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Torkelson: Churches decoding 'Da Vinci'

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 15, 2006 at midnight

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Except for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, the last time Arvada Pastor George Morrison went to a movie theater was in 1971 to see Fiddler on the Roof.

His sparse film record would be just fine with him, except two months ago a well-educated Christian engineer asked Morrison if he had read The Da Vinci Code, published in 2003 - and which opens Friday as a movie starring Tom Hanks.

"His eyes lit up," Morrison told several thousand listeners at Faith Bible Chapel Sunday morning. "He said, 'That was one of the best books I ever read - I never knew those things were true!' "

Those are fighting words to Morrison and a gazillion other Christian leaders gearing up this week for the movie with the zeal of a Hollywood publicity machine.

The difference is, the Christian leaders want people to know that truth was the first casualty in author Dan Brown's plot, in which Jesus is purported to having married Mary Magdalene, had kids, and by and large hogged the limelight, unfairly, for the past 2,000 years.

Though Doubleday published it as fiction, the Code has shaken faith and stirred curiosity worldwide. The trade magazine Variety says, "Rome to Stuttgart, Tokyo to Seoul" people are "in Da Vinci Mode" this week.

Morrison, startled out of complacency by his friend, blasted out 60,000 postcards to nearby ZIP codes inviting folks to ongoing Da Vinci lectures at the church. Countless other pastors have their own strategies. The goal: to equip Christians with answers to Da Vinci's errors, some of which Brown has already conceded.

"Dan Brown is entitled to his own opinions, but he's not entitled to his own facts," Morrison told the 9 a.m. crowd.

Da Vinci may be the best thing that ever happened to Brown - and Christianity is benefitting, too. Suddenly, Christian history is cool. Morrison's Mothers Day audience, many taking notes, listened carefully as he delved into historic, hitherto mind-numbing nuggets such as the Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan. The famous Last Supper painting, on which the plot hinges, is an artist's depiction - "It's not a photo!" he said, to laughter.

Not all churches debunk Da Vinci. At Mile Hi Church of Religious Science in Lakewood - which combines the Jesus message with other world religions - the Rev. Robert Smith lectures on The Da Vinci Code and its themes, including feminine leadership.

"It's an exploration of questions that have been asked for thousands of years," he says. After all, why not? "There were no eyewitnesses."

The classic Christian response is, yes, there were eyewitnesses; they were called apostles. Such talking points are helpful to Faith Bible Chapel members Jill Borrego and Sue Ellen Naegle, two moms in their 40s with up-and- coming teenagers. The two friends may go see the PG-13 movie together and leave the kids at home.

"It may plant the seeds of doubt, so I think we should see it alone first," Borrego said. For Naegle, "I keep thinking of authors like (James Frey) who've been caught recently making things up, and I keep thinking, how can this guy, Brown, get away with this?"

Like most pastors, Morrison isn't meddling in whether his flock sees the film or not. He doesn't plan to go himself; he figures reading the book was enough. "I'll get enough feedback from the staff," he says.

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