Evangelicals Engage
When pastor Ken Baugh announced he'd be devoting eight consecutive Sundays to analyzing The Da Vinci Code in the run-up to its film release, he knew some members of his Southern California megachurch would be skeptical. But Baugh also knew that many of his congregants had read the book and that many more would see the movie. "Dan Brown did the church a favor," Baugh says. "He forced people who call themselves followers of Christ to investigate what that really means."
Baugh is hardly alone. Evangelical leaders have attempted to seize on Brown's success as an opportunity to reinforce the faith of believers and to win new souls. In the three years since the book's release, evangelical writers and thinkers have produced a flurry of books, study guides, and DVDs to counter Dan Brown's fiction. "This movie will be a major cultural phenomenon, so discussions about Jesus and the church will happen," says Robert Johnston, a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. "The only question is whether the church will be a part of the conversation."
Turnabout. To be sure, evangelical leaders have been critical of The Da Vinci Code. "This has all the evidence of something cooked up in the fires of hell," evangelical radio broadcaster James Dobson said on Focus on the Family. It's because the book and film pose such a threat, many evangelicals say, that it warrants a strong response. "We're making the best of a situation that is going to do a lot of damage," says Erwin Lutzer of Chicago's Moody Churchand author of The Da Vinci Deception. "When you are faced with a dam that seems to be breaking, you can't prop it up by saying, 'We're going to stand against it.'"
It's a remarkable turnabout from the outcry that greeted Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, in 1988, when Campus Crusade for Christ called for a boycott. Rather than boycott The Da Vinci Code, Campus Crusade has retained popular evangelical speaker Josh McDowell, author of The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers, to challenge Brown's assertions. "I don't recommend people go to the movie, but 90 percent of them will," says McDowell. "The guy is a phenomenal writer, and I can't take that away from him."
The reaction represents a shift within the evangelical community. "Five years ago, there might have been more of a backlash against this film," says Calvin College Prof. William Romanowski. "But movies like The Passion of the Christ changed attitudes ... evangelicals are now trying to penetrate the mainstream media."
Sony Pictures, which is distributing The Da Vinci Code, has created an online forum for religious leaders to discuss the film, thedavincidialogue.com. Sony may be betting that even critical comments will generate buzz, but evangelicals say they also stand to benefit. "The real history of Christianity ... is far more complex" than in The Da Vinci Code, writes the Christian Broadcasting Network's Gordon Robertson. "[It's] filled with enough flesh and blood to make it a better story than the one Dan Brown invented."
This story appears in the May 22, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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