DaVinci DeCeit

The May 5 Kennebec Journal illustrates the hoopla surrounding “The DaVinci Code.” A column by Jim Brunelle makes an interesting point. So does a KJ editorial – if, in fact, this editorial is an honest assessment of the situation, and I’m not sure that it is. The editorial states, essentially, that those who have genuine faith will never be shaken from it, and I agree. But there’s a problem hidden in there. To paraphrase a colleague, only the most naïve would believe the claims found in “The DaVinci Code,” or let those claims sway them from the truth about Jesus Christ – but the sad fact is that there are many people in today’s America who actually are that naïve when it comes to the Bible and what it says about Jesus. We now have at least two generations in this country that, unlike previous American generations, were not raised on the Bible. They don’t experience the Bible in school; they don’t experience it in church – either because they go to liberal churches that distort the Bible or don’t even crack it open, or because they don’t go to church at all; and they are increasingly experiencing less and less of it in the public realm because of the rampant Jesusphobia that is running amuck in our country. Hence, the editorial, when stating that there’s no cause for alarm from such things as “The DaVinci Code,” is speaking either from the viewpoint of uninformed naivety, or with the deliberate intent of leading people farther down the slippery slope away from truth.