So what's all the excitement about? You may not have read the book or seen the film. But it would be very difficult not to be aware of the controversy that surrounds it. If you haven't read it, let me offer you the author's synopsis: 'A renowned Harvard symbologist is summoned to the Louvre Museum to examine a series of cryptic symbols relating to Da Vinci's artwork. In decrypting the code, he uncovers the key to one of the greatest mysteries of all time... and he becomes a hunted man.' It's what the 'great mystery' turns out to be that has caused all the fuss. The basic idea is that the Church has been concealing certain truths about Jesus, truths which, when revealed, mean that much of what we have been led to believe about him has to be abandoned. This is the crux of the matter. The Da Vinci Code forces us to ask some searching questions. Who is Jesus? And how do we know? A brief summary of the claims made in the book might go like this: Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, who, after his death, became the overall leader of the early church. The Holy Grail is not the cup used by Jesus and his disciples at the last supper but is the womb of Mary Magdalene who bore Jesus' daughter, called Sarah apparently. The descendants of Mary Magdalene and Jesus became kings of France. Jesus wasn't thought of as being the divine Son of God until the Roman emperor Constantine upgraded him at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. All this has been hushed up by the church over the years but can be discovered through following clues such as those found in the artwork of Leonardo da Vinci. It sounds bizarre, doesn't it, especially when stated baldly like that. But that hasn't stopped millions of people concluding that Dan Brown is onto something. And even if they aren't able to take on board all the details of his version of events, they're often, as a result of reading the book, less willing to accept traditional ideas about who Jesus was and what he came to do. People may not be willing to go along with Dan Brown's new version of the Christian Faith. But he's said enough for people to be willing to take the demolition of the old one for granted. And there are other reasons why our culture at the moment is so ready and willing to accept something like The Da Vinci Code. First, there's the way in which The Da Vinci Code encourages alternative spirituality. Traditional ways of understanding who God is and what he is about have been on the decline for years. Our society's Christian foundations are dissolving rapidly. But that doesn't mean that what people perceive as 'spirituality' is dying off. Far from it. A survey in 1987 showed that 48% of people claimed to have had a spiritual or religious experience. By 2000 that figure had risen to 76%. Just think about that for a moment. More than three-quarters of the population of the UK claim to have had a spiritual or religious experience. Dan Brown's book presents new and exciting possibilities for the spiritually parched to explore in order to quench their thirst. Secondly, there's the way in which The Da Vinci Code feeds our growing suspicion of so-called 'experts' and authority figures. Again, this very much fits into the spirit of our age. We find it hard enough to trust ourselves, let alone anyone else. When faced by a so-called 'expert', our instinct is to suspect either that what they themselves already believe about an issue will skew what they choose to say about it. Or, worse, that someone somewhere is paying them to promote a particular view. And anything that brings a self-righteous institution like the church down a peg or two can't be bad. The sooner that anyone who tries to tell me what to think and how to behave is put in their place the better!
Thirdly, a book like The Da Vinci Code promotes belief in conspiracy theories. As the main character in the novel muses to himself, "Everyone loves a conspiracy". We much prefer conspiracy to the uncomfortable loose ends of chance. Take the death of Princess Diana, for example. We want something like that to have meaning and significance - not just to have been a tragic accident. Blaming MI6 or whoever gives us a framework which we don't have if it was just 'something that happened'. And we're so used to the idea of things being 'covered up' that we almost take it for granted that those in power have something to hide. "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" Fourthly, there's the way in which The Da Vinci Code panders to our vanity by encouraging us to join in the fun of solving a puzzle that few others have got to the bottom of - the challenge to be part of an elite band of those 'in the know'. Being clever enough to decipher the codes and gaining a secret knowledge that is only for a chosen few is as attractive now as it was two thousand years ago. Again, this has to do with our quest for meaning and signficance in a world where it's all too easy to feel marginalised and out of the loop. With all this stacked up against us, what chance does the church have? The danger is that the more we try and prove that Dan Brown has got it all wrong, the more we manage to convince people that he must be right! So what can we say? APOLOGY Well, first, there is a place for apology. We need to acknowledge that the church has sometimes been more interested in preserving herself as an institution than with faithfully living out the message of her Founder. We can seek to put right the way in which, rather than challenge them, the church has too often gone along with the evils of sexism and misogyny. We can and should repent of ways in which we have prevented women from exercising the full range of their gifts - both within the church and also within the wider community. And in responding to another of the challenges presented by the book, we can also happily acknowledge that sex is one of God's good gifts to us rather than something intrinsically sinful and shameful. While there is little or no evidence to support the assertion that Jesus married and had children, we ought to be clear that for him to have done so would not have been