Nothing to Crack: the Clear Message of The Da Vinci Code

PDF

I first heard the premise and argument of Dan Brown's book, The DaVinci Code shortly after it was published in 2003. At the time it really didn't create a ripple in my own mind because it was built on old news. The Gnostic gospels on which it claims to be based have been around since the second and third centuries, and some of the more recent discoveries date to the mid twentieth century and were published in the 1970,s, so

they've been around a long time. But, over the last three years, more than 46 million copies of the book have been sold world-wide. And small groups that can best be compared to home Bible studies began to meet and discuss the meaning and application of Dan Brown's book. On May 19th, a movie based on the book will come to theaters across the country. It's directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks. So, it will likely be a block-buster. Over the next few months millions more who were not exposed to the book--in fact, some of whom have never read a book in their lives-- will see the movie. So I thought it was an important issue to address.

But why does a novel--a piece of fiction--merit discussion in the church? There's a simple explanation for that - because it's being accepted as if it were historical fact. And it claims to be a factual attack on the historical Christian faith we hold dear. Last year George Barna reported that 53% of American adults who read the book said that it helped "with their personal spiritual growth and understanding." National Geographic commissioned a Canadian survey last year which discovered that 32% of those who read the book believed its theories as fact. In a Catholic Digest poll, 14% of Catholics who read the book were susceptible to having their faith affected by what they read.

And there is much anecdotal evidence of this as well. Recently, I was on a flight returning from Louisville, Kentucky. Seated in front of me was another pastor and

next to him, in the middle seat of the MD80, was a woman who was reading The DaVinci Code. Later I overheard this pastor trying to broach a conversation with her. He asked her about the book and made some passing comment about the reality that it was fiction. She replied that she didn’t believe it was fiction at all. She said she believed it was truly based on historical fact. That is where many in our culture are.

How did this happen? I want you to understand something very important. It was not an accident. It was by design.

The DaVinci Code is essentially a mystery. Jeffrey Weiss describes it this way: It's basically a murder-mystery thriller. The curator of the Louvre, Paris' famous art museum has been killed under bizarre circumstances and the investigation pulls in a Harvard professor who is an expert in religious symbols and the murdered man's granddaughter, a cryptologist for the French equivalent of the FBI. And as these two elude a series of attackers, they learn that the murder is tied up with an ancient conspiracy to keep quiet the reality that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child.”

We could add that, according to the book, there exists a secret society called the Priory of Sion, that exists to protect the descendants of that union, to protect the tomb of Mary Magdalene, and to protect a large cache of documents that prove these things. The Catholic Church, the book argues, on the other hand, has desperately sought throughout history to destroy all of these things. That is the book in a nutshell.

But what makes the book dangerous is that it uses a number of deceptive methods: Let’s consider some of the most egregious. First of all, the book marries a clear spiritual message to an intriguing, well written mystery. You don’t get to the punch line until chapters 55 to 62, the heart and soul of the book. In fact, if you don't want to bother reading the entire book, read those chapters. That is where the message--the core spiritual themes of the book--is most clearly and consistently developed. But this spiritual message is purposefully married to an exciting murder mystery with a lot of interesting elements.

Secondly, Brown purposely blurs the lines between history and fiction. This is evident in the first few introductory pages. On the cover, it is identified as a novel, which by definition means fiction. On the copyright page it says “all the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.” The legalese you would expect to find in a novel. But then, on the page before the prologue, this is what you read: “Fact, the Priory of Sion, a European secret society founded in 1099 is a real organization.” And “the Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect --and then at the end it says—“all descriptions of art work, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”

Now, immediately you begin to wonder where fiction and fact meet and where do they separate. It's unclear.

It's unclear on purpose because it's unclear in the author's mind. In April of 2006, 60 Minutes amassed evidence that in the 1950’s a Frenchman, an anti-semite with a history of criminal fraud for which he served jail time, created the Priory of Sion as a hoax.

