Editor,
All reasonable people prefer truth over falsehood, and virtue over vice. This preference for truth and virtue is a practical matter, for insofar as an individual, community or nation is guided by a correct understanding of the world, it prospers and flourishes. Similarly, if an individual, community or nation chooses to be guided by error and falsehood, it sets its face toward destruction.
Yet not all truths are of equal importance. One may err in trivial matters, without incurring dire consequences. But in matters of fundamental importance, the penalty for error is all the greater. The penalty for missing a bus is slight. The price exacted for mistaking poison for wholesome food is fatal. There is no question of more importance to humanity than the person, character and mission of Jesus Christ, because the eternal destiny of each man, woman and child depends on the answer to that very question.
For that reason, The Christian Civic League of Maine decided to call for a boycott of the movie The Da Vinci Code, a movie which purports to be based on fact, but intentionally misleads its audiences on this most important question.
Above and beyond this, it is obvious to all people of good will, that the current state of the cinema is deplorable. It often seems that each movie vies to outdo the other in a pageant of sin. Every form of immorality and vice is extolled and exalted, while all that is noble in man is relegated into insignificance. Among the virtues which find admittance to the movie theatres only on exceedingly rare occasions are honor, love, duty, and patriotism.
At the same time, ever-worsening portrayals of violence, and distorted views of human sexuality are welcomed with open arms, as audiences are asked to revel in all that is inhuman and unnatural. The current crop of movies, which includes the lurid and degrading Hostel, Silent Hill, Saw and Saw II, seeks to appeal to a movie-going public already desensitized to extremely graphic portrayals of violence and human suffering.
It became increasingly clear to the League that not only do these movies, and most other movies to some degree, appeal to the dark side of human nature, they also actively and intentionally promote vice over virtue, and error over truth. Only when a movie appeared which sought to mislead the public about the greatest truth of all – the person of Jesus Christ and His work of redemption, did the League decide to call for a boycott.
The boycott extends not only to The Da Vinci Code, but to all movies indefinitely, for the reasons stated above. Only when the movie theaters present movies which are edifying and wholesome, will our call for a permanent boycott be lifted.
Michael S. Heath
Executive Director,
Christian Civic League of Maine
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