While some Christians have protested this weekend’s release of “The DaVinci Code” — calling it blasphemous, a Baptist minister in Cedar Rapids has been preaching in-depth about the movie.
Pastor Michael Gray of Valley View Baptist Church decided to give a series of sermons about the book on which the movie’s based after he saw his son was so fascinated by the book he couldn’t put it down. “He’s, you know, pretty grounded in his faith and Christianity, but he had some questions about it so I wanted to explore that further.”
Gray’s sermons take the plot and religious references in the book, and debunk the fallacies. “What I hope is that people will understand not only the content of ‘The DaVinci Code’ but they’ll understand what the scriptures say, what the Bible says about Christ and our faith,” Gray says.
The pastor’s concerned that the book is creating doubt among Christians. “It greatly, greatly concerns me,” Gray says. “Dan Brown makes these statements. He wraps fiction around fact.” Some in Gray’s flock, like Michael Mantz, were initially upset when their pastor started speaking about the book.
“The first week he went through what ‘The DaVinci Code’ has to say, I was kind of upset, and now I’ve been seeing it more from a perspective where its opening up avenues to talk about Christ.”
Glen Mixdorf, another church member, says the controversy is boosting people’s certainty about what they read in the Bible. “It’s more of a realization or a strengthening of both our faith and the better knowledge and understanding of what this is all about and how it can affects us out in society.”
The movie was number one at the box office this past weekend and 40 million hard-cover copies of the book have been sold worldwide. Pastor Gray says it’s a page-turner. “I found myself drawn to back to it because it’s a mystery, a conspiracy-type story,” Gray says. Gray’s sermon series continues through the first Sunday in June.
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Valley View Baptist Church