Tom Hanks has had an incredible career in Hollywood. He has played memorable characters such as Forrest Gump (Forrest Gump), Woody the Cowboy (Toy Story), Jimmy Dugan (A League of Their Own), Cpt. John Miller (Saving Private Ryan), Michael Sullivan (Road to Perdition) and Viktor Navorski (The Terminal). But after he assumed the role of Robert Langdon, the lead character in Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, Hanks has been thrust into the burning debate over the novel's (and now major-motion picture's) plot, which questions the holiness of Jesus Christ and the origins of the early Church.

For those who have lived under a rock the past couple of months since news came out that the novel would be turned into a motion picture directed by director Ron Howard and led by Hanks, here's a short rundown of what the story behind the novel is about:

1. Jesus Christ, the key figure in the Christian faith as the only perfect person in the history of the world and the Son of God, was not a perfect person and therefore was not the Son of God. Therefore, Christ was a fraud as is the Christian faith by association.
2. Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and had a child with her. He placed Magdalene in charge of His Church but the Disciples, who desired not to see a woman in charge of the Church, forced her into exile and attempted to cover up the relationship.
3. Mary's bloodline continued on and eventually formed groups such as the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar. Leonardo da Vinci was a member of the Priory and placed secret messages in his works trying to expose the secret relationship.

The plot has drawn criticism from almost the entire Christian community, who have charged that the novel and the film are anti-Christian. Catholic Archbishop Angelo Amato has been one of the most vocal opponents of The Da Vinci Code (TDVC), calling it "stridently anti-Christian" and has called for Christians to "reject the lies and gratuitous defamations" in the book. Amato is the number two official in the Vatican doctrinal office.

But opposition to the film has not only come from the Catholic Church. Christians of all denominations have expressed extreme disgust with the film and what it stands for. The chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, Dr. Ted Baehr, has attempted to collect signatures from Christians on a petition with the intent to send it to Sony Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Howard and Hanks. The petition argues that the film is offensive to Christians.

Baehr has said in the past that the film is "fraught with misconceptions and blatantly false claims about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the history of Christianity and the Catholic Church."

It would be hard for one to call the criticism from the Christian community as anything but understandable. After all, the novel and movie argue that Christianity is a fraud. But such people do exist.

Generally, those who see it as a work of fiction have found themselves baffled by the response the Christian community has made. After all, it's just a story, right? Hanks is one of these people.

"We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown," the 49-year-old actor told the Evening Standard. "But the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense. If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake."

We've heard this type of argument before. We heard it from the supporters of Radford's student-run Whim Internet Magazine's "Christ on Campus" cartoon series drawn by artist Christian Keesee. Keesee said in a forum that addressed the appropriateness of the cartoons that "If you're turning to a college Internet magazine for your source on who Jesus is, you've got your priorities crooked."

We heard similar responses from those who backed a recent episode of Comedy Central's "South Park" that featured Christ defecating on President George W. Bush, the American flag and American citizens.

Simply put, the common response is "the real source for who Jesus Christ was and still is are the pages of the Bible, not [insert media source, entertainment work, etc. here]."

To some extent, these folks are right. The problem is that people see these works and begin to develop their own thoughts about who Christ was and still is. Since they are not of who Christ was and still is, they are therefore wrong. Simply put, any image of Christ that differs from that which is in the Scripture is an incorrect depiction of our Lord and should not be accepted as true.

Do not underestimate how powerful the media and Hollywood are in today's world. The media has the power to hold back information and to push its own bias as if it were the outright truth. This occurs on a daily basis! If we were to go on everything the media and Hollywood tell us, there has not been a single bit of positive news to come out of Iraq since Saddam Hussein was captured in late 2003. If you honestly believe that wonderful tidbit, go find the closest marine that has returned from the field and I guarantee you that he or she will tell you the exact opposite of what the media is trying to put out.

Further, The Da Vinci Code acts as if it is based on facts. Sure, most fiction novels function on this method (after all, you do not read The Little Engine That Could and honestly believe that it is a true story), but not so with TDVC.

I'm going to borrow some lines from Richard Abanes' The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code: A Challenging Response to the Bestselling Novel:

"Spreading one's views via fiction is certainly a freedom guaranteed to all Americans. Most critics would acknowledge that Brown has the right to say whatever he wants. What is problematic, however, is the way that he, his publisher and the media have been presenting The Da Vinci Code: as a fact-based expose wherein the characters reveal truths long hidden from view, or at the very least ignored by, the general public. To use the author's words, 'When you finish the book - like it our not - you've learned a ton.'

"Nearly every reviewer has parroted this line. USA Today, for instance, referred to the novel as 'historic fact with a contemporary storyline.' Popmatters.com said the work was a 'fact-based thriller.' Counterculture called the book 'a good yarn within a richly factual context.' And Charles Taylor of salon.com described the novel as a 'fact-paced romp through 2000 years of Christianity's darker secrets.' Taylor then added, 'The most amazing thing about this novel is that it's based on fact.'

"Only Dan Brown himself has made more explicit claims of factuality for his book. The novel's first page, for instance, reads: 'FACT:...All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.'"

So, readers of the novel are told to believe that the lies that Brown purports to be true. This is an alarming situation considering how many things are false, misleading or distorted in The Da Vinci Code. I would go into the details but there are simply too many errors. I would advise anyone, Christian or not, supporter of the novel or not, to read Abanes' book. It is not long - merely 78 pages.

So, while Tom Hanks may think that he is just playing another role in a work of fiction, he needs to take a step back and realize what exactly he is backing. He is supporting a novel that not only charges that Christianity is a fraudulent religion using lies but it claims that those lies are the truth! It is a very sticky situation for the popular actor. More than likely, he will lose some of his fan base just for taking on the role of Langdon. The fallout could be worse than what Tom Cruise has faced since his couch-jumping session on The Oprah Winfrey Show, his championing of Scientology and the other bizarre things he has done recently.

Like Abanes, I will end this with a quote from none other than Da Vinci himself (taken from his "Morals"):

"To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and the Truth is so excellent, that is it praises but smaller things they become noble. Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness...[T]he truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects, though not of wandering wits."