A friend forwarded an e-mail protest petition to me about the coming DaVinci Code movie, but I'm not signing on.
For one thing, the group putting on the campaign, TFP, is already suspect in my book: operating as a blasphemous personality cult for its Brazilian founder, TFP was condemned by the bishops of that country in 1985. He's dead now, but the organization carries on, using the outrage at offensive anti-Christian movies to attract supporters and raise money for itself.
Furthermore, complaining about the movie isn't enough. The false philosophy and spirituality in the book and movie do damage to souls. As this Presbyterian fellow writes, the book presents its own spirituality which a lot of people find attractive instead of the authentic message of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
All the complaint campaigns, all the TFP postcards sent to Sony Pictures and all the Catholic League press releases issued by Bill Donohue, protesting that studios and publishers feel entitled to insult Christianity without rebuke, won't undo that harm to souls.
A more serious response, an effort to communicate to the public, to correct the erroneous ideas in the DVC is needed. As usual, the protest petition came with a request to send "$25 or $50 or even $100" to spread the campaign further, but $50 worth of whining postcards won't really help souls. If somebody were putting together a media evangelization project to counter the errors in the DVC, that would be worth a donation.
I wish some of these outfits that make religious tapes would look ahead to what will be hot (A movie on the Davinci code has been in the works for quite a while). Yet all I can find in videostores are tapes that give the same phony history and even the latest religious catalogues have no tapes or DVDs of interesting quality (not just talking heads--I can do that) refuting the lies in the Davinci Code. But, I have discovered Parish Adult Education needs "Teachable Moments" programs to be exciting. When that idiotic show Revelations was on NBC (with all its publicity) we did real Bible study on the Book of Revelation refuting the TV junk and had a terrific turnout. Also, on the anniversary of the Armenian Massacres we showed a tape from an Armenian genocide group and had a great turnout. But when the well known-about-in -advance bogus movie on the Crusades came out--Could I find a good video giving a Catholic perspective on the Crusades??? No way!!!