The Da Vinci Code, Star Wars, and the Bible

I taught a Freshman Seminar last fall at UNCG called "Gods and God in the Ancient Greco-Roman World." It was a broad survey of ancient ideas about divine beings, and I had the students read a lot of primary sources, starting with Homer, and ending with St. Anselm in the Middle Ages (yes, the course is slightly mis-titled).

One of the oddest things to emerge from the seminar was the personal theology -- I should say theologies -- of the students.

Out of 20 students, all but 2 claimed to be Christian; the other two were somewhere between atheist and agnostic. But among the other 18, only about 4 held beliefs that bore much resemblance to orthodox Protestant or Catholic thought. Most of them believed that the Bible had been seriously altered or adulterated by wicked men sometime between Christ's lifetime and ours. They also tended to describe God as a "force" that permeates the universe, and some had quite detailed ideas about how this divine Force operates: "Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us . . ."

In short, these young Christians had aquired most of their ideas about the Bible and theology from two sources: Dan Brown's faux-theologico-historical pot-boiler The Da Vinci Code, and George Lucas's Star Wars movies. Some of them acknowledged this openly, and said they were more inclined to be influenced by Brown's book and George Lucas than by the New Testament.

So I'm glad to see that Brown's outrageously erroneous ecclesiastical history is getting some serious scholarly criticism by UNC religion professor Bart Ehrman. Unfortunately, most people don't read books like this. But they will go to the movie based on Brown's book that Ron Howard has apparently agreed to direct.

Sigh.