PRESS RELEASE
Evangelical Fellowship of India
The National United Christian Forum (NUCF) comprising of the Catholic Bishop Conference of India, (CBCI) National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and the Evangelical Fellowship of India(EFI) in its meeting on May 19, 2006 reviewed the situation arising out of the decision of the Film Censor Board of India to allow release of the controversial film, Da Vinci Code after making it mandatory to display a disclaimer on screen that it is a work of fiction and therefore does not represent Christianity in its historical perspective as well as to give an Adult movie certification.
The NUCF expressed its solidarity with all those authorities and organizations that went out to express their disapproval of portraying Jesus Christ and Christianity in a demeaning manner that hurt the religious sentiments of millions of people who have built their faith on Jesus Christ and witness of Scriptures.
The NUCF also expressed its satisfaction at the decision of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to take the Christian community into serious confidence before it arrived at the decision on permitting the release of the film with Adult certification and the mandatory disclaimer on screen about its fictional content.
The NUCF would want to place on record that the film is totally based on fictitious material that does not correspond to the long held historical proofs on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And any allegation that Christianity had deliberately suppressed proofs about Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene and had progeny and so on does not stand the scrutiny of historical research.
In fact, the Bible is the most critically studied book in the world and even the smallest trace of such a thing would have been part of the popular traditions as we often find in the case of any important historical person. That such a thing never formed a part of any historical account nor found in any popular tradition only goes to show that the claims made by the film are nothing but figments of imagination.
While the Christian community appreciates and endorses the freedom of thought, speech and expression, it does not accept nor endorse as anyone’s right to deliberately distort and even malign someone else’s sacred beliefs and long cherished social institutions. In that spirit, the Christian community does not accept the story line of the film as true and valid; it is a fiction and is to be taken on its merit alone. No one therefore is to be misled by the content of the film that has no historical foundation.
Richard Howell
General Secretary
Evangelical Fellowship of India
Stay Connected