Demagogue

Via Steve over at Southern Appeal, I was alerted to this piece over at Christianity Today on Barbara Nicolosi's refusal to read, see, or apparently even talk about, The Da Vinci Code.

Nicolosi's fervent opposition to it stems from this

This film is based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor, and I intend to stay far away from it.

I get lots of calls to do interviews about The Da Vinci Code, but I duck as many of them as I can. Basically, I hate talking about DVC because I have a personal relationship with Jesus—and he isn't a proto-feminist goddess-cultic with a weak personality that could have been simply co-opted by power-hungry misogynists.

I love Jesus. It makes me physically sick to entertain discussion about the ways in which the defining acts of his life—his Passion, Resurrection and establishment of the Church—could be a diabolical scam that he never anticipated nor experienced. It would make me sick to hear salacious lies about anyone I love; how much more my Savior?

Besides that, I don't think we should encourage people in the terrible sin against the Holy Spirit of speculating that things that are holy are evil, and that things that are evil are holy. Isn't that what is going on here? How is that not painful for anyone who knows the Lord?

Now, as an atheist, it is entirely possible that I am simply not privy to the immutable bond between believers and God and will never understand it.

But the difference between people like me and Nicolosi is that I am willing to admit that such things are "possible" whereas she is obviously unwilling to even contemplate or discuss anything that does not conform to her belief system.

I assert that my atheism is just as deep and strong as is Nicolosi's faith in the Lord, though I am sure that she and other believers would entirely dismiss such a possibility and most likely find the idea blasphemous. Be that as it may, my point is that despite my deeply-held atheism, I am more than willing to admit that I might be completely wrong - God may very well exist and he may very well be exactly as the Bible describes him. And admitting such a thing does not pain me, undermine my belief, or make me physically sick.

But people like Nicolosi blindly refuse to even contemplate the possibility that God may not exist or that the Bible may not be entirely accurate.

I do not see discussion with people of faith as a threat to my own beliefs - I see it as an opportunity to share my views and, if necessary, have them changed by the points made and the issues raised.

But having such a discussion is impossible if the person you are dealing with utterly refuses to discuss the issue out of fear of offending their Savior or making themselves ill.