a school where many of the students are vaguely familiar with the Christian faith, but not well-grounded in the faith, there have been quite a few questions asked about the DVC and a number of students whom the book has shaken them up. So a good resource to point them towards is tremendously helpful.