somehow unworthy of him, as if he would have been irredeemably tainted by marriage and sex. Where criticisms of the church are valid, we should admit it and work to put things right. ARGUMENT There is a place for apology. And then, secondly, there is a place for argument. We need to be aware that the route taken by Dan Brown to reach his conclusions isn't new. Nor is it unique - as was demonstrated by the recent court case in which he was accused of copying much of his work from other writers! The Da Vinci Code has succeeded in popularising an approach to the Christian Faith which has actually been around for some time. The argument goes like this... That, first, in addition to what we have in the New Testament, there were many other documents about Jesus circulating in the first few centuries after the birth of the church. They focus more on him as a human being, a great religious teacher, than the divine Son of God. These, rather than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are said to be what give us the real truth about Jesus. Secondly, the argument goes that the four gospels we have in the New Testament were written later on. The claim is that they were designed as propaganda to persuade people that Jesus is divine in order to support the growing power and prestige of the church. This is why they were chosen for inclusion in the Bible at the time of the Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Material that departed from the party line by focusing on his more human side were suppressed and destroyed. Thirdly, if this is so, then it follows that traditional Christianity has got it all wrong. Jesus didn't really think he was the Son of God at all. He didn't plan on dying for the sins of the world. He was simply a great moral and spiritual teacher. He may well have been married and had children before being put to death. And that was that - he certainly didn't rise again or ascend into heaven. Fourthly, then, Christianity as we know it in the church today is based on falsehood. The followers of Jesus invented stories about him in order to advance their own careers within the increasingly powerful institution of the church. One result was that mainstream Christianity developed teaching that discriminated against women and claimed that sex was little more than a necessary evil. Fifthly, then, the argument is that we today need to abandon traditional ways of understanding Jesus as taught by the church and go back to what we can discover about the original Jesus, who has been hidden for so long. The contaminated spirituality of the church has clearly had its day and so we need to develop new ways formulating and practising Christian faith which is genuinely Christian. I don't have the time to go into the details today. But the fact is that every stage of arguments like this can and should be challenged! For example, far from the New Testament gospels being late corruptions of the purer teaching of Jesus contained in documents like the so-called Gospel of Thomas, the evidence is that it's very much the other way round. And, while we're on the subject of ancient manuscripts mentioned by Dan Brown in support of his theories, the Dead Sea Scrolls say nothing at all about Jesus or Mary. Indeed, there are all sorts of other building blocks in the structure of The Da Vinci Code which are either just plain wrong or simply aren't strong enough to support the author's conclusions. In other words, The Da Vinci Code needn't be feared as some sort of enormous demolition ball which has dealt a death blow to orthodox Christian Faith. It hasn't done that at all. AUTHENTICITY So there's a place for apology. There's a place for argument. And, thirdly, there's a place for authenticity. As I suggested at the start, I think Dan Brown has done us a great favour. Because the extraordinary reaction to his book gives us a very helpful snapshot of where our culture is in relation to the Christian Faith. A snapshot that shows us with pinpoint clarity that we can no longer rely on what perhaps we used to rely on to get the message across. It hasn't ever really been enough to try and use the weight of the institutional church as a way of getting people to accept the good news of Jesus. It certainly isn't now. And it hasn't ever really been enough simply to try and argue people into accepting the good news of Jesus. Argument isn't enough. Indeed, on its own, it's often counter-productive in seeking to persuade people. That's not to say there is no place for the church as an institution in our culture or that there's no point in using argument at all. But what really works, what people are really looking out for, is authenticity, the sheer attractiveness of lives that Jesus is making a difference to today. I often reflect on something which Mahatma Gandhi is reported to have said: "I will become a Christian when I see one!" This is the challenge we face. It's been there all along, of course. All The Da Vinci Code has done is to bring it out into the open. From the extraordinary response to this novel, no-one can be in any doubt a) that there is an enormous hunger for spiritual reality among our fellow men and women, and b) that it's a hunger they don't believe the church can even begin to meet. And that forces me to ask the question - am I part of the answer or part of the problem? As people experience the way we share the life of Jesus and seek to make him known, are they more or less likely to believe in the Jesus they are offered in The Da Vinci Code? Apology? Yes. Argument? Probably. Authenticity? Most definitely! Want to engage in discussion or ask a question? Do feel free to email me. Click here © 2006 David Stone | 
The Da Vinci Code is a book that has sold tens of millions of copies around the world. And then there's the film. In just three weeks box office receipts have totalled well over half a billion dollars. Its author, Dan Brown, says this about his record-breaking blockbuster: 'My hope in writing this novel was that the story would serve as a catalyst and a springboard for people to discuss the important topics of faith, religion, and history.'