When the Homily is about Immunology

Akin

I was waiting for it to happen, and sure enough it has. A movie critic with the New York Daily News slams "The Da Vinci Code" (as it seems most critics are) and then writes:

That won't stop the stampede to the box office. It's the must-see movie of the summer, if only because of the religious protests akin to the uproar over the Danish political cartoons. We're living in dangerous times when a merely okay summer movie can make everyone forget the golden rule: It's only a movie, folks.

"akin": Having a similar quality or character

Now, as far as I know, there have been no foreign embassies burned, no heads of state calling for criminal prosecution of Dan Brown or Ron Howard, no signs in the hands of protestors calling for beheadings, and - most shocking of all - no one has actually been killed. Once we do see that, then I suppose I'd feel better (though not really) about using the term "akin" but until then let's not allow the tyranny of the Zeitgeist of equivalence to continue overruling simple logic and reason.

So I'm not sure who the reviewer thinks has forgotten the golden rule and I am certain that making our dissent heard is NOT going to drive the masses to see this movie - Sony has plenty of money to do that and the popularity of the Book was certainly enough to create the expectation of funding for the movie makers to go forward. Furthermore, most everyone at my work had read the book without me having to utter a word against it.

However, education and not overly zealous vehemence is really how we need to focus our protests. The book's "fiction" is popularly perceived (if perceived at all - see the "poll") in the interpretation of history and not in the history as reported by Mr. Brown. The fact that the book's history is flawed and deceptively recorded by Brown is much less known and understood. Too much of what we hear is from evangelicals bitching about Jesus being protrayed as married, and not enough about the clear historical nonsense with regard to early church history - which of course isn't as dramatic, but it plays a huge role in Brown's overall theory of an erroneous and conspiratorial Christianity that so many ascribe to today.

I think I missed my calling as an historian. I love history and particularly Church History. I must admit to barely being able to control my frustrations when a coworker was telling me how the Bible was "picked by the Emperor at some council in 300 or something" and I was patenly unable to dissuade her of this notion - though I think I did later. At the time I'd never heard of this book and I was amazed at all the other wacky church history notions that the readers of the book were able to spout off. And they loved it because of their foundational desire to disbelieve Christianity and the Church. But there are also people who really do not know...I am related to many of them...who will not have any idea whether the history in the book is true or not and there IS - whether we like it or not - an ingrained notion that if a book cites an historical fact that the author would not do so if it were blatantly untrue. For instance: The vote at Nicea was close. Well, Dan wouldn't say that unless it was true, right? I mean it would be silly to outright lie about what seems to be an easily verifiable historic fact, right?

If I wrote a book in which I say that the south won the Civil War you would look to the cover of that book to try and see where it says "alternative history" (a genre I rather like actually) because everyone knows this isn't the case. Sadly, not everyone knows what happened at Nicea I, and not everyone can say with certainty that Jesus was proclaimed God prior to that council, and not everyone can say when or how the books of the New Testament were chosen...but Dan Brown takes the opportunity to informs us - falsely -in order to weave his conspiratorial story. But alas, nowhere on the cover of his book appear the words "alternative history."

One good thing about the movie: it might open up an opportunity for discussion. I would highly recommend Fr. Steve Tsichlis' sermon from over two years ago in which he straightens out Dan Brown's alternative history.

Part 1
Part 2