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.'