10: The DaVinci Code, Part 2

My last newsletter was delayed because Jim Garlow and I were writing Cracking Da Vinci’s Code: You’ve Read the Fiction, Now Read the Facts, a response to Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, which has 7 million copies in print, representing some 30 million readers. Ron Howard, producer of Beautiful Mind, is making the movie version, slated for 2005. When Dan Brown finishes with America, evangelism will never be the same.

Previously, I discussed Brown’s attack on the historicity of the Christian faith, but his promotion of a “new” spirituality is even more explosive. This is when the feathers begin to fly. On the “Deborah Norville Tonight” show, my co–author discussed our book in the company of two formidable Gnostic scholars, Karen King from Harvard, and Harold Attridge from Yale, who buy into Brown’s views of feminism and spirituality. The conflict is out in the open.

Brown’s “positive” approach resurrects “pre–Christian” symbols and promotes the ancient spirituality of paganism–the worship of Nature as god. Brown’s hope for the future of the planet in the Age of Aquarius is the all–inclusive circle, “the divine feminine” and the figure of the Goddess. He finds this message encoded in the blocks of the Roslyn Chapel, which he calls “the Cathedral of Codes” (432).

Each block was carved with a symbol…to create a multifaceted surface (436)…Christian cruciforms, Jewish stars, Masonic seals, Templar crosses, cornucopias, pyramids, astrological signs, plants, vegetables, pentacles and roses…Rosslyn Chapel was a shrine to all faiths…to all traditions…and, above all, to nature and the goddess (434).

One character exhorts the hero, Robert Langdon, in missionary terms: “We are beginning to sense the need to restore the sacred feminine,…Sing her song. The world needs modern troubadours” (444).

Brown’s deep code is simple and radical: early, authentic pagan spirituality must replace the “Christian” imposter. Peace–loving “matriarchal paganism” and the “divine feminine” existed before Christianity, which is only the faith of violent, power–hungry, macho patriarchs (124). The pre–Christian Goddess must replace the God of the Bible. This, of course, was the “gospel” of ancient Gnosticism, to which Brown makes numerous allusions, which, in its extreme forms, declared that the Goddess, “the sacred feminine,” would cast Jahweh, the Maker of heaven and earth, into hell.

Why is Brown’s book so popular? Because it touches a deep vein of contemporary culture. Since the 1960s, we have lived through a religious revolution far more radical than the 1776 Revolutionary War. The religious coup has cut us free from our Christian–inspired past and established new and radical views of the family, education, morals, marriage, sexuality, spirituality and God. Darwinism has eliminated the Creator while feminism has, in its own words, “engaged in the slow execution of Christ and Jahweh” (the ultimate patriarchs). Until now, such views were held mainly by a politically–correct cultural elite who stayed within the ivory towers of academia. But professors like the fictional Langdon have been teaching required university courses to our children for a generation or two. Brown’s novel and its coming movie version show how effective the academic propaganda has been. The “new spirituality” is now beginning to permeate vast sections of thepermeates popular culture.

In our book, Jim and I have tried to peel away the fictional layers of Brown’s novel to show its true agenda. We have been inundated with television (Fox, MSNBC), radio and newspaper interviews. Of course, it is reflected glory! People are reading our book because they want to understand the meaning of Dan Brown’s work.

Christians could deplore the anti–Christian propaganda, race up the nearest mountain and wait for Jesus to return. But the Church doesn’t run. It states the truth with creeds, confessions, theological argument and, eventually, with its blood. Actually,

Brown’s challenge provides a wonderful occasion for evangelism, and our book is, praise the Lord, proving to be a helpful tool.* Today I received a poignant e–mail which read:

Sir, I would like to find out all there is to know about how we got our bible….where all the writings came from etc. I don’t know where to start. Could you lead me in the right direction…are there textbooks for laymen that I can purchase?

Along with others, truthXchange points people to the truth by promoting a responsible theological answer to the neo–pagan threat. May God grant a revival of true faith and courageous witness as we stand together, strengthened by the knowledge that we have not been given “a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and love and self–control,” in order to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” