John has written a very thoughtful piece today, embracing with a Norman Vincent Peale optimism that DVC is an opportunity for Christian evangelizing. But I think it cries out to be said that this film shows that Hollywood is atheistic and completely hostile to religion. Mel Gibson couldn’t exactly get Sony landed for The Passion, but this is treated like a King Kong blockbuster.

This needs to be greeted like a religious version of Oliver Stone’s JFK. A lot of people are going to come out of the theater thinking that all the smears on the Catholic Church are true, not fictional. Millions will wonder if their Christian upbringing was all an oppressor’s fairy tale. Dan Brown has spent years now insisting that his opus is mildly doctored nonfiction. This is not an opportunity. This is a smear. It is, as John says, easily comparable to a Muhammad cartoon. We should treat it as a serious anti-Christian, anti-Catholic insult. Without burning down a McDonald’s.