Will 'Da Vinci' reshape understanding of faith?
It's only a movie -- and a mystery novel. Despite all the hyperventilating over "The Da Vinci Code," that should be clear by now.
Any similarities between history and the book are coincidental, accidental -- and mostly lacking.
Then why are so many people, especially a goodly number of Christians, ready to call down the wrath of God on these historical revisionists?
Before Friday's release of the movie, some clergy were urging people to boycott the film: Send Hollywood a message by seeing another movie. Others tried to take advantage of the controversy by calling it a "teaching moment": Get the truth out about the faith.
Still others decided to take a wait-and-see attitude: In the grand scheme of things, they argued, the movie probably won't make that much difference. (In contrast, the book, a best-seller since 2003, has been translated into 44 languages.)
A year from now, I doubt that the movie will be table conversation. (Are you still talking about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" or Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ"? Neither am I.)
What's different
Yet, there is something different about the "Da Vinci" movie, which sales of the book reinforce. Its effect could be much more profound because of the role of media in our lives.
Richard Bernstein, author and film critic, was picking up on the media's influence on history when he wrote a decade ago in the New York Times:
"More people are getting their history, or what they think is history, from the movies these days than from the standard history books." He could have added "historically based novels."
And it's that false idea of history, shaped by movies and books, that I find unsettling. Two silver screen examples:
When Oliver Stone's movie "JFK" was released in 1991, critics decried the number of historical inaccuracies. But Stone insisted that he only wanted people to "rethink history" and consider an "alternate myth" to the story of Kennedy's assassination.
Was Stone suggesting that myths are comparable to and as valid as historical facts? Increasingly, that seems to be what is happening. Belief in myths abound.
In the 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind," the facts of the famous 1925 Scopes trial were significantly altered. Was that merely dramatic license with no real historical significance?
The fact is, "Inherit the Wind" has shaped not only people's understanding of that 1925 trial and those "redneck Bible believers," but also their perception of current combatants in the battle over science curricula in public schools.
Other reinterpretations
And now comes "The Da Vinci Code," mixing fact and fiction to remake the life of Jesus. What's different with this movie and book is that both arrive just as other reinterpretations of history about Christianity, all published within the last three months, are attracting public attention:
The Gospel of Judas, reportedly written in the second century, presents a Gnostic Jesus conspiring with Judas to reveal "the mysteries of the kingdom."
Historian and author Garry Wills claims in his book "What Jesus Meant" to peel back layers of Christianity to find the kernel of spiritual truth -- while dismissing any significance of or need for the church and its minions.
In "The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-up in History," Michael Baigent reveals, as one critic says, "shocking new assertions that threaten the conventional account of Jesus' life and death and shake the very foundation of Western thought."
And James Tabor contends in "The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family and the Birth of Christianity" that Jesus' father was not God or Joseph, but possibly a Roman soldier named Pantera.
What's next?
Because of these and other books and movies that claim to reveal "the truth about Jesus," will the next generation no longer consider the four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- the definitive account of Jesus' life? Will the Christian faith no longer be rooted firmly in history for most people?
For most Christians, faith will not be swayed by the latest book or movie that purports to revise the "old, old story of Jesus and his love."
But for others, "The Da Vinci Code" will be one more break in the chain that links history and faith.
As Bernstein notes, the media shapes our understanding of historical events in a much more pervasive way than it used to.
So, how will that shaping affect future generations and their understanding of faith?
That, as any good historian would tell you, truly remains a mystery.
Knight Ridder Newspapers