Dr. Robert R. Kopp                                       Guest Column

Pastor, First Presbyterian Church

Belvidere, Illinois 61008

(815) 222-9216

 

Here We Go Again

(May 19)

because there he goes again

 

    I'll never forget the debates preceding President Reagan's trouncing of President Carter in 1980 (50.7% to 41% in popular voting and 489 to 49 electoral votes); especially the refrain whenever the insurgent felt the incumbent was making an incredulous claim: "There he goes again."

 

    Leaving the definition of legacies to folks who are comfortable judging others, that rhetorical refrain keeps coming to mind as May 19 approaches with the release of the movie version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

 

    Jesus said, "Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness" (John 3:19).

 

    Brown's best-selling book of historical inaccuracies, Biblical illiteracies, and spiritual stupidities is just another dark deception akin to The Passover Plot, Last Temptation of Christ, The Gospel of Judas, and others which are designed to detour, dissuade, and possibly damn those so desperate for the good news of wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security enabled by holy communion with Jesus as attested in Holy Scripture.*

 

    So here we go again because there he goes again.

 

    Discerning who he is doesn't require extraordinary spiritual gifting or intellectual acuity.

 

    Read John 8:44.

 

    Behind the purveyors of life's meanness, madness, and misery is Satan.  While acknowledging the accomplices, the author of darkness is Satan.  That's why Paul fingered both as he introduced the equipment for battling them (see Ephesians 6:10ff.).

 

    While I'm not judging Brown's soul - that's our Lord's prerogative - I'm deeply concerned about the damage being caused to many souls by this hell-bent fiction.

 

    No one is helped by anyone or anything luring hearts from Jesus and Biblical revelation.

 

    I may be wrong, but I think of only two possible motivations for the book and movie.

 

    Money or proselytizing.

 

    If they've done it for money, it's only natural.

 

    Lots of people sell out Jesus for a few or several silver coins.

 

    If they've done it to convert people from Biblical Christianity to some Gnostic counterfeit, then a warning from Jesus must be relayed to them: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck...Woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!" (Matthew 18:6-7).

 

    As for pastors like me, it's hard to point out the blaspheming flaws in a novel incarnated by Opie and Forrest Gump; knowing we'll be called prudes, party-poopers, Bible thumpers, and so on for insisting the book and movie insult God's holiness and injure relationships with Him.

 

    If the Christologically and Biblically faithful among us don't expose the lies in this latest affront to His holy, holy, holy Word (Jesus and Bible), those who have not been blessed by a saving relationship with the real Jesus will continue to be deceived to desolation by the imposter created by Brown (author) Hanks (movie's star), Howard (movie's producer), et.al.

 

    That's the bad news.

 

    Here's the good news from Jesus Himself: "I will build my My church; and the gates of hell shall not overcome it" (Matthew 16:18).

 

    Or as John assured, "Greater is He who is in you that he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

 

    So here we go again because there he goes again; but when the last chapter is written, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

 

    False witnesses to the truth do not change the truth.

 

    Jesus is Lord and Savior.

__________

    *While the Bible is the divinely authoritative antidote for the viral lies carried by the book and movie, I have found these resources to be helpful: Erwin Lutzer's The Da Vinci Deception, Garry Poole and Lee Strobel's Exploring The Da Vinci Code, and Mark Shea and Edward Sri's The Da Vinci Deception: 100 Questions About the Facts and Fiction of The Da Vinci Code.