Da Vinci Code

I feel like such a sellout for doing this…

Last Sunday, I decided to do a Sunday School lesson and sermon on the recent phenomena of The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas. The Sunday School lesson was about the facts of the matter – historical accuracies and inaccuracies, controversial points, and so on. There are a MULTITUDE of sites out there that deal with this already, so I won’t post that stuff here.

What’s more interesting to me is NOT what these books say in themselves, but the kinds of things they say about the Church and its place in our culture.

I say I feel like a sellout, mostly because I’ve already heard and read a lot of sermons on this topic – mostly along the lines of, “It’s full of errors and heresy! Stay away! Ban the movie!” I don’t want to jump on that bandwagon.

Rather, I think the popularity of these books is an interesting commentary on Christianity and our culture, and the Church’s reaction to it is a definite commentary on ourselves as Christians. Instead of running from it, I’ve encouraged my church members to read it to hear its intersting ideas, and so they can know more about what others are saying and thinking about Christianity. We should look these things full in the face rather than running away. Otherwise, we make ourselves look more like Dan Brown’s version of the clammed-up, stuck-in-the-second-century Church.

I realize mine is only one of an uncountable number of opinions out there. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to put your ideas out, even if someone’s read it before!

You can read the sermon in its entirety here, if you like: LINK TO SERMON (Note: you have to have Adobe Reader to view this file) Or you can simply read the synopsis below.

In a nutshell:

First, I think the church’s reaction to these books shows our grief at the loss of a Christianized society. The bitter lashing out against the books and movies of this sort is really more of the same reaction that Christians have been displaying already against a culture which is rapidly moving away from what Christian values and worldviews it once had. I don’t think this is a bad thing – if anything, we need to recover how Christians are DIFFERENT from culture.

Second, I think the Church’s reaction also shows our reliance upon facts and evidence instead of a firm foundation of faith. We’ve been so sucked into the idea that we must have cold hard evidence that we forget some of the simple facts of our faith. We may find Noah’s Ark someday, but we’ll never find evidence that God exists. God won’t give it to us because (I think) God wants us to accept and love him on FAITH, not evidence. This is not to say that we should stop seeking evidence. But it does mean our belief should have faith in God at its foundation, instead of evidence. When we choose to believe on faith, no matter what evidence surfaces for or against God, we can still say, “I choose to believe.”

Finally (and I owe this point to Brian McLaren, see this site), I think the fact that these books are so popular shows that we might have misrepresented Jesus to the world. Why would people rather read about Dan Brown’s Jesus than the Jesus in the Gospels? The Jesus of the Gospels is alive, exciting, revolutionary and challenging. Dan Brown’s Jesus is normal, boring, and still dead. We should NOT seek to entertain, but we should recapture a sense of who the REAL Jesus is. I believe if we present this Jesus instead of our lifeless flannelboard version, people will be drawn to him.

I’m very interested in your comments on this.

"When my people…"

When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, the LORD appeared to him at night and said: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

– 2 Chronicles 7:11-16 (NIV)

I’ve seen this verse used so many times to justify our idea of “Christianizing America.” It’s passages like this that have been misread to give the impression that some awful sin of our nation’s people (abortion, homosexuality, obesity, you name it) is the cause of any number of things that have happened recently (9/11, Hurricane Katrina, etc.). This is bad interpretation and bad theology.

We talk about being a “Christian nation,” and that’s definitely something we were founded upon. But so often, what we really mean when we say “Christian nation” has less to do with the Gospel and more to do with politics.

Notice that this passage says nothing about God giving any blessing to the people that he doesn’t give to anyone else. He doesn’t promise to give them any special protection. What he does promise is that when GOD’s people, called by GOD’s name, humble themselves and turn from wickedness, then he will HEAR their prayers, FORGIVE their sins, and HEAL their land.

He doesn’t say, “I’ll give you a Christian president.” Nor does he say, “I’ll favor my people with tax breaks.” Nor does he say, “Then you’ll be able to pray in schools again.” He simply says he will HEAR, FORGIVE, and HEAL.

And notice who the burden is on: GOD’S PEOPLE. Not the governor, not the president, not our senators. Not Pat Robertson or Jimmy Jackson. Not our denominational leaders. These may all be God’s people too, but that’s between them and God. The call to be humbled and to call upon God starts with YOU and ME. WE are God’s people.

When we pray for God’s will to be done and his kingdom to come on earth, we aren’t praying for a government that sponsors the Church. We’ve already seen in Rome and Nazi Germany what can come of that. Instead, we’re praying for the kingdom of God to come in our midst, like Jesus did. He went from village to village and town to town, spreading Good News, healing the sick, feeding the hungry.

Imagine what it would it look like if Jesus came to our community today. What would our community look like if Jesus came here doing what he did in the Gospels – preaching, healing, forgiving, feeding? What kinds of things would he do? Where would he go first? Who would he be sure to see? How would the whole community change because of his presence?

Now, instead of imagining Jesus doing these things, put YOURSELF in that picture – preaching, healing, forgiving, feeding. What kinds of things are you doing? Where do you go first? Who would you be sure to see? How would the whole community change because of your work?

Now ask yourself one question: What’s stopping you?

Letter to the Editor

A couple of weeks ago, in the letters section of our local newspaper, one main aired his suspicion of Hispanics and their plight in our country. His ideas did not disturb me so much (he was basically saying, “send them back and keep the rest of them out”), but his language did. And I realized it was the same language I have seen used in this debate time and time again. Language that is frighteningly similar to language we’ve seen elsewhere…

I felt obligated to post a response.

Dear Editor,

Like most Lunenburg citizens, I have heard and read the escalating debate regarding the status of undocumented immigrants in our country. I don’t profess to be any more sure of the road ahead than any of our government officials. The issues are many and complex, and it will likely take a long time to sort them out in a way that is practical and beneficial (to anyone).

My primary concern, however, is for the people themselves. I use the term “people” intentionally, because it is a word so often missing from the debate. More often, the words “illegals,” “immigrants,” or other demeaning terms dominate the debate.

This sounds hauntingly familiar: the creation of the “us vs. them” mentality that has given rise to racism and the civil rights disasters that continue to destroy human beings all over the world in places like Sudan, Sub-Saharan Africa, Kosovo, and Iraq. It’s the same rhetoric we used to justify slavery, and the rhetoric the Nazis used to demonize anyone they didn’t like. When we start thinking of someONE as someTHING – immigrants, illegals, whatever – we no longer have to think of them as human beings. That’s dangerous.

One has only to travel to the border and look around at the houses and jobs available in Mexican towns to see why they want to come here. And sadly, when they’re here, one need only look around our own communities (yes, here in Kenbridge and Victoria) to see they live and work in conditions that are not much better than the ones they came from. Granted, some come for money, but they are people too, doing things we know well: trying to make a living and care for their loved ones… sound familiar? I don’t need to see a green card to recognize a fellow human being in need.

And lest we forget, our ancestors were once “illegal immigrants” on a continent they did not own: they brought pestilence, disease and war that wiped out or put into submission the better part of the Native American population. We owe a lot to “illegal immigrants,” it seems.

Whatever the answer to the immigration dilemma may be, hatred and racism is not it. Let’s start talking about the people of this debate instead of the nameless and faceless demons we’ve made them out to be. We may not solve the debate over immigration, but we sure might find our place in it.

Sincerely,
Jon Parks, Kenbridge