This quote may be the more accurate indictment of the church than the whole film itself. The reason so many people seem to fear this movie, 'Da Vinci Code', is because they believe it teaches bad theology; that people will see this film and have a more blurred view of what they believe to be true. Which I would agree with somewhat, but could it be that it is partly because many churchs have conditioned people to believe the best way to understand truth is to do lots of advertising, gather together in a big auditorium, and have the top performers, up on the stage, tell people what the truth is? Originally, I'm sure this seemed like a better and faster way to present their truth to outsiders. Efficiency is important, right....
I guess I wonder what shapes a persons view of Christian theology more; a 2 hour film or spending 2 hours with people who call themselves Christians. It seems to me that somewhere many churchs started to believe that the best way to teach theology was to make it kind of like going to a movie theater rather than to encouraging people to study the Bible with a few friends and go out into the world, live in the way of Jesus and share how their reality is being shaped by him.
I think The Cosby Show is a bigger threat to creating bad theology than the Da Vinci Code. The Gospel according to the Cosby show is that all your problems can be solved in less than 30 minutes and you never even need God. You just need a sense of humor and some occasional words of wisdom. I had that preached to me one evening a week for nine years. (I found this to be untrue by the age of 16.) But "Christians" like the Cosby show because it teaches "good morals". And everyone knows that good morals are what change the world. If everyone would just be moral. If we could somehow get everyone to behave. We wouldn't have to worry about being "left behind", cause it wouldn't be that bad here anyway.
I don't see that as the primary teaching of the Bible, but then again I did not grow up in one of the churches I described. I see that the primary people God seems to be mad at are the ones that say they worship Him, and Jesus only seems to yell at the moral religious people. Once again I feel caught in the middle; between the people who say "believe in nothing!" and the people that say "be moral!". I wonder if that is how Jesus felt.
