Teach Your People

The uproar over the movie "The Da Vinci Code", and the book on which it's based, has revealed what I think is a great weakness in modern American Christianity.

In case you don't know, "The Da Vinci Code" proposes that Jesus Christ was married to, and had a child by, Mary Magdalene, and that the bloodline of said child is the real Holy Grail. This truth was murderously suppressed, the book goes on to suggest, by the Catholic Church for 2000 years. Oh, and Christ didn't die on the cross, either, according to the book.

Apparently, many Christians who've read "The Da Vinci Code" have had their faith damaged, if not destroyed. And these aren't new Christians, but people who've been in the faith for years. That's why there've been calls to boycott the movie, and a rash of books by pastors and other firmly committed Christians trying to debunk the "Code". But how could the faith of people who've been in church many years, maybe even all their lives, be so vulnerable to a book? Because the clergy has abandoned it's responsibility to teach the people; that's the great weakness in modern Christianity.

Turn on just about any "Christian" tv program, or pick up just about any "Christian" book these days, and what you'll get is some spiritualized version of motivational speaking. It's all about how being a Christian will get you out of debt, save your marriage, put you on the fast track to success, and make you thin, to boot. There's practically nothing about the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith and the historical proof for those doctrines. Thus, the average churchgoer today can tell you the "Biblical" principles of prosperity but not a thing about the Council of Nicea. So, when a book comes along claiming that Jesus' divinity was decided by vote at said Council, under pressure from Roman emperor Constantine; that gospels telling the real story of Jesus were suppressed by the church; that Jesus didn't die on the cross; and that the Holy Grail is the sacred bloodline of Jesus' child, today's average Christian is a sitting duck for disillusionment.

It doesn't matter how long you've attended church. If you weren't taught the historical truth of Christianity you have no defence against "The Da Vinci Code" or any other attack on the
faith. And it's the responsibility of the clergy to teach their people. The loss of faith of so many Christians in the wake of Dan Brown's book can be laid directly at the feet of derelict clergymen. Preaching wealth, health, and happiness instead of teaching hard facts in support of the faith, they've shirked a duty as sacred, in God's eyes, as the role of parent. They are supposed to be God's generals, but they've sent His troops into battle with no armor and no weapons. Every soul lost because of "The Da Vinci Code" will be laid at their doorstep. I wonder how many of them take that seriously, or even realize it.

Hopefully, some clergy will see the folly of their ways and repent. Maybe they're repenting already, and showing it by writing those debunking books mentioned above. If the church is going to keep true Christianity intact, this has to happen. May God let it.