While Dan Brown’s books may make for good readin’ (or not) they shouldn’t be used to ascertain historical facts. I’ve already made some posts about The Da Vinci Code. This article from the UK’s Telegraph newspaper gives a list of 50 of the more grievous ones: The Lost Symbol and The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown: 50 factual errors

I’m not posting this to poke fun at Dan Brown, or take pleasure in pointing out his mistakes. Nor am I confused about the status of Brown’s books as being fiction. So responses of “IT’S ONLY A FICTION BOOK GET OVER IT” are not welcome or helpful. Although well aware that Brown’s books are fictional, many people DO believe at least parts of them are accurate. An example is my former co-worker who, upon learning I am a Christian, said something to the effect of “Oh I guess you haven’t read The Da Vinci Code, it destroys Christianity!”

Of course after he saw The Real Da Vinci Code program on TV and got the facts he changed his mind. But it illustrates the need for proper information.

I cringe whenever I see Christians do dumb things (like claiming Jesus and/or Mary appeared on their morning toast and apparently pay for totally misguided billboards). And I can barely stand to see Fred Phelps’ name or the name of his “church” mentioned on the news. (If you don’t know who that is, you don’t wanna know.)

So why does it seem like Christians so often do dumb things?

One reason is that when a Christian does something dumb, they’re often identified (in the media or colloquially) as being a Christian, but when an atheist does something dumb, they’re usually not identified as an atheist. Now certainly some Christians do dumb things in an attempt to follow their faith, but whether what the person has done is consistent with the Christian faith is often ignored.

A second reason is the fact that there’s a lot of Christians around. Millions in Canada alone, plus many millions more in the USA, and approximately 2.1billion in total according to Adherents.com. So you’d figure, out of all those people, if even 1% do dumb things, that it will seem like quite a lot of people. Of course, the actions of a few don’t necessarily reflect those of the whole. (See: Fallacy of composition.)

A final reason, extrapolated from the previous one, is that some Christians are dumb. (You’re free to make your own evaluation of me if you’d like.) In fact before I was a Christian I thought all Christians were dumb, or ugly, or both. (I thank Greg Koukl for putting into words so eloquently how I felt at the time.) Dumb because they were roped into a false waste of time, and/or ugly because they had to go to church to be accepted, since it’s the only place that people have to accept them.

And yes, many Christians are dumb (and/or ugly). But so what? So are many atheists, agnostics, and adherents of other faiths.

There are also many smart Christians … not myself, necessarily, but guys like William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Alister McGrath, John Warwick Montgomery, Timothy Keller, John Lennox, and Dallas Willard to name a few. So whether any one of them is smart or dumb proves nothing about the truth or falsity of the faith.

If you currently have the opinion that Christians are dumb, or ugly, or both, like I used to, I invite you to investigate some of the sites linked above or in the sidebar to the right. I think Christianity is worth thinking about, even if its adherents sometimes do and exceedingly poor job of reflecting it.

And if you are a Christian, let’s try to reflect our Lord, Jesus, who as Dallas Willard describes, was and is the smartest man who ever lived (and lives).

What is Christmas about? Linus (Lucy’s blanket-wielding little brother from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts series) tells us:

Linus is quoting from Luke 2:8-14 in the Bible, King James translation. Hat tip to Between Two Worlds for the video link. Like many of the commenters there, I wonder how long it will be before this scene is “edited” out of A Charlie Brown Christmas to make it more politically correct, especially considering that the scene was almost cut out of the original.

I’d like to begin this short post with an apology: I’d like to apologize on behalf of Christians who have, throughout history, done some pretty rotten things supposedly in the name of Jesus Christ. The Crusades? Witch hunts? Inquisitions? Priests who molest? Televangelists who scam? All sinful and awful, and Jesus is appalled that such things have come to be associated with Him and His church. While some of these sort of tragedies have been exaggerated (most notably the witch hunts, see Six Modern Myths chapter six) that doesn’t make them any better, and I wish to say, on behalf of 99% of all Christians who are living today and who have ever lived, that we agree with you that these actions are awful, immoral, and un-Christlike. As trite as it may sound and in fact may be, it pains me deeply when I read about these things, and I am truly sorry.

That said, what do such bad things done by Christians prove about the truthfulness of the Christian faith? The answer is: not much. First of all, Christians do not claim to be sinless; in fact, we recognize that although we become new creations in Christ, we remain fallen people in a fallen world, and therefore the threat of succumbing to temptation is ever-present. Second, there are approximately 2.1 billion Christians in the world. With such a huge sample size, should we be surprised when we learn that a small percentage of them do really bad things (molest children, swindle, etc)? Thirdly, how do the actions of a small portion of Christians which contradict the teachings of Jesus and the Christian faith prove anything regarding whether the Christian faith is true or not? In fact they do nothing to prove that the facts of the Christian faith are untrue.

I know this is difficult to accept if you have been personally wounded by the church generally, or a particular Christian person specifically. But please try to keep in mind that any person who acts contrary to a set of principles maligns themselves, but not the principles that they have chosen to disobey. Does the fact that certain NYPD officers are racist and commit immoral acts mean that all police forces should be disbanded? Certainly not, because their actions are contrary to what a police officer should be.

So please, don’t discount Christianity because of the worst “Christians” that you know … or even the best ones! After all, based on Christianity’s own teachings, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that “the whole world is a prisoner of sin” (Galatians 3:22), but by God’s grace “Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him” (1 John 3:5). For more on this subject, please see my post “Good people“.

Thank you for your time.