Gorillas in the Myth

To the Editor:

The hype over "The "Da Vinci Code" illustrates one obvious truth: The last remaining form of accepted bigotry in our society is to attack Christians in general and Catholics, in particular. Would Hollywood ever produce a movie that so directly attacked the basic teachings of Islam or Judaism or even Druids?

Of course not. Mocking Catholicism today is as socially acceptable as denigrating blacks and Jews was in the past. Today's social elitists, like those in the past, don't think twice. But, as a Catholic, I will not simply stand by and watch my faith attacked by these bigots; I plan to fight back. I will pray for them.

Brian

Before I get into the bulk of this letter, and why it's absolutely ridiculous to claim that Christians are the only group of people against whom bigotry is socially condoned, I just want to comment on how offensive it is to me, as a Christian, that Brian and so many others actively engage in the practice of passive-aggresive praying. If you're praying for someone out of a sense of revenge or aggression, you're just posturing. There's nothing spiritually positive about those emotions, and using them to fuel your personal meditations with God is just this side of sacriledge. Praying for one's perceived enemies is not 'fighting back,' it's meeting aggression with peace, and counteracting hatred with love. It is the polar opposite of fighting back.

That said, the rest of this letter is absolute tosh. Just the argument that The Da Vinci Code is an attack or an insult against Catholics and Christians raises my hackles. I'm not going to point out that the story is fiction, as most have, because I really don't think that the perceived validity of the information is even relevant. Simply presenting information that does not agree with the beliefs of others is not an insult. The Da Vinci Code does not 'attack' the basic teachings of Christianity any more than The Passion of the Christ attacked the basic teachings of Judaism, which include the belief that the Messiah has not yet come and was not, by extension, manifest in Jesus. While The Da Vinci Code exaggerates certain aspects of Christ and Mary Magdeline for dramatic purposes, it is based on information that is just as fictional as The Da Vinci Code, but widely accepted and believed by Christians. Mary Magdeline may not have been Jesus's wife, but she was also not a prostitute, though perhaps a majority of Christians believe that she was. There is nothing to indicate this in the Scripture, and in fact it was a myth invented by Pope Gregory the Great to create an icon for penance. Today, arguments still rage about the subserviant role of women within the church, but few Christians understand the cultural relevance of Jesus including women among his trusted followers, or even know that many of the earliest Christian missionaries, including Mary Magdeline, were women. Pointing out these inaccuracies in the widely accepted histories of Christianity is not an attack against the beliefs of Christians, and believing that they are simply points to the precarious state of uncertainty and insecurity many Christians maintain by shutting out all voices but that of their immediate church leaders. Much of the blame for the disasters that have befallen the Christian faith, including hatred, fanaticism, embraced ignorance, and perhaps the entire Southern Baptist Convention, can be placed directly on the shoulders of those who demonized dissent and debate in the early church.

Equally disturbing is the mantra of "Christians are the last acceptable targets of bigotry." That's just utter horseshit. In how many states are Christians barred from marrying, or adopting children, or even engaging in intercourse? Absolutely none. But those Christians are more than happy to impose that kind of bigotry on homosexuals. Do you ever see children dressed up as mockeries of Christians on Halloween? I never have, though inevitably I see young girls dressed up as mockeries of followers of Wicca. I've never heard anyone use the phrase 'to Christian a deal' or 'stingy as a Christian,' but these phrases are easily recognized as common parlance if 'Christian' is replaced with 'Jew.' Right in your own letter, you include a subconscious judgement statement about Druids by including the word 'even' before them, as if they were somehow more acceptable targets of bigotry than Muslims or Jews. The truth is that Christians in the US are the most sensitive to anything they consider to be offensive to them because, as the single largest interest group in the United States, they are subject to the least prejudice. 'Today's social elitists,' if defined as non-Christians, still make up less than fifteen percent of the population. There aren't enough of them to bully Brian, no matter how powerful he thinks they are. More Christians will go to see The Da Vinci Code than non-Christians, and if that weren't the case, the movie wouldn't have been made, because it would have been impossible to make a profit otherwise. Christians are the proverbial 500-pound gorilla, and not accepting their obvious impact on society is self-delusion in its most blatant form.

As a Christian, I am embarassed by other Christians who, evidently nostalgic for a time when Christians could prove their faith by being martyred by public stoning or being fed to lions, want to invent an imaginary society in which they are not, if not the most influential group, certainly one of them. American Christians, much like American nationalists, prefer to think of themselves as the underdog, and understandably so... the same bravado and conceit that are admirable in an underdog are much less admirable when worn by the undisputed seat of power. Admitting their cultural dominance would require them to modify their behavior. Easier to embrace ignorance and pretend that the 500-pound gorilla is being bullied by the kids on the playground. Poor, poor gorilla.