COMMENTARY: `Da Vinci’ Didn’t Weaken My Faith _ It Made It Stronger

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It’s getting harder and harder to be a true Christian. I know, I know, nobody said it would be easy _ look at how poorly they treated the only man who did it perfectly. True Christians get lumped together these days with mean-spirited, intolerant folks who are anti-gay, anti-Hollywood, […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) It’s getting harder and harder to be a true Christian.

I know, I know, nobody said it would be easy _ look at how poorly they treated the only man who did it perfectly.


True Christians get lumped together these days with mean-spirited, intolerant folks who are anti-gay, anti-Hollywood, anti-fun, anti-compassion.

Tell some liberals that you believe in Jesus and they look at you like you have three eyes.

Tell some conservatives and they embrace you as a kindred spirit who has memorized all four Gospels but forgotten the greatest commandment of all when it comes to gays or guys on death row.

There is no such thing as easy Christianity. Two thousand years later, Christians are still being mocked and scorned.

How can they really believe that Jesus walked on water, changed water into wine and cured the blind and lame? I believe it all. From the womb to the tomb and beyond. I believed first because my family did. Years later, I came to believe in my own right, fascinated by the mystics and mystery.

That led me to pursue a master’s degree in religious studies, where I discovered that when it comes to Christians, there’s no one-size-fits-all. There never was, even among the original followers: Thomas the doubter, Peter the liar, Paul the persecutor.

So what kind of Christian goes to see “The Da Vinci Code”?

A bad one, if you believe all the hype.

Christian groups have called the movie a heresy, a blasphemy, an assault on the essence of Christianity. They say the movie maligns the Catholic Church and demeans Christ with distortions, deceptions and falsehoods. One group is telling all Christians who love Jesus not to see the movie.

They must be talking about a different movie from the one I saw Friday (May 19). I saw a religious thriller based on the novel by Dan Brown. A work of fiction. According to my dictionary, that means a making up of imaginary happenings; feigning. Anything made up or imagined, as a statement, story.


Protesters are upset that the movie questions the divinity of Jesus. I don’t believe it did that. If anything, it expanded his humanity.

The movie didn’t attack my faith. It made it stronger.

The film does what the main character talks about at its start: It puts forth historical distortions to find original truth.

Yes, it unfairly portrays the Catholic Church, specifically Opus Dei. The author should have created a fictional name for the group and thrown in a few good bishops, priests or monks to balance out the evil ones.

The film does leave you wondering. What role do women have in the Catholic Church? What role were they supposed to have? What if there are living descendants of Jesus Christ?

That last one is easy. Of course there are living descendants.

They’re called Christians. It’s not about carrying Jesus’ DNA. It’s about carrying his message.

“God uses us all,” a bishop says in the movie. All. Even flawed messengers like author Dan Brown and director Ron Howard.

If you look for flaws in the film, you’ll find them. But I left with a sense of awe, not for the movie, but for the 2,000-year-old story that is still making headlines.


As the main character says near the end, “The only thing that matters is what you believe.”

(Regina Brett writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

KRE/PH END BRETT

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