{"id":1956,"date":"2006-05-19T08:18:09","date_gmt":"2006-05-19T08:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html"},"modified":"2006-05-19T08:18:09","modified_gmt":"2006-05-19T08:18:09","slug":"dvc-varia-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html","title":{"rendered":"DVC Varia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Greydanus:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

A few Christians have optimistically hoped that The Da Vinci Code<\/em> might provide a potential opportunity for dialogue and discussion about Jesus with people who might not otherwise be open to such discussions. Yet if anything the film seems calibrated precisely to inoculate viewers against any such discussion \u2014 to leave viewers with a skeptical agnosticism about efforts to set the record straight is all part of the conspiracy, \u201cwhat they want you to think\u201d (or \u201cwe can\u2019t be sure\u201d). <\/p>\n

The Da Vinci Code<\/em> throws so much mud around that at least some of it is likely to stick in viewers\u2019 minds. Was Constantine really a lifelong pagan who invented the doctrine of the deity of Christ and compiled the Bible as we know it? Did the Church really declare Mary Magdalene to be a prostitute in 591? Was Sir Isaac Newton really persecuted over his theories of gravitation, the way we all \u201cknow\u201d Galileo was for his heliocentrism (or not<\/a>)?<\/p>\n

How many viewers will have any idea about all these questions? There are so many specifics, so much information, surely some of it has to be true, or is likely be true, or could be true. Or at least, \u201cwe can\u2019t be sure.\u201d <\/p>\n

Most viewers will probably assume that Opus Dei doesn\u2019t really have monk assassins (or for that matter any monks at all). Yet the general impression of something shadowy and unsettling about the group is likely to remain in their minds.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, on an imaginative level, there is a sense in which the film\u2019s relentless association of Catholic imagery \u2014 crucifixes, clergy, churches \u2014 with pervasive creepiness and depravity amounts to a kind of aesthetic slur that is hard to counter with mere arguments or talking points. <\/p>\n

Astonishingly, after a 2\u00bd?hour seminar on the evils of monotheism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church, The Da Vinci Code<\/em> tries to have its cake and eat it too, as Langdon suggests to Sophie that \u201cWhat really matters is what you believe,\u201d even questioning whether exploding the \u201cgreatest cover-up in history\u201d would really be such a good thing after all: Does Sophie want to \u201cdestroy faith or renew it?\u201d <\/p>\n

It almost sounds as if Langdon is saying, \u201cSo Christianity is a lie \u2014 let the Christians have their lie, if that\u2019s what makes them happy.\u201d Whatever happened to \u201cFor 2000 years the Church has rained oppression and suffering on mankind\u201d? <\/p>\n

Is it possible to put all this aside and just enjoy the story as a thriller, an enjoyable yarn? I honestly have no idea how people can take that approach.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And in our hourly lurching between thinking this is just a laughably bad joke and (buttressed by A.N. Wilson and Greydanus) thinking that the anti-Catholicism comes across more seriously than ever…we present:<\/p>\n

So Dark the Con of Dan<\/a>…which looks like the best DVC-takedown site ever.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

All information contained within this website has been poorly researched and\/or totally invented. Rarely do we bother to read our work after it has been written. <\/em><\/p>\n

Enter the Louvre Pyramid thingy May 2006<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Slate:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

To my mind, the most ineffable gnostic secret of all is how such hooey has managed to capture the imagination of tens of millions of people all around the world. My best guess is that the book’s success has to do with its timing: Beset by faceless enemies and engaged in endless <\/strong>wars, perhaps we need the comforting certainty of the occult. The message at the heart of this story’s <\/em>paranoid labyrinth is, ostensibly, an anti-clerical one: Jesus is no god but only a man, and the Catholic Church is little more than a transhistorical Cosa Nostra dedicated to covering up that fact. But despite its purported iconoclasm, The Da Vinci Code<\/em> is at heart deeply religious, and monotheistic at that: It wants us to believe that there is one secret truth that can change history, that that truth is knowable, and that only through Tom Hanks can we know it. Our salvation depends on Forrest Gump.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Greydanus: A few Christians have optimistically hoped that The Da Vinci Code might provide a potential opportunity for dialogue and discussion about Jesus with people who might not otherwise be open to such discussions. Yet if anything the film seems calibrated precisely to inoculate viewers against any such discussion \u2014 to leave viewers with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDVC Varia - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DVC Varia - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stephen Greydanus: A few Christians have optimistically hoped that The Da Vinci Code might provide a potential opportunity for dialogue and discussion about Jesus with people who might not otherwise be open to such discussions. Yet if anything the film seems calibrated precisely to inoculate viewers against any such discussion \u2014 to leave viewers with…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-05-19T08:18:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"DVC Varia - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"DVC Varia - Via Media","og_description":"Stephen Greydanus: A few Christians have optimistically hoped that The Da Vinci Code might provide a potential opportunity for dialogue and discussion about Jesus with people who might not otherwise be open to such discussions. Yet if anything the film seems calibrated precisely to inoculate viewers against any such discussion \u2014 to leave viewers with…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-05-19T08:18:09+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html","name":"DVC Varia - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-05-19T08:18:09+00:00","dateModified":"2006-05-19T08:18:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/dvc-varia-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"DVC Varia"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}