Christian Responses to 'The Da Vinci Code'

With the whole hoopla of 'The Da Vinci Code' movie now past us, I must say that the Christian responses to this movie have been fabulous. With some very small exceptions, there was no silly picketing of movies like there was when "The Last Temptation of Christ" came out, and there was no hysterical cries for boycotts.

Instead, Christian leaders and scholars have produced a plethora of material presenting the real facts debunking on what Dan Brown proports to be true. The Christian response was so overwhelming that even U.S. News and World Report covered it. Click here to the read article.

Virtually every Christian Leader whom I respect has made a clear, cogent response to the film. Here are some of the responses:

My favorite Christian theologian, R.C. Sproul, has made a response in his monthly devotional magazine, Tabletalk. Click here to read an interview regarding the magazine.

Brian Godowa, who is a Christian screen writer in Hollywood, responds to why Christians are so upset about the Da Vinci Code. Click here to see his blog.

Well known Reformed Baptist author and debater, James White, has a great response here. This link is the most comprehensive and useful to any one who needs to be informed about the issues 'The Da Vinci Code" book and movie presents.

Just a side note, it concerns me when I here other Christians worry about this film because it will cause Christians to loose there faith. To me, that shows little confidence in God's sovereign ability to save someone from their sins. God is not going to be defeated by some silly fictional story. If someone looses their faith then it seem to me that they never had true faith to begin with.

Lost - Live Together, Die Alone

Sorry I missed last week’s episode but you can catch a synopsis of the episode "Three Minutes" by clicking here.

You can see this week’s season two, two part finale by clicking here.

Wow! What an ending. So many questions answered so many new questions.

Answered questions:

• We know what happened to the notebooks in those pneumatic tubes. It turns out the Pearl was the mock site and not the Swan as John originally thought.
• Entering those digits at the Swan site released some sort of geomagnetic pressure building up at that location.
• Not only is the Henry Gail (imposter) one of the others but he is one of the other’s leaders.
• We found out who Desmond’s partner is and it turns out he is the same Army officer that coerced Sayid in to torturing his own commanding officer in the Iraq Army.
• We think we know now what brought down the plane. It was a geomagnetic reaction from the island that somehow ripped the plane in half.
  
  New Questions:
• Will Michael and Walt get away and never come back? Will we ever see them again?
• What will happen with Jack, Kate and Sawyer when they are with the others?
• Will Hurley go back or make it back to the island? My guess is he will go to the smoke fire set by Sayid.
• Will Sayid save them?
• What happened to Mr. Echo, Desmond, and John Locke? Is the Swan hatch destroyed? Why was Charley so unconcerned about their demise? Why did he not tell anybody?
• Why did Clair kiss him? Didn’t he try to take her baby?
• Who are these Brazilians? Will there now be a coinciding present time story off the island? If so, that will be new.
• Why did the Brazilians call Desmond’s girlfriend when they saw the high magnetic readings? Is her father the leader of the Hanso Foundation?

Review - The Persian Wars, Volume 1 - 7/10

Only knowing what the Bible describes about some these nations in which this book is about I was not sure what to expect. To be honest, although I am interested in learning about history, I know almost nothing about the Persian Wars.

"HERODOTUS (ca. 484 B.C – ca. 425 B.C.) was born into a family of the upper rank at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, at that time subject to the Persian Empire. Because of his kinship to the epic poet Panyasis, who was put to death for political reasons, Herodotus left Halicarnassus as a young man, never to return. Most of what we know of him and his travels is derived from his writings. He lived for a time in Athens, where he was on friendly terms with the great men of the day, including Sophocles and Thucydides. Unable to obtain the franchise at Athens, he sailed from that port to the new colony of Thurii on the Gulf of Tarentum in Italy, where he became a citizen. He died and was buried there. " CHARLTON GRIFFIN

Although, I only listened to the first volume which does not talk at all about the war at all, I did find pretty interesting. In this volume Herodotus talks about the geography of the areas, the customs of the people during that time, and some juicy gossip about the kings and princes were in power.

I found it interesting to listen to him theorize about questions that have long been answered in today’s world. At one point Herodotus theorizes where the source of the Nile River comes from and in another the part he talks about why some animals have horns and some do not.

I know that historians have said that some portions of this literature are fabricated, my guess it is some the personal stories about the leaders of that time, but you still can get a great overview people what people were like during that time.

Lost - ?

Click here to read a summary of this week's episode.

• Mr. Eko is such an intriguing character. As I have said before, he is my favorite cast away. He was the most evil in his previous life and he is the one with the most nobility on the island with the possible exception of Jack.
• So it appears that the Dharma people are watching, and according to the video there are boats coming to and from the island. Is this one big experiment?
• Hopefully Mr. Eko talked some sense into John. I miss John's mojo.
• I did not realize that the psychic was the same guy who tried to read Claire's future.
• Sawyer is showing some compassion again. Nice to see.
• The second Hanso Foundation commercial aired and advertised this website: http://www.sublymonal.com/.
  
  

Review - The Janson Directive 7/10

This novel was recommended to me by a friend of mine from work and after seeing the two Bourne movies, "Bourne Identity" and "Bourne Supremacy", two of my favorite movies, I figured this was a "cannot loose" read.

For the most part I was not disappointed. The story has some surprising and interesting twist and the hero Janson is a likeable fellow on the whole. The revelations that you learn throughout the story make the book worth reading.

I guess I would say my disappointments in the book would be is that Janson is sort of boring. I did not feel much passion from that character and it translated to me as uninteresting. I believe the book could have been a bit shorter too. There are a lot of long drawn out sections in the middle of the story that probably did not need to be there.

This book is your typical made for the movies type of read. I would not be surprised to see it in the theatres soon.

Lost - Two for the Road

Click here for a synopsis of this episode.

• Woa! What an ending!
• I think Michael has been black-mailed to set a trap in order to save his son.
• Boy, that is a tough ethical problem.
• There is now an actual web site for the Hanso Foundation. Some sort of organization that is trying to achieve eautopia. Interesting that the projects they are working on utopia to the characters on the island and the island itself.
• You know if every one communicated with each other I think they could figure out what is going on.

Is Blind Faith For Sunday Morning?

So today I get home from work, and my lovely wife, Ellie, says to me, you got to read this letter. You see I live in a condo and we had a lot of damage because of Hurricane Wilma and the condominium board members can’t agree to the best approach to repair all the damages.

There has been a lot of finger pointing and name calling and lo-and-behold we get a letter from the president of the association jumping in the fray. Frankly, I was with him until in has last paragraph he made the following statement:

“Blind faith is for Sunday morning.”

My first reaction was to think every bad name in the book to call him. My second reaction was to think of every bad name to call him. Then I got to thinking about what a Christian response should be and one of the best approaches when suddenly put on the defensive is to ask question.

We have a board meeting tonightand I never go because of these confratations but I am going tonight. I have only one question to ask that night and that is “What did you mean by that statement?” Depending on how I will follow up with some more questions.

You see the Christian approach is being smart and whimsical and be on the offensive without offending. Put the aggressor on the defensive and free yourself of making a winning argument.
Well, I will let you know how it goes.