The anti-Christian
Da Vinci Code

  

The novel has sold over forty million copies and is still selling. The movie was guaranteed to be a blockbuster by the tremendous interest in the subject before its first official showing. Dan Brown, the author of the book, has become a millionaire many times over. It seems all the world has fallen in love with the notion of a conspiracy in the early church to turn a man into a god.

 For those unaware, the basic plot of the book and movie is this: A Harvard professor and expert in esoteric symbolism is joined by a young female cryptologist and a historian / “Holy Grail” fanatic, as they elude authorities and a Catholic church related killer in search of clues to a murder mystery. The search soon unearths a conspiracy that goes back to the earliest days of the Christian church. The historian, “Sir Leigh Teabing,” serves as a mouthpiece for the author’s anti-Christian views, as he informs the other two of how the early church fabricated nearly every aspect of Jesus’ life and mission in order to gain power and suppress women.

 According to Teabing (actually the author’s views, as he has freely admitted in an interview), Jesus was not the Son of God; He never claimed to be nor was ever thought of that way until He was “upgraded” by the emperor Constantine for his own ends. No, says Teabing, Jesus was a mere man (but great teacher, of course) who actually was married to Mary Magdalene, and had a child. He intended for Mary, His wife, to be the official head of the church, but the early church fathers couldn’t stomach the thought. Mary and the child were shunted off to France where the bloodline of Jesus still exists in large numbers today.

 The book is clearly fictional, but the author attempts to blur fiction with reality in the opening page, where in bold uppercase letters you see the word “FACT.” Brown writes, “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” The truth is that not only the central plot, but much of the background information and historical references are riddled with errors, as many experts in various historical fields of study have pointed out. Brown is a novelist, not a historian; he is an occultist, not an objective researcher, and his biases and ignorance are on display throughout the book for anyone diligent enough to do even the most basic research. 

Why the Fuss? 

 Secularists and liberals are particularly galled when Christians react strongly to this book. While often delighting in the prospect of Jesus turning out to be merely an ordinary man, they like to justify the book with the fact that it is a novel; it never claims that the primary storyline is true. They love to proclaim that we Christians are simply showing our insecurity by overreacting to a great novel. In a December article in The National Review, David Klinhoffer stated, “If I were a Christian…I think I would find it a little disturbing that some fellow Christians do in fact view this novel as a threat to their faith.”

 The truth is, it is not the least threat to my faith, nor the faith of millions of born-again Christians who love Jesus, know His word, and have tasted “the powers of the age to come.” I could read the book a dozen times, and watch the movie two dozen, and my faith in Christ would remain intact. It is not for ourselves that we are concerned, but for the millions who know little of Christianity, less of ancient history, and are still trying to make up their minds as to what they think about Jesus Christ. A survey showed that one out of three Canadians who have read the book now believe that they are descendants of Jesus. A George Barna poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans who read it said it had been helpful to their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.” One man, after reading the Da Vinci Code, declared he would never go into a church again.

 No, it is not for our sakes that we protest this blasphemous book. It is because we care about those who have not yet tasted our Savior’s love. One of the characters’ lines, which clearly reflects the author’s own views, is: “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.” Any book, movie, or teaching, large or small, which tends to make people think less of Jesus than He truly is, is abhorrent in our eyes and must be protested. Love for the world for which Christ died would demand no less.

 One of the most dangerous aspects of this book is that it sets itself up as a sort of “historical novel.” It freely admits that its main storyline is made up, but suggests that all the basic facts of conspiracy by the church, fraud and manipulation of the Scriptures by Constantine, and even the marriage of Jesus is true. Dr. Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, sums it up thus:

 Now what Dan Brown has done is to fictionalize his foreground characters. Fine – have at it! But in the process he has also falsified the background, and that is what is absolutely unacceptable. In other words, if Dan Brown were using the same rules that he used for The Da Vinci Code to write a novel about World War II, he would have Hitler winning the war and Roosevelt on trial in Washington D.C., and Churchill on trial in London. That’s how bad it is. 

Basic Issues 

The Sacred Feminine – The Da Vinci Code has a strongly feminist theme running throughout its pages. The term “sacred feminine” is liberally sprinkled throughout the story to indicate some sort of female counterpart to God’s masculine side. Langdon and his partner discover that the church fathers stole the church from Mary Magdalene in a deliberate power grab, branded her a prostitute, and severely limited the role of women in order to create a male-dominated institution.

 In this, as in all the other conspiracy claims, Brown cannot find any proof in the gospels, the epistles of Paul or Peter, the writings of the early church fathers, or in the earliest secular historical sources available. Instead he must turn to the bizarre and utterly discredited Gnostic “gospels” which were written in the second and third centuries by fringe groups who have always been rejected by orthodox Christianity.

