Popular culture requires readily identifiable villains. Subcultural groups often serve this role, creating controversies. Controversies based on religion are especially bitter. As a rule, religion in the movies is inoffensively sentimental, but "The Da Vinci Code" is both popular and provocative, treading on the dangerous ground of Jesus's…

If America is culturally diverse by history and habit, it is religiously diverse by design and by law. Although religion may be the strongest form of shared culture, and although people refuse to have any official religious establishment, they are surprisingly reluctant to celebrate that form of diversity anymore. In this article, the author takes…