Come on, people. Don't make me throw a singing tomato at you.
It's. Just. A. MOVIE. Not only that, it's a movie based on a book written solely for entertainment purposes. All this hoo-hah about it being a unilateral attack on the credibility of your Lord is giving it FAR too much credit. Some guy wrote a thriller with a controversial premise, and used a lot of historical facts, Gnostic beliefs and conspiracy theories as an excellent springboard for making shit up. It's a work of fiction; of COURSE most of it isn't true. Chill.
Heck, even if Jesus had a kid with Mary Magdalene, what would have been wrong with them being married in the first place? Does it lessen Jesus' divinity just because he may have had a wife? No. That was EXPECTED of you during that time. Same with procreation. It doesn't change a lick of what he said or did. Now, I haven't read the book myself; it may be more anti-Christian than I realize. Still, the basic premise, to me isn't all that shocking. Remember what they teach you in Sunday school, kids. Let's recite it together. "Jesus is both fully human and fully divine." Therefore, he could have engaged in human things like starting a family without losing a scrap of his full divinity. And as far as I remember from my Catholic schooling, there isn't anything sinful about having a physical relationship with someone so long as you are married and monogamous. To call Jesus' divinity that fragile, I would argue, is borderline insulting.
Besides, as I said before, Dan Brown got his ideas from theories. THEORIES. We know remarkably little about the life of Jesus in the mundane sense; that's why there's so much freaking speculation!
But most of all, protesters? When you get up in arms like this, you make the very religion you profess look fragile. Which it isn't. What's the assumption in this country, after all? MOST people, if you say you're religious but don't list a religion, will assume you're Christian. Why? Because it's the largest religious group in the United States. Most people are still raised in households that are at least nominally Christian. Most people, even if they don't follow it, can tell you at least some of what Jesus said and did. If Christianity has such a tenuous hold that it can't withstand one piece of popular entertainment that challenges some of its assumptions about the life of its founder, then every experience I've had with it thus far has been a lie. Your faith is not in danger, people; it has the strongest, most devout following of any faith I've ever encountered. And I highly doubt that after more than a thousand years of shaping the mentality of the Western world, it will suddenly be extinguished by a single piece of fluff.
Not to mention, pro-Christian entertainment is a burgeoning industry! Remember "The Passion of the Christ?" How 'bout those perennial bestselling "Left Behind" books? Or in the kiddie department, "Veggie Tales!" And let's not forget that lion of a box-office force (and beloved childrens' classic) "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe." Take one look at Aslan and tell me he isn't all three aspects of the Holy Trinity with a mane. Remember, C.S. Lewis was a theologian first, an author second. One only has to look at the Christian fiction section in Books and Co. (which expanded three whole sides of three whole shelves and made my beloved mythology section shrink down to a pitiful one side of one shelf while I was away *sniffle*) to know that for every "Da Vinci Code," there are a thousand books written by and for the devout, and they are doing WELL.
So in short? Leave this one alone. It isn't worth your time.
Forgive my underinformedness as to the book. I didn't know it claimed Jesus wasn't divine at all, as one of you pointed out. However, the argument I make within still stands, only now it changes contexts: if fathering a child is the BOOK's basis for impugning Jesus' divinity, then I believe that in itself is flimsy for the reasons I list, reasons, I might add, once echoed by my most conservative theology teacher in high school: if Jesus is both human and divine, how could living an ordinary human life impeach that divninty?
I will also include this survey, sent to me by x5_jondi in response to my post, for fairness: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/17/nvinci17.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/17/ixuknews.html
Personally, I maintain that anyone who could be so easily swayed (or believe a work of fiction that wasn't even written by a scholar, but by a thriller author) was probably either weak in their faith to begin with and needing an excuse to say "LOOK, SEE?" or underinformed about the very religion they belong to. I also will add that the non-religious/spiritual are often looking for something to believe in, yet a number of them are not willing to do their homework; these are the kinds of people who WILL believe anything, for a time, but also don't tend to believe it for long. This article proves to me that there are a lot more of them than I realized. However, I still think a true Christian, while they may be driven to doubt from time to time, always comes back to their faith, and I can't bring myself to believe that there aren't a great enough number of true Christians out there to keep the faith going strong.
Christianity is a hardy religion; it's survived, as I said, for 2,000 years. It survived when it was illegal in Rome; it survived when it was illegal in Russia. It's survived great doctrinal wars within itself; it's survived corrupt religious leaders who tried to pervert it to suit their own needs. A great number of politicians in America today, Republican OR Democrat, profess Christian faith in some form or another (and anyone who's watched a State of the Union address in the past eight years knows how devout the President is, whatever you may think of him). It's one of the fastest-growing faiths worldwide, pretty much neck-in-neck with Islam as I recall, if not ahead of it by now. In short, I don't think it's going anywhere no matter how many people read Dan Brown.
If you're Christian and afraid of the effect the novel might be having, then take matters into your own hands. Next time you hear someone calling it hard fact, correct them. But standing outside and waving signs doesn't help any more than shoving pamphlets in people's faces makes them want to convert. At any rate, I guarantee you the Bible is gonna outlive the 'Code in the same way Beowulf will probably outlive "Grendel."