Opinion, Volume 8 number 6, June 2006, by Neal Matson
The Missionary Position: On Two Films
I would like to give my reaction, as a generic Christian, to two films of religious interest though of vastly different cinematic caliber.
I read The Da Vinci Code about three years ago, just saw the movie version, and thoroughly enjoyed both renditions of this excellent and enterprising thriller. The conjecture that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and fathered a child was a little disconcerting until, upon rumination, I realized that it neither diminished Jesus's divinity nor His ability to erase my bad karma, and would actually have served to enhance His humanity.
It makes perfect sense that if God was to become a man, He would wish to experience the full range of the human condition and that includes marriage. You certainly should play the game if you want to make the rules, and I have long thought that today's celibate clergy should disqualify themselves from dispensing connubial advice. The Da Vinci Code deserves a nine on a scale of one to ten (only because I reserve the perfect score for movies with dinosaurs). The second film, Left Behind, played here several years ago. Allegedly, its source material is the biblical book of Revelation which I have read several times and studied extensively. However, it is actually just a visual representation of John N. Darby's 1830 pretribulation rapture hypothesis and an amateurish one at that. No wonder this film had one of the shortest runs in Regal Cinema history.
Yet this film illustrated some things that, if one does accept Darby's scheme, are quite topical—although not quite in the way the producers intended. The antichrist character rises to power through a criminal act (a shooting, not a stolen election), the villains' secret agenda is to control the world's food (not oil) supply, and the planet's most powerful military force is the UN (not the US). World events, correctly interpreted, are almost enough to make a Darbyite out of me.
This makes me wonder if the evil "one-world religion" that supports the antichrist could actually be the Petrosexual Party's economic agenda. Was the 2004 election outcome preordained because the antichrist has to remain in power for seven years, not just four? This film might actually be used as an example of two wrong ideas implying a right conclusion. Today's alignment of the religious right in national politics shows how far they've come from original Christianity: "No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had...there were no needy persons among them…those who owned land and houses sold them…the money from the sales…was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Acts 4:32-35)
Like them or not, let us not forget that both of these films are fiction. To overreact with screaming screed and boycotts of one film while elevating the other to the status of inspired prophecy serves no one and misleads many.
That is this missionary’s position, and I’m sticking to it. | ||
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