The roadshow continues... CDPC will be having two-part sessions on discussing these issues this coming and the next weekends. Worship Service 1: Saturday 6:00 pm
Worship Service 2: Sunday 10:00 am
I know, some of you all start to 'jelak' of the overexposure of Da Vinci Code, rite? But this is just the start of things to come :)
Dr Alex Tang wrote the following comments on DVC
My personal approach is to engage falsehood with the truth. Again I do not agree with Ms.Nicolosi that a dialogue with the issues raised by the movie
is ‘debating the devil’. Truth needs to be told. St. Paul mentioned that if we do not tell the truth, who will then? Again truth is like a beam of light. Light drives out darkness and deception.
One reason we, Christians, fear the book and the movie is that we ourselves do have not sufficient knowledge about out own faith and church history. That’s why we are so easily swayed by false doctrines that blow our way. I think this is a good opportunity for us to reexamine our faith and our own beliefs. Time for us to review our knowledge about
(1) How did the formation of the canon of the Bible come about?
(2) Was our Bible edited to suit a particular politics or viewpoint?
(3) Is Jesus just a mortal man and Emperor Constantine made him God?
(4) What happened at the Council of Nicea?
(5) Who was Mary Magdalene?
(6) When did Mary Magdelene become our model for a reformed prostitute?
(7) What was the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus?
(8) Who is the Priory of Sion? The Knight Templar? The Opus Dei?
(9) What is Gnosticism?
(10) What are the ‘lost’ gospels?
(11) What information did the Dead Sea Scrolls give us?
(12) What information did the Nag Hammadi Documents give us?
(13) What is ‘goddess’ worship?
(14) Does reading The Da Vinci Code shake our faith?
If we are unable to answer these questions above, then it is time for us
to do something about it.
While some quarters prefer to boycott, ignore, ridicule or dismiss DVC as if it's silly or harmless 'fiction', let's face it... only christians have the luxury of pretending it never happened or that it's completely baseless.
The people 'out there' still want to know some answers no matter how nice Christians can appear to be, lor. What are the facts? What's the fiction?
Jedibaba weighs in:
I am not a Christian because it is a convenient faith to follow. I have enough problems putting my mind around concepts like the Trinity and the Incarnation for myself much less explain them to those outside the church. And I am definitely not in the market for martyrdom.
The only reason why I am a Christian is because I believe Christianity to be true. And I believe Christianity to be true because it speaks to the deepest needs of my heart, yes, but also because it is based on things that really happened.
I was born in a Christian family so my faith was not really tested till I came to a point in my life when I believed that the Lord was calling me to give up a career in
dentistry to go into the bible teaching ministry. For the first time in my life following Christ was going to cost me something. For the first time I had to be sure. And it was the overwhelming evidence for the resurrection that kept me
convinced.
Here I am in good company. The resurrection was also the clincher for the apostle Paul.
"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." [1Corinthians 15:17-20]
It seems obvious now that every Christian must be thoroughly grounded in the historical bases of the Christian faith. These include the reasons why we believe in the resurrection, and its significance. Christians should also be schooled in things like the canon of Scripture and key events in church history like the Council of Nicaea.
We can no longer avoid teaching such topics on the grounds that they are boring. This does not mean that we should not work at making the teaching of such topics interesting and relevant. But it needs to happen.
The Da Vinci Code phenomenon is just the latest "hack" on the truth system of Christianity. We should be grateful for this wake up call and get our act together.
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