“Whether or not we think it should, the stats are in: According to Barna, more than 2,000,000 folks say reading the novel changed their belief system.”

Changed in what way? Did the study specify?

Whether or not we think it should, the stats are in: According to Barna, more than 2,000,000 folks say reading the novel changed their belief system.

As for prompting people to investigate the Christian faith, unfortunately, what are they going to find at Borders or Barnes & Noble? Bart Ehrman’s crazy book MISQUOTING JESUS? Sam Harris’ THE END OF FAITH? Michael Baigent’s THE JESUS PAPERS?

Christians ought to respond, but we ought to respond in thoughtful and Christlike ways. We don’t need to scream and picket, but we should prepare ourselves for the questions that aren’t going away about the deity of Jesus and the reliability of the New Testament Gospels.

Brian McLaren on The Da Vinci Code

An interview by Lisa Ann Cockrel

With The Da Vinci Code poised to go from bestseller list to the big screen on May 19, pastor and writer (and Sojourners board member) Brian McLaren talks about why he thinks there’s truth in the controversial book’s fiction.

Sojourners: What do you think the popularity of The Da Vinci Code reveals about pop culture attitudes toward Christianity and the church?

Brian McLaren: I think a lot of people have read the book, not just as a popular page-turner but also as an experience in shared frustration with status-quo, male-dominated, power-oriented, cover-up-prone organized Christian religion. We need to ask ourselves why the vision of Jesus hinted at in Dan Brown’s book is more interesting, attractive, and intriguing to these people than the standard vision of Jesus they hear about in church. Why would so many people be disappointed to find that Brown’s version of Jesus has been largely discredited as fanciful and inaccurate, leaving only the church’s conventional version? Is it possible that, even though Brown’s fictional version misleads in many ways, it at least serves to open up the possibility that the church’s conventional version of Jesus may not do him justice?

Sojo: So you think The Da Vinci Code taps into dissatisfaction with Jesus as we know him?

McLaren: For all the flaws of Brown’s book, I think what he’s doing is suggesting that the dominant religious institutions have created their own caricature of Jesus. And I think people have a sense that that’s true. It’s my honest feeling that anyone trying to share their faith in America today has to realize that the Religious Right has polluted the air. The name “Jesus” and the word “Christianity” are associated with something judgmental, hostile, hypocritical, angry, negative, defensive, anti-homosexual, etc. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, actually are upholding something that’s distorted and false.

I also think that the whole issue of male domination is huge and that Brown’s suggestion that the real Jesus was not as misogynist or anti-woman as the Christian religion often has been is very attractive. Brown’s book is about exposing hypocrisy and cover-up in organized religion, and it is exposing organized religion’s grasping for power. Again, there’s something in that that people resonate with in the age of pedophilia scandals, televangelists, and religious political alliances. As a follower of Jesus I resonate with their concerns as well.

Sojo:Do you think the book contains any significantly detrimental distortions of the Christian faith?

McLaren: The book is fiction and it’s filled with a lot of fiction about a lot of things that a lot of people have already debunked. But frankly, I don’t think it has more harmful ideas in it than the Left Behind novels. And in a certain way, what the Left Behind novels do, the way they twist scripture toward a certain theological and political end, I think Brown is twisting scripture, just to other political ends. But at the end of the day, the difference is I don’t think Brown really cares that much about theology. He just wanted to write a page-turner and he was very successful at that.

Sojo: Many Christians are also reading this book and it’s rocking their preconceived notions - or lack of preconceived notions - about Christ’s life and the early years of the church. So many people don’t know how we got the canon, for example. Should this book be a clarion call to the church to say, “Hey, we need to have a body of believers who are much more literate in church history.” Is that something the church needs to be thinking about more strategically?

McLaren: Yes! You’re exactly right. One of the problems is that the average Christian in the average church who listens to the average Christian broadcasting has such an oversimplified understanding of both the Bible and of church history - it would be deeply disturbing for them to really learn about church history. I think the disturbing would do them good. But a lot of times education is disturbing for people. And so if The Da Vinci Code causes people to ask questions and Christians have to dig deeper, that’s a great thing, a great opportunity for growth. And it does show a weakness in the church giving either no understanding of church history or a very stilted, one-sided, sugarcoated version.

On the other hand, it’s important for me to say I don’t think anyone can learn good church history from Brown. There’s been a lot of debunking of what he calls facts. But again, the guy’s writing fiction so nobody should be surprised about that. The sad thing is there’s an awful lot of us who claim to be telling objective truth and we actually have our own propaganda and our own versions of history as well.

Let me mention one other thing about Brown’s book that I think is appealing to people. The church goes through a pendulum swing at times from overemphasizing the deity of Christ to overemphasizing the humanity of Christ. So a book like Brown’s that overemphasizes the humanity of Christ can be a mirror to us saying that we might be underemphasizing the humanity of Christ.

Sojo:In light of The Da Vinci Code movie that is soon to be released, how do you hope churches will engage this story?

McLaren: I would like to see churches teach their people how to have intelligent dialogue that doesn’t degenerate into argument. We have to teach people that the Holy Spirit works in the middle of conversation. We see it time and time again - Jesus enters into dialogue with people; Paul and Peter and the apostles enter into dialogue with people. We tend to think that the Holy Spirit can only work in the middle of a monologue where we are doing the speaking.

