Poole drew 22,000 to a sermon about "The Da Vinci Code" last month. He hopes that those who came for the sport of hearing a minister take on a bestseller will return this Sunday for another round. Over time, he hopes they will find truth and comfort in the church and develop an abiding faith.
Moved by a similar vision, California pastor Ken Baugh plans to hand out free tickets to "The Da Vinci Code."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday May 13, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 35 words Type of Material: Correction
'Da Vinci Code' outreach: An article in Thursday's Section A about churches responding to the movie "The Da Vinci Code" misspelled the name of a New Testament scholar. He is Darrell L. Bock, not Brock.
Other Christian leaders think that's going too far: "I don't have to watch pornography in order to be able to dialogue about it," said Matthew Pinto, president of Ascension Press, a Catholic publisher.
But Baugh wants to encourage members of his congregation to see the film with non-Christian friends. He plans to give them Starbucks gift cards along with the tickets so they can sit down over coffee when the movie ends and offer their perspective on Jesus.
Baugh has already distributed 325 iPod Shuffles loaded with his "Da Vinci" sermons to young members of his congregation so they can give them to friends who do not come to church.
"I think the Lord is going to use this film to bring more people to Christ, absolutely," said Baugh, senior pastor of Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo.
At the very least, it has given churches a potent marketing tool. In Littleton, a suburb south of Denver, more than 50 first-time visitors joined 530 regulars at Valley View Christian Church last month when Pastor Gene Barron launched five weeks of sermons on "The Da Vinci Code." (He advertised the series by mailing out 15,000 postcards with an image of the Mona Lisa on one side and a map to Valley View on the other.)
Barron opened the first service by quoting an e-mail he had received from someone who had read Brown's book: "Is the last 25 years I've been a Christian all a lie? Is everything I was raised to believe just made up for the money? ... Please help me ... I'm brokenhearted."
"You need to know about this story and the potential damage it could do," Barron told his congregation.
His sermon, like many on "The Da Vinci Code," was no fast-paced romp through the novel's intrigues. It presented historical, archeological and theological evidence about key elements of Brown's conspiracy theory: The Gnostic gospels, the Council of Nicea, the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Priory of Sion.
In recent years, evangelical pastors have shied away from such dense sermons, preferring to preach practical self-help messages instead. "The Da Vinci Code" has prompted a renewed interest in basic theology -- to many scholars' delight.
