The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code blasphemes God, Jesus the Christ, and Christians in general, and apparently it's okay. Madonna, who has made a career of blaspheming Christianity, presented herself as crucified on a cross at her recent concert, and apparently that too is okay. The State of Oregon, through it's university system, forces all of its students to subsidize a publication that pornographically depicts Jesus as a homosexual, and once again it's apparently okay. The federal government, through the National Endowment of the Arts, confiscates the wealth of millions and uses it to subsidize people who smear feces on Christian images, or submerge crucifixes in urine. And apparently it's okay, because if any of us who are Christians express offense at these outrages, we are labeled ignorant and intolerant.

When asked (on Fox News) why they wouldn't publish a similar treatment of Mohammed, the publishers of the student newspaper in Oregon said because doing so would result in riots and bloodshed. And it wasn't long ago that Muslims the world over were rioting over simple cartoons of Mohammed. Even then American newspapers wouldn't reprint the cartoons which were the basis of the whole story. Comedy Central, the same network that depicts Jesus defecating on an American flag censored their own programming rather than show an image of Mohammed. And no, the NEA will not give anyone a grant to smear feces on a painting of Mohammed, nor will Hollywood make a movie defaming him.

You see, when Christians are defamed, we, in keeping with the teachings of Christ, turn the other cheek. Many of us may decline to go see his movie, but you aren't going to find a lot of Christians calling for, or trying to affect, Ron Howard's murder. Nonetheless, it is we who will be depicted as intolerant hate-mongers. But how does that assertion stand up to the light of scrutiny? Last year when Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Baptists and Methodists and Episcopalians and Pentecostals loaded up their church vans and went to the aid of those in need. When a tsunami devastated Indonesia, that part of the globe with the highest concentration of Muslims anywhere, Christians across America opened up their hearts and their wallets and sent aid to those in need.

So I ask, what does all of this say about the character of Madonna, or Ron Howard or Tom Hanks? How does this speak to the courage and convictions of those at the University of Oregon who apparently think it's only okay to malign people who are kind and peaceful? What does this say about all of them, that they so completely defer to those who will murder over the slightest offense, either actual or merely perceived, but they will go to such lengths to impugn and blaspheme those who repay evil with kindness? I'll tell you exactly what it means. It means that, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you," (John 15: 19).

As for the Da Vinci Code, obfuscation and confusion are the tools with which deception is wrought.

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