So if our churches can encourage people to, if you see someone reading the book or you know someone who’s gone to the movie, say, “What do you think about Jesus and what do you think about this or that,” and to ask questions instead of getting into arguments, that would be wonderful. The more we can keep conversations open and going the more chances we give the Holy Spirit to work. But too often people want to get into an argument right away. And, you know, Jesus has handled 2,000 years of questions, skepticism, and attacks, and he’s gonna come through just fine. So we don’t have to be worried.

Ultimately, The Da Vinci Code is telling us important things about the image of Jesus that is being portrayed by the dominant Christian voices. [Readers] don’t find that satisfactory, genuine, or authentic, so they’re looking for something that seems more real and authentic.

Christ in not sufficient. If only we could make a movie about the “real Jesus” then people would flock to our churches. Maybe Davinci has the answer!

And yes… anyone who loves to talk to strangers about Jesus … I have a stack of about a 1000 names for you to work with. When you get through with that, there are more.

For a slightly different take (but somewhat along the same lines) of what I said above, I’d urge you all to “run,” not walk, over to John Dobbs’ blog post for this afternoon at Out Here Hope Remains he titles “The Bible Disclaimer” about his take on The Da Vinci Code.

I’ve referred you and your many readers to John’s blog before and do again. He’s the minister of the Central Church of Christ in Pascagoula, Mississippi and has done a stupendous job in sharing the work they have been doing there since Katrina hit.

Right now - just yesterday and today - he is sounding a call (again) for ministers and anyone who considers themselves to be, as John says, soul winners, to come for as many days (or weeks) as they can to talk with some of the vast number of people the church there has reached out to since the hurricane who want to know about this Jesus Christians there are serving.

In Pascagoula, Mississippi, the fields are ripe unto harvest and there is a need for workers to come share in the enormous work to be done in gathering those so urgently seeking God.

I eventually gave it to Goodwill and forgot about it, but later wondered if I should have tried to read it, too, since the hype has gone on and on.

But now - today - msn.com reports the critics of the movie are really panning it, so I figure it will go its way - the way of questionably “good” fiction and less than compelling movie.

Here’s how I look at it - bottom line. It’s okay for those of us as Christians who want to read the book to do so, so we may be able to discuss it with others who have read it. Or see the movie for the same reasons, or just because we like movies. We’ll probably see it at some point.

But in the end, I think - practically speaking for the majority of us - we would be better served - perhaps BEST served - by spending our time and energy in sharing God’s “good news” with everyone we can along our way and quit worrying about getting all worked up and and being rabidly vocal and negative against whatever the latest fad is.

If we can reach others in a positive way for Christ using The Da Vinci Code - that’s great. If it’s by serving people in our communities, starting with our families and neighbors and those across town in a poorer section, perhaps, even better.

Let me give you a quick example here that I think perfectly illustrates my point. Years ago when I was working as Community Editor/Journalist for the daily newspaper here in Picayune, Mississippi - a “dry” county - a liquor referendum came up to be voted on in the next election. This is staunch Baptist territory with something like 40 or more Baptist churches throughout the county. They got up in arms, big time.

They were going door to door, knocking on doors to talk with people and distribute flyers and literature, etc, etc. So the First Baptist Church here in town planned a big rally one night with a well known area minister who lived down in the French Quarter of New Orleans and was known as the “Bourbon Street” evangelist working with whoever he met on the streets down there, and believe me, there were all KINDS of people in desperate straits and stresses down there (are still, for that matter).

They called him because they thought he would be the perfect person to come in to preach and rally the Lord’s army to go out against the evils of drinking and such.

I asked for, and was assigned to go cover the story for the front page of the next morning’s paper and I did. I sat on the front row over to the side next to a local Baptist minister who probably weighed 350 pounds on a good day. Some 900 or so Baptists showed up, most by busloads, from all around.

There was much singing and praying and then the Bourbon Street evangelist took the podium and all were quiet and attentive.

Much to everyone’s surprise (shock, I would say on many parts), he preached mightily (and it was mightily, because that was years ago and I remember it well) that all of the good Christians present would be doing the Lord’s work much more effectively and positively if they were out knocking on doors to spread God’s word. If they were living as they should be themselves in not being drunkens or gluttons (that one caused a visible zing to the minister sitting next to me) or ignoring their kids or spouses, etc.

He didn’t dismiss the evils of drinking at all. He merely chose his time and scriptures in front of the vast audience he had to convict them of the beams in their own eyes they should be concerned about first. And in then exerting their energies to doing the Lord’s work ALL the time, day by day, instead of in a negative way once every four years when a liquor referendum came up.

He asked each one present how many times before had they been to the same doors they were knocking on to share God’s love for those living there. Questions like that, for over an hour, and not one sound could be heard the entire time.

I was surprised, myself, at his message, because it was certainly not what I had expected to hear, but you know what. I thought it was exceptional.

So - things like the Da Vinci Code and the Passion of the Christ and Left Behind series come and go, but God’s word is eternal and vital and so very needed today, somewhere close by where each of you are. Somewhere within the reach of your hands and your mind and your heart.

If we can use the Da Vinci Code to reach someone within our scope, all the better for us having used it. I think that’s great. But not something to get all worked up about (IMHO) as a huge sebastion of evil pounding against the Lord’s church.

Oh yeah - as far as “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through” - that’s Gnostic? I suppose it’s all in how you interpret it. But from my perspective here on the “down slope” of my life, I KNOW without a doubt I’m only passing through, so I’d better do all I can to make my time left count. Which reiterates my point above. Today is all we’ve got friends. We need to make the most of it for the Lord.