 Actually even in these “Gnostic gospels” there is no evidence whatsoever for most of Brown’s claims, such as that Jesus ever married anyone or fathered a child. The most one can produce even from these dubious sources is the idea that Mary Magdalene was given a vision and a mission from Jesus related to the salvation of souls. This is found in the “Gospel of Mary Magdalene,” a book never taken seriously by the early Christians.

 It is true that Mary has sometimes been considered a former prostitute by Christians. The Bible does not tell us this, but it does tell us that Jesus cast out seven demons from her. Though she may not have been a prostitute, she no doubt had lived a pretty rough life before encountering the Savior. But her past is not what is important; it is the dignity and love with which Jesus treated her that reveals that Jesus was no male chauvinist. And though the church has sometimes been guilty of treating women as inferior, this was a result of the prevailing culture of the times; it was not some conspiracy to smear Mary or hide a supposed marriage of Jesus.

 The Selection of the Gospels and the Deity of Christ – The knowledge of how the canon of New Testament Scripture came into being is no secret. There is ample historical evidence of how the church came to accept the various books that make up our New Testament today. According to Brown, however, that knowledge is bogus. The truth is that the New Testament, and particularly the gospels, are the result of widespread acceptance by the whole of the church. No council, pope, and certainly no emperor could possibly have forced these fiery early Christians, most of whom were willing to die for their faith, to accept books as holy Scripture, which they had not already been convinced of. Erwin Lutzer writes, “A generation after the end of the apostolic age every book of the New Testament had been cited as authoritative by some church father.”

 The novel claims that up until the final days of Constantine, in 325 A.D., over 80 gospels existed (not true, there were less than 40), most of which showed Jesus as a mere man and not the Son of God (also not true, most of the spurious gospels made Jesus more supernatural, not less). Constantine wanted a more supernatural Jesus, and so chose the four that showed Him thus. Not content with that he even embellished those gospels, in order to upgrade Jesus from man to god. According to Brown, it wasn’t Peter, John, or Paul who thought Jesus to be divine. In the early days of the church Jesus was accepted as a great prophet and messiah, but certainly not God in the flesh. No, it was Constantine’s pressure, at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. that voted Jesus into divinity. The book declares, “Until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet.” And the vote was “a relatively close vote” (again not true – there was a vote over Jesus’ eternality, which the council affirmed by a vote of 300 to 2).

 This is historical nonsense of the worst kind. Jesus’ divinity is so well attested, both Biblically and extra-Biblically, that no reliable historian would dare suggest such a thing. Consider the following:

 Irenaeus, around the year 178, declared that "Christ, as God, was adored by the Prophets; was the God of the living and the living God; that He spoke to Moses in the bush."

 Justin Martyr, around the year 140, declared that "Christ the first born Word of God, existed as God” that He is “Lord and God, as being the Son of God and that He was the God of Israel."

 Tatian, Bishop of Antioch in the latter part of the second century, states, "We declare that God was born in human form." 

Melito, Bishop of Sardis at the same time says, "We are worshippers of one God, who is before all, and in all, in His Christ, who is truly God the Eternal Word."

 The Council of Antioch, which convened about the year 264, declared, "In the whole Church, He is believed to be God, who emptied Himself, indeed of a state of equality with God."

 Paul looked for the glorious appearing of “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ;” John declared that the Word was with God and the Word was God. Luke writes of His virgin birth and Matthew quotes Him declaring that all authority in heaven and earth is given unto Him. Clearly anyone attempting to prove “historically” that Jesus’ divinity was never recognized by the church until 325 A. D. has their own agenda. 

Why So Popular? 

Perhaps the biggest mystery about this book is why America has bought into it so widely. Had a book come out in the 1950’s which suggested Jesus was not divine, He had married Mary Magdalene, and that the gospels were chosen by a corrupt emperor determined to fabricate a religion, it would have been universally condemned. Not only would it never have been a best seller, it would most likely have been banned in many places. So why such a blockbuster today?

 The sad answer is that America has changed, and not primarily for the better. We are far more secular than a generation ago, far more into “finding our own bliss” and doing our own thing. John Jalsevac writes: “Just to make sure that nothing has been misunderstood, the idea was put even more clearly by Brown in a Washington Post Interview: “In the past, knowledge was something that was handed down by authority figures; now we seek and discover for ourselves.” And that, sadly, is an accurate depiction of the predominant mindset of the Western World. It is the core belief that lies behind books like The Da Vinci Code, and it is what makes them so attractive. There is no truth. We are all gods.”

 At the core of the Christian revelation is the amazing good news that God manifested Himself in human flesh. He took on our nature, died in our place, bore our sins, rose from the dead, and now stands as our assurance of the forgiveness of sins and our acceptance with God.

 In truth there was a sort of plot by three powerful Agents, but it was the best kind. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit planned together, before the foundation of the world, to provide a way for sinful man to be reconciled to the One Triune God. Jesus, who is both completely man and completely God, is that means of reconciliation. 

--- Dennis Pollock