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.
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?
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.
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.

Here is a reply to him
“The problem with what McLaren says here is that he cannot (or will not) distinguish what is malignant from what is benign. No one goes to hell merely for believing dispensational premillenialism, a theology of the end times that is portrayed in the “Left Behind” novels. Yet anyone who denies the deity of Jesus most certainly will, and this is precisely what is argued in “The Da Vinci Code.”

Left Behind People’s response

I find myself in the unusual position of siding more with McLaren than his detractors on this one because a lot of what McLaren is saying is true. People who don’t know church history have lots of false presuppositions. Yet I have an issue with anyone who won’t really explain clearly (propositionally) what he believes yet is telling me or others that what we articulate propositionally is false. (Mc Laren) Mc Laren ducks and weaves more than Josh Carr coming out of a crowded pack.

Last night I headed off in the cold night air, through the smog settling over Perth for the late night session of the “Da Vinci Code”

As I settled into the Cinema for a very rare treat, seeing a movie, a fog of a different kind settled over me. The Code left me underwhelmed, on purely an enjoyment level. It was neither thrilling, action packed or intriguing. Maybe too much has been said about it already so the exciting developments were rather misty, rather than shattering. There were a few scary moments as the white haired angel jumped out of the shadows, but it was not really a thriller.

On the other level of being an affront to Christianity it certainly made me think. What, if anything, was Dan Brown trying to say? Or was it more that he did not really care about anything but his own self interests? In other words, the controversy meant nothing much to him apart from more book sales.

One thing that did concern me was the loose handling of the supposed historical basis for this yarn. Too many flaws to go into concerning Constantine, the formation of scripture and Mary Magdelene. They were presented in a far different light to how accurate history reveals them.
The Gnostic gospels do not state, as was stated in the movie, that Jesus married, or was a companion of Mary Magdelene. The true gospels speak little of Mary M, but make it clear she was a harlot, who found Christ.
The thrust or theme of the movie is that the Church has repressed the feminine side of Christianity, which is certainly true. But how it comes to that conclusion, with false conspiracies, fanciful historical facts and mishandling of any truth is far too easy to dismiss for any reasonble historcial analysis.

That is not to say I dont think it is a great yarn, it is. What concerns me is that those with little or no knowledge of true church history may assume that those facts which are presented as historical facts will be accepted as true.

You are frustrated, angry and dissapointed about something. Someone has a go at you, and you bite back. You let them know what they said was unnacceptable. You dont know them.

Hours later you hear they have died.

This is just what has happened to Dean Laidley, coach of the Kangaroos.
He had a verbal stoush with a fan as he was walking onto the field after the Roos suffered another defeat.
The slighty drunk fan, drinking from a can of beer, taunted Dean Laidley.
Then Laidley did something unusual for an AFL Coach and stopped and told the supporter he was welcome to follow him onto the oval to see for himself how disappointed the players were. Apparently the fan had been mouthing off all day, and said something like, “there’s our season gone”.
Asked why he reacted, Laidley said, “I just thought, I’m sure at that point all the supporters share the disappointment, and I just wanted to bring him down and say, ‘Look, we’re hurting as much as you guys’.”

The guy was hit by a train later on that day, so it may have been related to what Dean said, it may not have.
Either way it is a real indication that as leaders we need to be really careful what we say, even if what we are saying is correct. Sometimes responsibility can bite us really badly.
Will be interesting to see how the club handles it from here on in.

Link

Off to see the Da Vinci Code tonight. See what all the fuss is about.
On Sunday I am speaking on the Code. But not to be cool, or reach cool people (St Gaz)
Rather because I want to speak on something I dont often do. Where the Bible does actually come from. Some foundational stuff. Most of what I speak on is the positive change knowing Jesus has upon our day to day lives, how Christianity is relevant and makes a positive difference. So this is a stretch for me, out of my normal operating zone.
I am no apologist, but will be dealing with some apologist information this Sunday. It wont be boring, that to me is a great sin, to bore people when we should be inspired. But I hope to capture the essence of what the truth is, rather than give an indepth critique on either the book or movie.

Thank goodness I have sourced some really good multi media to use. Josh Mc Dowell has some stuff, which I will use, as well as some good graphics and music.

Its not easy to see how a Sunday Morning could get busier for a Pastor, but the one just gone was pretty full on.

I managed to secure a full page colour photo of my good self sitting amongst the pews which were for sale from our church. I got this ad for free as part of the unique items promo the Sunday Times Readers Mart puts on.

We are selling them because our Kids Program Toddler Jam has grown and grown and grown. We are now running it three days a week, and the third day has grown by a third in two weeks.
There may be a time soon when we need to put on another staff member to make it go five days a week, and expand into other children’s ministries.
All this growth has meant we need more space, and the pews take up too much room. So we have put on order 180 new stackable seats.

The phone started ringing at 10pm on Saturday Night, and is still ringing now, on Monday morning. I dont think its because we sold them too cheaply, we actually doubled the price we were going to sell them for when another church sold theirs in a day for $150 each. And theirs were more ornate than ours.
They were all sold by 1.30pm on Sunday, which meant I was selling them, instead of having soup with the rest of the church.

Yesterday was a great Sunday. I heartily recomend Andy Court to anyone that is interested in getting an artist in to do some ministry, he and his wife Sharon were great and adapted their style to suit our church. We had a coffee shop format with cakes and coffee half way through the service, once the kids had gone out. It was great, natural, and it was wonderful to see the people, including a number of visitors, mixing well.

There’s not a lot good to be said about Freo today,
Medhurst was probably our best contributor, trying all day.
The rest of them could have put on Brisbane Jumpers and been just as effective.

sigh, sigh, sigh

I was not planning to do anything on the Da Vinci Code, but have relented.
Not this Sunday but next, I am going to talk about it.
I am no apologist, and normally stay away from such things, but this one needs to be talked about. My plan is to address three issues raised by the book. I have no intention of critiquing the book, others have done a far better job of that than I could ever do. Rather I want to talk about what I think may be interesting to some poeple. Where does that Bible come from, what is the deal with the apocrypha and who was Mary Magdelene?