When apologetics expert Dr Greg Clarke received a call from police detectives in Parramatta, he admits that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was the last thing on his mind.
"The telephone rang and I heard a very serious voice say, "It's Parramatta Fraud Squad " can I speak to Dr Clarke please?'" recalls the director of the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education (CASE).
"And the first thing I thought was, what has my wife done?" he laughs.
But the police officers were actually following up on an investigation that is currently taking place all over Australia.
The detectives had contacted Dr Clarke to organise a seminar for officers on The Da Vinci Code, the hugely popular novel and soon to be released film that has society obsessed.
"They were fascinated with how Dan Brown deals with evidence," Dr Clarke says.
"Here’s a bunch of people who have to weigh the evidence for crimes on a day by day basis. I spoke to them on how the author deals with the evidence for Jesus."
Challenging Da Vinci on the big screen
Sydney Diocese is preparing a cinema advertising campaign that will blitz the city's multi-screen cinema centres from the week before The Da Vinci Code film is released on May 18.
Dr Clarke says this first-time initiative is a step in the right direction.
"I’m thrilled that the Synod could see the wisdom of spending some money on mission through pop culture," he says.
"We will make contact with more people faster this way. But then it will be up to the churches to dive into the pool with inquirers after the initial splash is made."
Dr Clarke has been touring Australia talking about the challenges The Da Vinci Code presents to Christianity.
A packed schedule of 25 destinations has included talking to students in Townsville and diners in Chinese restaurants.
"The most common question is about the other records that are supposed to exist about Jesus - these other "gospels'," he says.
"That’s good because it’s all out there for people to read and compare. You can read the scattered fragments that make up the Gnostic gospels and compare them with the biblical gospels and see which make more realistic reading."
Challenges to biblical Jesus a good thing
Asked if he is concerned by the attention given to the recent Gospel of Judas, Dr Clarke laughs and says it's all "grist for the mill'.
"Jesus never disappears from the public agenda and at this time he’s written large " from the war in Iraq to the effect of religion in politics,” Dr Clarke explains. “There's a high "Jesus index' in all of these things.”
"I’d rather have him on the agenda in all sorts of ways, even if it means Christians have to challenge things. It’s better than there being a silence about Jesus.
"Sometimes pop culture is trashy and trivial but at others times it catapults people in to the deep questions of life without them even realising it."
Dr Clarke has spent the last six months helping to develop the Challengingdavinci.com web site, which he hopes will become a natural focus point for inquirers that practically live online.
"Since we now know that many young people are turning away from the TV to the internet, setting up a site to respond to the movie makes a lot of sense," he says.
"Our hope is that there will be a great buzz about the web site so that it’s an obvious place to point friends who have questions that you might not be able to answer yourself."
Visit the Challengingdavinci.com site"