This man and three others started a social in club in 1954 called the Priory of Sion. Its sole cause was more low-cost housing in France. The ideas of that Frenchman, whose name is Pierre Plantard, were kept alive and promoted by a 1982 book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. That book was one of the primary sources for Brown's novel. Interestingly, after a 1993 political scandal, Plantard admitted under oath in a French court that he had fabricated the entire scheme called the Priory of Sion. But the author isn't willing to admit that.

Shortly after the book came out, Charles Gibson, host of ABC's Good Morning America, trying to clarify this point with Brown asked Brown, "If you were writing it as a non- fiction book, how would it have been different?" Brown's answer was, “I don't think it would have.” Matt Lauer of the NBC's Today show asked "How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?" Dan Brown answered, "Absolutely all of it. Obviously, Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret

rituals, secret societies--all of that is historical fact." So he purposely blurs all of those lines.

Another common deceptive method is putting his spiritual message in the mouth of educated intellectuals. Experts in their fields spout the message of the book. There is the curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris. You have a Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard (which does not exist) and the world's foremost scholar on the Holy Grail a man by the name of Teabing. So all of the propaganda comes from the mouths of people that have a veil of respectability.

Fourthly, the book is filled with the propaganda technique of sweeping generalizations. Consider a few examples: “unfortunately, for the early editors, one particularly troubling theme kept recurring in the gospels, Mary Magdalene . . . More specifically, her marriage to Jesus Christ It’s a matter of historical record, and DaVinci was certainly aware of

that fact.” Here he says "It's a matter of historical record" and of course no evidence is presented. "Its part of the historical record" and again no evidence, but he paws through his book collection. There are "countless references to Jesus' and Mary Magdalene's union. That has been explored ad nauseum by modern historians" implying that the weight of evidence is absolutely overwhelming. He goes on with the same sort of thing-- in speaking of the bloodline of Christ he says, It's "been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians." And then Brown lists four in the book. Four, one of which is the Holy Blood, Holy Grail book I mentioned to you just a minute ago. He says "All of these books substantiate the same historical claim--That Jesus was a father." "Countless scholars of that era chronicled it." And "although the material was well-documented and had been covered by others..." He subtly leads the reader to believe that any one living in our times who doesn't have his head buried in the scholarly sand, understands these realities to be fact and embraces them.

Another method Brown uses is to distort and fabricate historical fact. The Dallas Morning News on May 6 quoted several leading historians, both secular as well as religious, who are debunking the historical claims Brown makes. It is not accepted fact. In fact, most of the scholars according to the Dallas Morning News are saying that the historical records have been distorted and fabricated. At the end of this article I’ll list several books that address many of these inaccuracies. Consider a couple of the most egregious examples of Brown’s serious lack of carefulness and concern for the truth. For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls, he says, discuss Jesus, and were discovered in the mid 1950s. Actually, they were written by Jews and they say nothing about Jesus. They were discovered in 1947. That seems like a minor detail, but it shows the carelessness with which he approached a book, that claims to be historically factual. Or consider how Brown handles a key quotation, one foundational to his argument from the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip: "The companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’" Although that quote does not prove that Jesus was married, it does seem to hint at a romantic relationship. What the extant manuscript of

the Gospel of Phillip actually says is: "The companion of the (gap in the text) Mary Magdalene (gap) more than (gap) the disciples (gap) kiss her (gap) on her (gap)"

As you can see, we are a long way from making the point that he wants to make, yet, this is his chief argument for Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene. Even if we conceded that the Gnostic gospels are reliable history, (which we do not concede) this quote still does not teach what Brown asserts. Now, these are a few of the book’s deceptive methods.

In its January 2 issue Newsweek says this: "Brown's frantic addictive novel is a combination thriller, religious manifesto, and art history lecture [emphasis added]." Before I read that comment in Newsweek, I had already thought of this word manifesto after reading the book. A manifesto is a public declaration of principles or intentions. And as you read the book, the main characters clearly deny certain beliefs as patently false, and at the same time affirm the opposing beliefs as true and trustworthy. Don Whitney summarizes the key points of Brown’s manifesto this way: "Dan Brown uses the story to convey his beliefs that, among other things, the Bible is a corrupt human document, that Jesus is not God, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and produced a child, that Mary Magdalene is a goddess to be worshipped, and that sex should be seen-- as in pagan religions--as a means of experiencing God." He's exactly right. That is the essence of the manifesto.

