Coopting Critique?

The Da Vinci Code came out this week to much critical disdain, decent box office numbers, and lame duck protests. Unlike some I don't consider this film a direct threat to the church rather I think that we have already down worse harm to our selves. It saddens me to think that our Christian education system is so paltry that we are not knowledgeable enouch about the coucil of Nicea (for example)to know that the accounts in the book are just plain wrong. Or another more absurd example is the contention that a gnostic form of Christianity would be some how more celebrative of physicality and women in particular. Christians should know enough about Christian history to know that the reason the gnostics wre rejected was precisely because they denied the importance of physical life. the entire biblical witness: from God proclaiming the Creation as good in Genesis, to the incarnation of Christ, to the renewal, not destruction, of creation in Revelation celebrates physicality.

If the evil church's goal was to eliminate Jesus' radical feminism and create disdain for the natural world they were just about the most incompetent conspirators in the world (one only has too note that one of the few details the four Easter accounts agree on was that Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the resurection). Enough of the rant.

The other day I read a fascinating piece in the "New Yorker" (there really is no way of saying that with out sounding pretentious is there?)about Sony's marketing strategy for the Da Vinci Code. Part of it was to create a website that encouraged point-counterpoint debate about the Da Vinici Code in order to convince Christians that it was part of there discipleship to see and discuss the movie. Sony realized that would attract more Christians by higlighting the movies controversy rather than underplaying it. Anyway read the article and tell me what you think.