Friday, May 26, 2006

NEED AN EASY TARGET? HOW ABOUT JESUS?

Neil Cavuto recognizes that if you want to cause an easy controversy--and easy dollars--then take a swip at Jesus:
You wanna make a quick buck? Take a cheap shot at Jesus.

Just ask Dan Brown. Just ask Madonna. Both have built careers on tearing Jesus down, even as they make outlandish stuff up!

...Jesus, a good man, and for many, a good Savior, is good material for writers who can't bother with the truth. And aging rock stars who can't handle the truth.

In an age we like to shock to score, going after Jesus, gosh, even thinking you "are" Jesus, is the Hail Mary of financial touchdowns.

It gets people talking, and marching, and protesting. But it keeps otherwise insipid movies alive, and pointless careers afloat. They thrive not on the brilliance of their points, but the controversy of their actions.

And as Cavuto rightly reminds us, trashing Jesus is a quick buck but woe to then one who targets Muhammad.

2 comments:

susanna in KY said...

GT, in one sense I agree with you - Dan Brown's book should have been dismissed as fiction from the get-go and any efforts to position it as either truth or "truth" laughed down. I've read other books by Brown, and as the writer of suspenseful fiction, he's really good. That's where he should have stayed, and Christians could have read it and thought, what a wild tale, well told.

But Brown himself maintains that his story is historically based, although he weasels and slithers out of the way anytime someone tries to pin down precisely how that is true. He, his publishers and now the moviemakers have deliberately evoked the provocative, "But what if it's true?" meme solely for the material gain the controversy will net them, despite the spiritual havoc it can and has caused among those who don't take the time to know the Bible OR history. Every major premise in his book has been debunked as false, categorically, by actual experts. But still you call his book historical fiction - it's not, any more than the H.G. Wells War of the Worlds book is historical fiction, because, well, we do have wars! Why couldn't they have been with aliens?! Dan Brown's "historical" premise is just as solid, "There was a Jesus and a Mary Magdalene who knew him, so why couldn't they have been married and had a child?"

Most of us who are disgusted with Dan Brown et al are not "insecure" in our faith. We're well grounded and know his story is truly fiction. What we're worried about is people like you who apparently aren't well versed enough to know The Da Vinci Code is not history, is not historical fiction, is not even "historical" fiction. It's fiction, from soup to nuts.

Anonymous said...

Is there a reason that Susanna's well stated comment did not show up in the comments section? I was going to post one of my own in response to GT, but Susanna's appears in the 'leave your comment' section, but not in the comments section itself. Anyway, if it doesn't post then I'll try to repost here. If it does, then I apologize for the repost, but her thoughts were my thoughts.

Joel


susanna said...
GT, in one sense I agree with you - Dan Brown's book should have been dismissed as fiction from the get-go and any efforts to position it as either truth or "truth" laughed down. I've read other books by Brown, and as the writer of suspenseful fiction, he's really good. That's where he should have stayed, and Christians could have read it and thought, what a wild tale, well told.

But Brown himself maintains that his story is historically based, although he weasels and slithers out of the way anytime someone tries to pin down precisely how that is true. He, his publishers and now the moviemakers have deliberately evoked the provocative, "But what if it's true?" meme solely for the material gain the controversy will net them, despite the spiritual havoc it can and has caused among those who don't take the time to know the Bible OR history. Every major premise in his book has been debunked as false, categorically, by actual experts. But still you call his book historical fiction - it's not, any more than the H.G. Wells War of the Worlds book is historical fiction, because, well, we do have wars! Why couldn't they have been with aliens?! Dan Brown's "historical" premise is just as solid, "There was a Jesus and a Mary Magdalene who knew him, so why couldn't they have been married and had a child?"

Most of us who are disgusted with Dan Brown et al are not "insecure" in our faith. We're well grounded and know his story is truly fiction. What we're worried about is people like you who apparently aren't well versed enough to know The Da Vinci Code is not history, is not historical fiction, is not even "historical" fiction. It's fiction, from soup to nuts.