Pop culture isn’t always Babylon. Five years ago the conjunction of a number of blockbusters offered a unique opportunity for reflection in the Christian History weekly online newsletter:
The Lord of the Rings, The Passion of the Christ, and the Highway of Holiness
Has God been “re-routing” us through popular movies, books, and cultural events?
Chris Armstrong
I don’t remember a time when the realm of popular culture has seemed more alive with divine purpose.
During the past year or two, how often have we been publicly reminded—through movies, books, and events—of vital truths about who we are and who God is? Through Peter Jackson’s third Lord of the Rings movie, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and other prominent cultural events, we have been pushed off of the path of complacency and back towards the “highway” depicted by Isaiah: Continue reading
Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians
Grateful to the dead 
Thanks, Da Vinci Code . . . for sending us back to Christianity’s founding fathers
Once in a while, a book or movie comes along that presents its own twisted version of the Christian faith or of events from Christian history, and the faithful rise up to object. And sometimes, the faithful also dig into our history to find out “what really happened.” This was the case with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, first published in 2003:
Thanks, Da Vinci Code …
… for sending us back to Christianity’s “founding fathers”—and the Bible we share with them.
Chris Armstrong
It’s been a while since Christian History got an online response to rival the emails that poured in after last week’s “Behind the News”. We enjoyed reading your responses to staff writer Collin Hansen’s fact-checking piece on Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.
Anything that leads people back to those dynamic early centuries of the church can only help the Christian cause. Obviously no human untruth can obscure the truth of the Gospel. And the first thing you notice when you read the early “church fathers” is that they are completely convinced Jesus is God himself. I’m talking about those bishops and teachers from the 100s and 200s too—long before the Nicean council (Brown claims) enforced on the church the supposedly minority position of Christ’s divinity. Continue reading →
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Tagged Ancient Christian Commentary Series, Bible, canon, Church fathers, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, Greek philosophy, Torah