{"id":284,"date":"2004-10-13T22:21:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-13T22:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=284"},"modified":"2004-10-13T22:21:00","modified_gmt":"2004-10-13T22:21:00","slug":"284","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=284","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Living by the Code<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have blogged before<\/a> about certain Christians’ horrified response<\/a> to the success of Dan Brown’s<\/a> The Da Vinci Code<\/em>. At least a dozen books are devoted to “exposing” it.<\/p>\n

But Curtis White’s review essay<\/a> in the Voice Literary Supplement<\/a><\/span> makes the best point: <\/p>\n

“The Da Vinci Code<\/span> is important as an expression of a desire for a spirituality that cannot be had within the confines of the institutionalized church. More simply yet, it is the popular expression of a desire for a kind of meaningfulness to life that is missing for most of us. And certainly, it is the scandalous expression of a willingness to be disobedient to achieve the heretical end of a salvation outside the confines of the church.”<\/p>\n

“Excursus religion,” in other words, a term of Robert Ellwood’s that I always find useful and apply wherever I can<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living by the Code I have blogged before about certain Christians’ horrified response to the success of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. At least a dozen books are devoted to “exposing” it. But Curtis White’s review essay in the Voice Literary Supplement makes the best point: “The Da Vinci Code is important as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-284","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":659,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=659","url_meta":{"origin":284,"position":0},"title":"Gnostic-bashingWith The Da Vinci Code\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Gnostic-bashingWith The Da Vinci Code movie about to open, the anti-Gnostic reaction is heating up. One Catholic screenwriter-blogger urges her readers to watch the vapid Over the Hedge instead. (It's an \"othercott,\" not a boycott.)This film is based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":529,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=529","url_meta":{"origin":284,"position":1},"title":"\"Pseudo-factual claptrap . . .\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Pseudo-factual claptrap . . . half-baked historical revisionism\"The Da Vinci Code movie is viewed with alarm.It's nice to be a Pagan on the sidelines. Heck, we're still in the parking lot eating chile off the tailgate. Then we'll enter the stadium with our lap robes and hip flasks and watch\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":174,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=174","url_meta":{"origin":284,"position":2},"title":"Counter-attack on The Da Vinci\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Counter-attack on The Da Vinci Code Cronaca and Bookslut (27 April entry) both have entries on the flood of new books out to counter the spurious history, not to mention the \"feminism, anticlericalism and pagan forms of worship\" of The Da Vinci Code. From the New York Times: \"The Rev.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=687","url_meta":{"origin":284,"position":3},"title":"The Da Vinci Code: A Pagan date movie","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"M. and I are not what you would call \"early adopters,\" other than perhaps when we bought a Jeep TJ right after they were introduced in 1997. (We still have it.) So this is not exactly a cutting-edge review of The Da Vinci Code.It is rated PG, which could just\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":302,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=302","url_meta":{"origin":284,"position":4},"title":"National Treasure \"Hey,\" says M.,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"National Treasure \"Hey,\" says M., watching the trailer for Nicholas Cage's new movie, \"It's a heist movie.\" (She likes heists and capers.) I think it looks more like The Da Vinci Code for Deists. We shall have to find out whose judgment is more correct.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2908,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2908","url_meta":{"origin":284,"position":5},"title":"Abstract Expressionism, Cool Jazz, and the CIA","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is not a new topic, but many people still do not realize how much the Central Intelligence Agency, through various fronts (cooperative or fake foundations, for example), influenced the artistic movements during the peak of the Cold War years\u2014the 1950s and 1960s. For example, Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"No. 5, 1948, by Jackson Pollock","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/220px-No._5_1948-147x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}