Let’s look at the key issues in the manifesto starting with scripture. What exactly does Dan Brown believe, and want his readers to believe about scripture? He writes "The Bible is a product of man, my dear, not of God. The Bible didn't fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book." He goes on to say that Constantine is the one to blame. He "commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned." Almost every part of that statement is patently false. 1) No bona fide historian says Constantine commissioned and financed the new Bible. 2) The human traits of Christ are not omitted from our scriptures as they exist today. 3) The Godlike traits were not embellished. And 4) the Gnostic gospels were not earlier, and they certainly were gathered up and burned. Brown simply spins history to make an overt attack on scripture. On page 234 he writes, "Fortunately for historians, Teabing said, some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive." "The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi." "The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda--to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." That's what Dan Brown believes about the scripture.

When he talks about the Gnostic gospels he calls them “unaltered gospels.” He calls the documents outside the New Testament “purist documents,” “unaltered,” “pre- Constantine” documents. He says “the New Testament is false testimony.” It's “based

on fabrications.” And the only reason we believe these things are literal is that “religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality.”

This is really the foundation of Brown’s argument. It has to do with what we embrace as authoritative. He argues that we should accept the Gnostic gospels. The modern argument for the Gnostic gospels as Scripture comes from an obscure handful of liberal religious scholars involved in the Jesus Seminar. The Gnostic Gospels primarily consist of 52 Coptic scrolls found in Egypt in 1945 near the village of Nag Hammadi. There are “five gospels” in that collection. These documents were translated into English in 1977. The crux of the book is that these Gnostic gospels are the earliest Christian records in existence. And, to put it in the words of Brown himself, "Many scholars claim that the early church [i.e. Constantine] literally stole Jesus from his original followers [i.e. Jesus’ disciples] hijacking his human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power." That's the key claim of the book. He argues these documents present a totally different story of Jesus. But history he says is written by the winners. That’s why we have the gospels we have.

But which really came first? All the books in our New Testament were completed before 100 AD. The earliest likely date for those Coptic scrolls found in Egypt is about 150 AD. So, classic Christianity did not rise in Constantine's time as a response to Gnostic Christianity. Instead, Gnostic Christianity was a response to New Testament Christianity. Peter Jones explains this in his excellent book, Cracking DaVinci's Code. He writes "Two versions of Christianity did not develop alongside each other as The DaVinci Code maintains. The first message was the Christian message from Jesus and His apostles, established through widely accepted texts written by the first generation of believers.

Later, there was a reactionary message, Gnostic heresy, which was cemented by its own set of writings." The classic books of historical theology all agree. They put Gnostic gospels and Gnostic beliefs after the New Testament era. Brown has just fabricated his own history. If you have any questions about the canon, listen to the series that I did more than a year ago, on the formation of the canon of scripture. It is absolutely crucial that you understand how we got our Bible, because that's at the core of Dan Brown's argument.

The campaign against classic Christianity continues in their attack on the nature of God. Brown writes "the quest for the holy grail is literally the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one, the lost sacred feminine." Much of the book is blasphemous, but nothing sinks lower than what he says about Yahweh. He writes on page 309: "Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple housed not only God, but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses--or hierodules-- with whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union. The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH--the sacred name of God--in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah." Again, that is pure fabrication. But that is what he teaches about God.

Throughout the book, the main characters explain that the truly divine is “the goddess-- the sacred feminine.” The heart of this book is not about Jesus being married to Mary

Magdalene. The heart of this book is about embracing goddess worship. Beginning in the early pages and continuing throughout, Brown speaks of the sacred feminine, and the goddess – an overt attack on the nature of God. Scripture teaches that nothing created is like God. In Isaiah, we are reminded again and again that there is no-one who is His equal--there's no-one who's like Him (Isaiah 40:18). Everything has been created by Him. He has no equals. That, by the way, is why God forbids the making of idols of Him (Exodus 20:3-5). So it's an attack on the nature of God.

This book is also an attack on the nature of Christ. "Almost everything," Brown says, "our fathers taught us about Christ is false." He tells us that "until that moment in history,” [speaking of Nicaea, the council of Nicaea], "Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet...a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless mortal." One of the characters says, "Not the Son of God? Right, Teabing said. Jesus' establishment as 'the Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea. Hold on, you're saying Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote? A relatively close vote at that,"

The truth is there were only two people who voted against adopting the Nicaean Creed. The Nicaean Creed simply affirmed what had historically been taught in response to the teaching of Arius. He says that "the early church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being." "The greatest cover-up in human history." “Jesus Christ was married and a father. He says the earlier followers of Jesus revered him as a holy human teacher and prophet.

Jesus was perfectly human. And it would not have been sinful for Him to have been married. Marriage is a holy thing. So if He had been, there would have been no reason to cover it up. But the key issue here is not His marriage to Mary Magdalene. The key issue is His divinity - His deity. Brown’s arguing that at the Council of Nicaea and a group of bishops decided Jesus was divine, for their own advantage. Listen to the voices of history. Ignatius writing in 105 AD: "God Himself was manifested in human form." Clement [AD150]: "It is fitting that you would think of Jesus Christ as of God." Justin Martyr [160 AD]: "The Father of the universe has a Son, and He is even God." Ireneius [AD 180]: "He is God. The name Immanuel indicates this." Tertullian in [200 AD]: "Christ our God". Origen [225 AD]: "No one should be offended that the savior is also God." Novation [235 AD]: "He is not only man but God also." Cyprian [250 AD]: "Jesus Christ our Lord and God." Long before the Council of Nicaea, the voice of church history spoke with one voice Jesus’ deity because that was what Jesus claimed. Look at what scripture says about this reality. According to the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (1:1)." And "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father (1:14)." "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him (1:18)." John begins his gospel making clear who Jesus is, and adds dozens of similar claims throughout his gospel. “He who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.” “The Jews answered and said to Him, do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon.” “Jesus answered, I don’t have a demon but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. I don’t seek my own glory.” “The Jews answered and said to Him, do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have

a demon. Jesus answered, I don't have a demon but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. I don't seek my own glory." "Truly, truly" "I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death." “But the Jews said to Him now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets. You say that if anyone keeps my word he will never taste of death. You're not greater than Abraham who died are you? What about the prophets? Who are you making yourself out to be? (John 8:47-53)" Key

question. That is where John is going. Jesus answered "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God. And you have not come to know Him, but I know Him. And if I say I don't know Him, I'll be a liar like you. But I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad." Now immediately they pounce on that statement. They said to him "you are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?" How did Abraham anticipate your day? Who are you claiming to be? Verse 58: "Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” He took that sacred name of God upon His lips. When we say the name Yahweh, we are saying 'He is.' That’s what Yahweh means. But Jesus here doesn't say 'He is', he says "I am." And his enemies immediately understood absolutely what He claimed. In the next verse John writes, "Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him." They were going to stone him because He was claiming to be Yahweh. It's absolutely ridiculous that Christ never claimed to be God. Paul's writings date from the 50s and 60s AD – long before Nicaea. And what does Paul write? Philippians chapter 2:5-9: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him, the name which is above every name.” “who existed in the form of God.” And yet He was willing not to cling to it, but to give it up. Colossians Chapter 1: “He is made in the image of the invisible God.” That was Jesus' claim. And that was the claim of the early church in the first century.

Briefly consider what Brown says about sin. Page 238 he writes "it was man, not God who created the concept of original sin, whereby Eve tasted of the apple and caused the downfall of the human race. Woman, once the sacred giver of life, now becomes the enemy." In other words, Christianity made Eve the enemy and created the whole concept of sin and the fall. Scripture, on the other hand, says "when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes, the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from it, she ate, and gave her husband. [Genesis 3]" Romans 5:12 says, "Through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men." I Timothy 2 says “It wasn't Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression [I Timothy 2:14-15]. Again, scripture is clear about the issue of sin.

Salvation is the final category of Brown’s manifesto. Salvation as we know it, according to Brown doesn't exist. Because there's no need. Instead, salvation is a kind of rescue effected by communing with the divine through fertility rites. On page 310 he says

there's a "spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine." What does scripture say? Unregenerate men are dead to God in their transgressions and sins. And that only God can intervene in His rich mercy and make us alive--save us by grace. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) [Ephesians 2:1-5].” We are in desperate need of God to make us alive.

That's the manifesto. This book is a full frontal attack on everything we believe. Why? What are the motives of The DaVinci Code? Is the book really intended as anything other than mere entertainment? In a speech last month in Portsmouth, NH, Brown said this. "It's a book about big ideas. You can love them or you can hate them, but we're all talking about them, and that's really the point." Brown intended to promote his big ideas. In other interviews he's called himself a teacher, teaching through the book. In another interview he said that through his research he became a true believer in what he has written. It's clear that Brown intended to promote his big ideas. What are those big ideas? It's not primarily that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. That plot serves other ends. These are the clear three motives of The DaVinci Code.

First, the book intends to undermine Christianity. Remember, that to Brown, Christianity is primarily the Roman Catholic Church. With that in mind, listen to his agenda. He writes, [37] “As part of the Vatican's campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil." The real problem in our world is that Christianity has messed everything up. The ancients had everything right in the worship of the gods and goddesses. On page 266, he writes "What happens...if persuasive scientific evidence comes out that the Church's version of the Christ story is inaccurate, and that the greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold?" He wants to undermine Christianity. To what end?

The second transparent motive of the book is to promote neo-paganism. On page 36 he writes "Nowadays, the term pagan had become almost synonymous with devil worship--a gross misconception. The word's roots actually reached back to the Latan paganus, meaning country-dwellers. 'Pagans' were literally unindoctrinated (catch that word--they were unindoctrinated) country-folk who clung to the old, rural religions of Nature worship. In fact, so strong was the Church's fear of those who lived in the rural villes that the once innocuous word for villager --vilain--came to mean a wicked soul." He says "Early religion was based on the divine order of Nature. The goddess Venus and the planet Venus were one and the same. The goddess had a place in the nighttime sky and was known by many names--Venus, the Eastern Star, Ishtar, Astarte--all of them powerful female concepts with ties to Nature and Mother Earth." This is what he's promoting. Again, on page 124 he writes "Constantine and his male successors

successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever." The plot is all tied in with this promotion of paganism. Now what is this goddess worship? Goddess worship, or the sacred feminine, is really only a symbol. It simply refers to the worship of nature. It's pagan monism [mono meaning one]. That is, everything, divine, human, animals, rocks, grass share the same nature. Everything in nature including ourselves is divine, and we promote our connection to the oneness of the world through fertility rites. Such rites compose another key theme of the book. The female heroine of the book, Sophia, accidentally observed her grandfather, some 10 years before the events of the book engaged in a ritual fertility rite, and because of that, was disgusted and broke off all contact with him for 10 years.

Throughout the book this dark secret raises its head from time to time. Sophia is gradually indoctrinated on the ways of the goddess. After this indoctrination, Robert Langdon, the hero of the story says this to her: "The ancients believed that the male was spiritually incomplete until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. Physical union with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis--that is the knowledge of the divine." "The ability of the woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred. A god.

Intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the human spirit--male and female--through which the male could find spiritual wholeness and communion with God." And this woman who has lived for 10 years disgusted by what she had observed, by the end of the book, sees it as it is, a beautiful, holy, sacred thing.

A third transparent motive is to call for a decision from the reader. It's almost an invitation. Teabing, one of the key characters says [266], "But what about the rest of the world? What about those who are not blessed with absolute certainty?" [Hint, hint, you the reader.] "What about those who look at the cruelty in the world and say Where is God today? Those who look at church scandals and ask Who are these men who claim to speak the truth about Christ and yet lie to cover up the sexual abuse of children by their own priests? Teabing paused. What happens to those people, Robert, if persuasive scientific evidence comes out that the Church's version of the Christ story is inaccurate, and that the greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold." He's calling for a decision. You've got to make a decision between the version of Christianity which you've heard all of your life, and now this new evidence that has come to light.

So what are the dangers with this book? For committed unbelievers, I believe this book and the movie will contribute to a cultural slide into neo-paganism. I don’t know how far it will eventually go, but I expect that in our time, religions and rituals very similar to those that were part of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, will become more popular. For some nominal Christians, those who claim to be Christians but really don't have a clue, I think the book and the movie will undermine their confidence in the facts of Christianity and the biblical documents, and in the person of Christ. Fallen human beings have a predisposition to want to believe error. Why? Because it removes the responsibility for living like the law of God written on their hearts tells them they must live. Here's an excuse. Here's a way out. “Oh, good they think, the Christ that I heard about isn’t true and I can live however I want. In fact, I can even indulge myself in sexual sin and call it an act of worship.” So it has an inherent appeal, and I think people will respond to it.

What about true believers? What are the dangers for us? I think with some it will create pockets of doubt. Perhaps about the biblical documents. Perhaps about Christ himself. There's no reason to doubt, but for some who aren’t taught, they will. I think there's a temptation to turn our response to this movie and book into political action. But the greatest danger is to join God’s enemies to fight neopaganism. For example, Darrell Bock, a professor at DTS, published a book through Nelson called Breaking the DaVinci Code. It's on the New York Times best seller list. It's a great book. But the foreword to this book is written by Professor Francis Moloney, the Dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies of the Catholic University in America. The church doesn’t need to marry the enemies of God to fight the enemies of God. That's exactly what God confronted Old Testament Israel about. Why are you going to Egypt? Why are you going to these other pagan nations for help? God constantly reminded his people that He didn’t need their help. But that's a danger we have to be aware of.

Although there are dangers associated with that popular trend, it also presents us with opportunities. It certainly calls all of us who are followers of Christ to a more careful study of the Bible and to a more prepared defence of our faith. It also establishes a clear distinction between true Christians and the world. As paganism rises, it will become clearer who's Christian and who's not. And that's a healthy thing for the church. Finally it also creates an opportunity for evangelism. The truth is always the best antidote to error, and I would encourage you to give out Piper's book Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. Understanding the biblical Jesus Christ is both a serious antidote to error, and the perfect way to reach out to others.

If you want to read more about the error of The DaVinci Code, my first recommendation is Cracking DaVinci's Code, by James Garlow & Peter Jones. It's an excellent book that I've benefited from the most. What I like about the book is that, they understand the real issue - the idea of goddess worship and the sacred feminine. Other helpful books are: Breaking the DaVinci Code: Answers to the Questions Everybody's Asking by Darrell Bock; The DaVinci Code on Trial by Stephen Clark, The DaVinci Deception by Erwin

W. Lutzer, and The Truth Behind the DaVinci Code by Richard Abanes.

Beloved, there is nothing new about the manifesto in this book. It's as old as the serpent himself. Toward the end of the book--toward the end of the end of the core section of the book, Teabing says this: "In terms of prophecy, we are currently in an epoch of enormous change. The millenium has recently passed, and with it has ended the two- thousand-year-long astrological Age of Pisces--the fish, which is also the sign of Jesus. As any astrological symbologist will tell you, that ideal believes that man must be told what to do by higher powers because man is incapable of thinking for himself. Hence it has been a time of fervent religion. Now, however, we are entering the Age of Aquarius-

-the water bearer-- whose ideals claim that man will learn the truth and be able to think for himself. The shift is enormous, and it is occurring right now". It’s essentially a call to think for yourself outside the scope of divine revelation. And it reminds us of Genesis 3:5, when Satan spoke to Eve: "God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." You will be as wise as God.

Make no mistake, there's nothing to crack in The DaVinci Code. The message could not be clearer. And it is an overt, outright assault on the Christian faith, on Scripture, and on our Lord Himself.