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supremacy, not because Judaism is built upon violent or hateful core beliefs, but the film fails to convey such a distinction between the power struggle driving these actions and the religious ideals of both sides.

"The Da Vinci Code" threatens religious identity by both re-writing accepted history and portraying large religious institutions as capable of hiding information from their followers. When one learns they are adopted late in life, his or her entire perceived genetic narrative becomes invalid, perhaps resulting in disillusionment or disorientation. The same is true of religious identity. If a person has spent a lifetime building their spiritual self based upon an established set of stories and narratives, altering these events produces a dilemma. How would these changes in perceived origins alter one's beliefs? Most people would rather blot out any deviation from the known in the name of comfort than allow any attempt at revision to alter the already ingrained. Regardless of the veracity of Dan Brown's story, even the hint or suggestion of an alternative perspective creates a deep-seeded resentment in a devout believer. No one wants to believe they are evenly partly wrong about something so personal, so sacred as their spirituality, and the idea that one's own church could have been complicit in such a misperception is absolutely unthinkable. If you cannot entirely trust the holy messengers of your religion, what then?

As with "The Last Temptation of Christ" before them, both "Passion" and "Da Vinci" rile up the public because we have lost our critical thinking skills. We choose to berate rather than evaluate. We decry violence unless it suits a Divine purpose. We take any suggestion that what we have perceived may not be the whole story as a personal affront to the very core of our being. We take any perceived attack on God or Jesus as a cause to rally behind, as if they really need humanity's help in the PR department anyway. We act as if questioning our religion is akin to spitting in God's face. Religious corruption results not from films but from one simple premise. Tell a man he is righteous for accepting God's path, and the ego will tell him he IS God.

Learn more about this author, Chad Baker.
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