Dan Brown's Code

It is a well-written novel by a genius of an author. And, as one Christian magazine article I recently read noted, it has done something most of us pastors have not been able to do - made people sit up and take notice of the history of the church.

The movie coming out next month will no doubt be a box office smash hit. Its a sham and a shame though.

The author, Dan Brown, obviously has an agenda to re-write history, both secular and sacred. Most of the 40 million-plus readers of the book and those who shell out their cash for the movie will not take the time to investigate, and neither are they already familiar enough with the facts to not be swept away in the plot of this runaway bestseller.

Some surveys have already indicated that a large percentage of readers believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, a major premise of Brown's novel, and that their ancestors are alive on the earth today. That's pure drivel but we live in an age when people don't want to be bothered with the facts. Reason enough for the book to be dubbed "faction". It isn't true fiction and neither are the main premises of the book factual: that Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper depicts Mary Magdalene, not the Apostle John, leaning on Christ's shoulder; that the Roman emperor Constantine was in effect responsible for the church attributing divinity to Christ in 325 AD, when, of course, Christ followers believed that He was the Son of God during His life on earth, and certainly immediately following His resurrection! They didn't need a church council to tell them that. The church council was to establish the official position of Christendom in light of the false teachings of Gnosticism - the Gnostic gospels, by the way, being some of the primary fodder for Brown's baloney.

I read The Da Vinci Code last week but I'm not recommending that you read it. I believe in Christian liberty - you decide for yourself. But I would say if you read it do so objectively. Do so with an eye toward being aware of what your neighbors are reading so that you may engage them in intelligent conversation on a current cultural phenomenon. Take the opportunity to share the truth about Jesus. He was the God-man. He did not take a wife and father a child. That was not how He saved the world. Mary Magdalene was a striking convert who loved her Savior but she wasn't the Holy Grail. The church didn't need a Roman emperor to tell them who Jesus is in the 4th Century - and she doesn't need a clever New England novelist to tell her who He is in the 21st.