Catholic-hierarchy.org put up a page for the fictional bishop in the Da Vinci Code (Bishop Manuel Aringarosa), including a link on the front page. Too funny! I wonder if people who actually thought he was a real bishop were besieging the site.
Websites: May 2006 Archives
What is looking like a very funny parody of the Da Vinci Code. Also see the movie's website. This looks quite entertaining.
All Da Vinci, all the time! grin
Ok, somehow (he doesn't say how) John Desmond (thanks John) found the list of essays on The Da Vinci Dialogue site.
I read Tony Campolo's essay on why it is OK to suggest Jesus might be married, and while I have respect for him (he is a popular Evangelical author and preacher), he has a tendency to be provocative (and a bit on the liberal end of the perspective, though I'm not sure he is unorthodox by Evangelical standards).
What Campolo basically does is ask three questions:
Is there something sinful about having sexual intercourse?
Is marriage something that lessens a person’s spirituality?
Is having children something that would keep the Son of God from being wholly submissive to His Father?
He answers all three as "No", as well he should. It is true that there has historically been some Gnostic thinking among Christians that marriage and sex are evil, an attitude that persists to this day. Married sex is not inherently "dirty". And we need to recapture some of the holiness of conjugal love, and John Paul's The Theology of the Body has gone great distances to do that.
But Campolo errs in assuming that that is the only reason to object to the idea that Jesus was married.
I am disappointed in him on account of the fact that he missed something very obvious from the Bible.
First of all, the Bible coupled with Tradition tell us that Jesus was celibate. That is a good enough reason to object to the idea Jesus was married, but in case it is insufficient, consider that there is a reason why we consider Jesus to be unmarried to any human being: According to Scripture, he is already married — to the Church (Eph 5). If he married someone else, he'd be committing adultery. (Some might point out the practice of polygamy in the Old Testament, but still, even if one accepts this dubious argument [the New Testament did away with polygamy], how can Jesus give himself wholly to His Church, the goal of marriage, if he has another wife?) Jesus was celibate because he was saving himself for His Bride, the Church. This Bride/Bridegroom relationship plays an important role in theology, and saying that Jesus married Mary Magdalene breaks the fundamentals of Christian theology.
That is the real reason one should reject any notion that Jesus was married.
My friend Caleb sent me this link to The Da Vinci Dialogue. It's published by Sony and if I recall their motivation was to blunt the opposition to TDVC by providing a open forum for experts to discuss the questions it raises.
And it looks like they selected some good experts. A lot of evangelicals — Ryrie, Chuck Colson, Josh McDowell, and others. There are a few Catholics, including John Allen (not so sure about him), Alan Schreck (excellent), Mark Miravalle (excellent), and a couple of others. Even some Orthodox.
Problem is, despite how fancy and eye-pleasing the site is — where's the beef? Good luck actually trying to find this "dialogue" amid all the web candy. I see four essays on the front page, and then — that's it.
Now when I first came to the site, I read the descriptions and I expected it was like a message board where the experts discussed and hashed out various points from the book. But looking more deeply into it, I think it was designed to be a site where essays from various experts would be posted. I'm not sure how this constitutes "dialogue".
The essay on Mary Magdalene was excellent (maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time). If anyone actually finds the mother lode of essays (beyond the 4) let me know.
