« Mexican Drug Lords Beheading Police | Main | Palestinians Used International Aid To Fund Terrorism »

May 18, 2006

Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, C.S. Lewis, And Jesus Christ As A Poached Egg

Topics: Faith

Stephen Bainbridge does a good job of taking Dan Brown's "thinly fictionalized amalgam of many ancient heresies" and putting it in a thoughtful perspective - courtesy of C.S. Lewis:

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."

In his piece Bainbridge suggests that it is Brown's repeated assertions that his novel is premised on deep historical research that most galls Church leaders. I suspect that's the case. However what most galls me about Brown's book and Hollywood's production of the DVC, is treating the public like we're all "stuck on stupid".

Posted by Richard at May 18, 2006 10:33 AM

Articles Related to Faith:

• 'Pope's Secret Service Agent Spots Someone In The Crowd' - Apr 20, 2008
• Pope baptizes prominent Italian Muslim - Mar 22, 2008
• Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! - Jan 01, 2008
• On 'Cowardly Christians' - Dec 11, 2007
• 'Golden Compass' Goes Way South In Attacking Faith - Dec 03, 2007
• ACLU's War On Christmas Comes Up Short In Fort Collins - Nov 28, 2007
• Survey: Americans Fed Up With Stores' ''Happy Holidays'' And Democrats Hate Christmas (Updated) - Nov 24, 2007
• Thanksgiving Is A Time Of Giving Thanks For What We Have Today (Updated) - Nov 22, 2007
• Federal government Tells 85-year-old Grandmother She Cannot Put An Angel (or anything Christian) On Christmas Tree - Nov 10, 2007
• Ignoring The 20th Century's Godless Atrocities - Aug 06, 2007