We should be spreading light,
not shouting at darkness

You’ve probably noticed an entire cottage industry has been born in the wake of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
Sadly, it seems a number of our most popular Christians have been unable to resist the temptation to cash in. A disproportionate part of this cottage industry finds its nexus in Christian bookstores. Perusing the shelves for a sampling of the drivel being promoted should make it clear that Christian publishers are not so much concerned about defending orthodoxy as they are about defending market share.
But worse yet is the whole world of Christian electronic media now being saturated with this nonsense. Simply Google “The Da Vinci Code,” and you get more hits than a Gaither family reunion.
Web sites. Articles. Blogs. You name it. The Internet’s got it. Denouncing the Da Vinci Code. Unmasking the DaVinci Code. Dismantling the Da Vinci Code.
Catholic. Protestant. Pentecostal. It’s all there, in the brilliant argumentative style of St. Paul in his treatise to the Romans.
But what seems to be lost on these heresy-hunting hounds is that they have no opponent in this “debate.” After perusing Google long enough to be accused by John Wesley of being “triflingly employed,” I found exactly zero Web sites, articles or blogs defending the historical veracity of Brown’s book or its revelations. It seems that the only people who take Brown seriously are those who say no one should take him seriously!
What seems to be lost in this racket is the overwhelming attention it is drawing to the exact thing it denounces. These brilliant historical critics and courageous defenders of Christian orthodoxy are doing a better job of promoting Hollywood than Hollywood. It seems that everyone in America is planning to see the movie just to find what the huff is all about.
An old adage says, “Where there is smoke there is fire.” It is, of course, not true. Sometimes, “where there’s smoke there’s just smoke.” And just about every respected historian (liberal and conservative) considers Brown’s conspiracy theory to be little more than smoke.
Nevertheless, every tanker truck in Christendom has been dispatched to the scene—only they’re loaded with accelerants assuring a massive fire. I don’t mean to suggest a conspiracy, but one would think someone is making money on the sale of water.
I’m planning to go see The Da Vinci Code movie and allow myself to get caught up in the thrill of Brown’s murder mystery. Afterward, I’m going to stop at my favorite restaurant, order something good to eat and thank God for his merciful bounty.
Then I’ll go home, get a good night’s rest and wake up on Sunday morning prepared for worship. And at church, I will be afforded the grace of preaching from the only book that deserves the kind of attention being given to The Da Vinci Code.
If the church will get busy celebrating and spreading the light, instead of shouting at the darkness, we won’t have to worry about the resurgence of centuries-old heresies. I once read, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Now if I could just remember where that was. It wasn’t Dan Brown, was it?