Think, not rant... then rant some more

I'll admit to a large smirk when hearing that the reviews for The Da Vinci Code movie have not been good. The huge sales of the book, and the surrounding fuss, have just been so undeserved. I am afraid, like a Grumpy Old Man, I have been known to rant about this, offended that I am.

I suppose it would have been better if the Christian church (of which I am not a practicing member) had stood up for itself a bit better. One view has it that this current turmoil is trivial and transient - leave it a few years and it will go away. True, hopefully.

Nevertheless, it was great to receive a very interesting article from a friend (poor chap, had been on the receiving end of one of my rants), where the response is just not pompous in any way:

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?

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.

You can read the entire piece from Brian McLaren here. A free registration is required.