NYTimes on Da Vinci

I've got two pretty inarticulate ravings in an article that just came out in the NY Times about the upcoming movie version of The Da Vinci Code. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the article which I thought was very fair to all of us Christians.

When the journalist called me I asked her, "Is this piece going to be fair, or a typical NY Times Christian-hating kind of thing?" The journalist expressed horror at the suggestion that Christians feel like The Times hates them. "Yeah," I said wonderingly, "we kind of do."

I didn't have a lot of hope for the piece because at one point in our conversation, we had the following exchange...

Barb: I heard that the studio execs behind The Da Vinci Code are worried that some Christians are going to put them on a hit list. Someone claimed to have gotten death threats during the making of The Last Temptation of Christ. It's so ridiculous. We aren't the ones who throw bombs.

NYTimes Reporter: (paraphrase) Well, there are as many Christians out there throwing bombs as Muslims. Look at all the bombings Christians do of abortion clinics.

I didn't take it further because, well, it was such an astoundingly bizarre statement that I - for once - was rendered mute. Here's what I would have said if I could speak at the moment: "HUH!!? ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?! AS MANY CHRISTIANS THROWING BOMBS AS THE HOURLY SUICIDE BOMBING NUTJOBS WHO THINK KILLING MAKES GOD SMILE?! ARE YOU SMOKING CRACK?!"...or something erudite like that.

Anyway, in the end, I think the reporter did a good job. She could have made it sound like the Vatican is organizing a super-secret Opus Dei engineered underground plot to plant bombs on the set of DVC.

P.S. Carl Olsen was also interviewed for the piece and had a funny exchange with the journalist too. His account is here.