Stranger than fiction

The Sunday papers were filled this morning with articles chronicling every church's attempt to "get ready" for the Da Vinci Code's release May 19. With one guy quoted in the Chicago Tribune calling Da Vinci "the most serious attack against Christianity" in his 30 years of ministry (puh-leeze), the rhetoric is heating up.

I'm struck by the fact, however, that the same people crying foul about Da Vinci were thrilled with Mel Gibson's Passion, which was no less a fantastic extrapolation of history--work of fiction, if you like--than Da Vinci. Of course, Mel's screen version of Anne Catherine Emmerich's "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (there was very little gospel) was hailed as a great act of evangelization, despite its anti-Semitic tone, vividly pornographic depiction of Jesus' torture and death, and complete disregard for modern biblical scholarship.

In other words, we don't mind works of religious fiction as long as they suit our purposes, whatever those may be.