Quiet, You're Ruining Everything

So the Catholic church has its catechism in a twist because they don't like the subject matter of The Da Vinci Code. So a book (and now a film of the book) comes out, with a story that seems to go against their belief system. They call it blasphemous and hurtful. They claim that it’s part of a strategy to undermine church teachings.

I don’t know what’s more hilarious – the idea of a fairly pedestrian “public transport book” being some big threat to the vast empire of the Christian faith; or the fact that by spending so much time and energy denouncing it, they’re actually giving it more free publicity.

There are even those who claim that the book and the film seek to exploit the public’s distrust of the Roman Catholic Church in the aftermath of the many scandals world-wide involving sexual abuse by members of the clergy. Yeah, because that whole thing would have just blown over completely by now if Dan Brown hadn’t put pen to paper, right?

But what really gets me about this whole discussion is that it’s solely about ideas, and not about proof. The people within the Catholic church who are working night and day trying to debunk Brown’s work are doing so because they think The Da Vinci Code is a direct attack against the foundation of the Christian faith. In the real world, however, pretty much everyone else knows that Dan Brown’s book is proof of nothing, and I don’t think a single person who read it would think more deeply about it than they would The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And trying to “debunk” this book/film anyway would be like decrying Star Wars for its lack of realism.

This is where it starts to get silly – when the Christians start thinking they need to defend Christianity against a flash-in-the-pan pulp novelist. Try explaining to them that no matter how many copies of The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown sells, the Bible will always sell more. I asked a Catholic friend of mine why they refused to read DVC. They told me that it deeply offended them as a Catholic. When I’d finished slapping them around, I told them to Google the following search terms: Darfur, Abu Graib, North Korean orphans, Sudan, and about a dozen other cases of human suffering and pain which should be offending their Catholic sensibilities long before this book should merit their attention.

But in response to The Da Vinci Code, I have an idea to put to all the Christians out there. You know what you should be doing? To really show us all how great your religion is once and for all, you should be doing absolutely NOTHING. That's right - you should be sitting there, smiling serenely while the juggernaut of pop-culture rolls on. You see, the rest of us expect Christian-folk to make a fuss any time something comes out that even remotely references a religious theme. I mean, let’s face it - you’d picket Neil Diamond for saying “Good Lord”.

But just imagine for a bliss-soaked moment that Da Vinci Code came out, and all the Christians were doing absolutely nothing. We’d all freak out, and wonder what you were all so quietly confident about. Or maybe we’d just start to respect you and your beliefs a little more, because you’d started to show some respect for ours. But no –you just have to jump up and down and try to tell us we’re going to hell for watching a movie or reading a book that you don’t happen to agree with.

And that’s why the Catholic Church’s popularity is really waning - because there's nothing people hate more than a cry-baby, and to be brutally honest here Christians: if your ideologies aren't strong enough to stand up against a Tom Hanks film, then you've got far worse problems than you think the rest of us have (Hey, “The ‘Burbs” challenged my ideals too, but I still believe in affordable non-psychotic housing).

Here's another suggestion for you, just while we’re talking – try having some faith. Is your faith so shallow that you don't think it can withstand the battering of a work of fiction? So you don't believe the events in The Da Vinci Code are true. You read the story, you sat through the whole movie, and you think it’s bollocks. WELL DONE - that may have been the first independent decision you ever made in your life. See how this book/film has just done you a big favour? It presented a situation that challenged you, and you made a decision, all of your own. You should be proud of yourself.

Now shut the fuck up and let me watch the God-damned movie