DaVinci Code vs Left Behind
I bothered to check my "Worldview Weekend" subscription in one of my junk email accounts and found an article about this interview with Brian McLaren. The article in question wasn't worth much, as it made the common error of attributing unconditional worship of McLaren to all "emergent" Christians everywhere. And the comments were the stuff of self-parody. Regardless, I've don't care much for McLaren. I find him high on questions worth asking, but am underwhelmed by his attempts at answers and wishy washyness in general. Regardless, this point, which grabbed the ire of the WW author, intrigued me:
"Do you think the book (The DaVinci Code) 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"
The thing is, while I might disagree with the dispensationalist theology of Left Behind, I don't know that it can be deemed as outright blasphemous as the claims of Brown's book. Still, I suspect it's an interesting comparision for those Christians who are sufficiently sick of Left Behind.
Not planning to post this to christianity, given we've had about 20,000 too many DaVinci codes posts there, but I thought I give you the chance to voice your opinion here.
"Do you think the book (The DaVinci Code) 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"
The thing is, while I might disagree with the dispensationalist theology of Left Behind, I don't know that it can be deemed as outright blasphemous as the claims of Brown's book. Still, I suspect it's an interesting comparision for those Christians who are sufficiently sick of Left Behind.
Not planning to post this to christianity, given we've had about 20,000 too many DaVinci codes posts there, but I thought I give you the chance to voice your opinion here.