Real Live Preacher weighs in, wisely, on the whole kerfuffle.
First, when will religious groups finally figure out that publicly denouncing a book or a movie is the surest way to guarantee its success? Religious people never seem to understand that the world is filled with people who do the exact opposite of whatever they suggest. Hell, I’m one of those people myself. If I hear that church people hate a movie, I’m in line for tickets on opening day. Has the Church forgotten Salman Rushdie? Would any of us know that name if he hadn’t been condemned by the Muslims? Has the Church forgotten Martin Scorcese’s movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ?” In that case, the Church in America single-handedly turned a mediocre movie into a blockbuster hit.
Nice move Church. Perhaps you should have added some basic chess lessons to your seminary curriculum.
But whatever. If the Church wants to make a lot of money for Dan Brown and Ron Howard, what do I care? Both the book and the movie will be off the radar in a few months. Nothing will have changed.
To which I’ll add, if someone’s faith is so weak that reading a popular paperback or seeing a movie is going to crush it and send someone careening away from the church, it’s probably not something that could have been saved (so to speak) anyway.
Christianity is a major, world-wide religion. It is 2000 years old and is the largest common expression of spirituality in the history of humanity. Does the Christian Church really need to worry about a book and a movie? These things are here today and gone tomorrow, almost literally. The Christian Church has withstood the Roman Empire, medieval Christianity, and the Age of Enlightenment. Somehow the Church even manages to survive its most dangerous challenge – scandal, decadence, and corruption within its ranks. Will Dan Brown now topple us?
[…] The best and only appropriate response for the Church is to be about the business of the Church. Don’t we have, I don’t know, CHURCH things to be doing? Or even better, human things to be doing? If our love of humanity was as radical as Jesus called it to be, then we would never have to say a word.
In my mind, every time the Church responds to something like this with angry words, it is a bold indictment of our lack of active love, and therefore lack of relevance in this world.
Amen, Reverend.
A lot of church leaders have condemned the movie (and the book), insisting that it expresses disrespect for the church, for God, and for believers. They miss the point that respect is earned, not secured in court. It will exist only if you actually are respectable. What these folks want is not respect, but obedience, obeisance, and homage — which are very different things altogether.
The funniest thing I heard was one of the local right-wingers getting up in arms over the movie…when only a few short months ago he was demanding news papers publish the Danish Mohammad Cartoons.
Sooo….much….fun. ;P
From my atheist’s point of view it’s just funny. It’s a movie version of a novel, not a documentary. FICTION.
I understand that lots of people take the Left Behind novels as serious stuff too, which is even funnier.
Maybe part of the problem is that so few people are readers these days. Hell, they think reality tv is real.
I wonder if the populace has gotten so (superficially) skeptical and conspiracy theory-oriented that people are willing to believe in anything that smacks of mistrusting folks who they’ve traditionally trusted. If that makes sense.
If they were going to go this route, though, I’d rather they’d done a (Garth Ennis) Preacher movie. Better sex and violence, I suspect.
Sometimes when it is dark and my thoughts must echo loudly against the silence of the psychosphere I wonder if ‘they’ are promoting a blizzard of conspiracy theories to make their real conspiracies less plausible.
Only my tinfoil hat protects me from them knowing what I am thinking.