Columnist Peggy Noonan is all confused about The Da Vinci Code (the movie):

I do not understand the thinking of a studio that would make, for the amusement of a nation 85% to 90% of whose people identify themselves as Christian, a major movie aimed at attacking the central tenets of that faith, and insulting as poor fools its gulled adherents. Why would Tom Hanks lend his prestige to such a film? Why would Ron Howard?

Are those serious questions?

Um, well, The Da Vinci Code is probably the most staggeringly successful book in decades.  Not just in American, but all the world.  Is it not conceivable to Peggy that someone in Hollywood just might want to turn the world’s best bestseller into a movie?

Altogther now: D-U-U-U-U-U-H!!

But underneath Peggy’s transparent stupidity lies a more incideous one: the implication that The Da Vinci Code (the movie) will be "offensive" to the 85-90 percent of the population who call themselves "Christian".

This is patently untrue.  After all, who bought all those copies of The Da Vinci Code (the book)?  Obviously, millions of Christians did.  Statistically, they had to.

What Peggy has done is conflate "Christians" with evangelical Christians and/or the Christian right.   Sadly, she assumes that all Christians are of the Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson/James Dobson stripe.

But, of course, that is simply untrue.  Evangelical Christians may be the loudest, but they are not the greatest in number.  The 85-90 percent of the population who call themselves "Christians" include Catholics (whose church doctrine now rejects creationism), Episcopaleans (whose church pulpits now include homosexuals), and the other more established Protestant churches.

Peggy ought to know better.  And it’s time that respectable journalists stop trying to merge the religious doctrines of extremists with the heart-felt and sincere religious beliefs of moderates.  You simply can’t lump them all into the same category, just like you can’t assume that all women who believe in equal pay for equal work are "feminists".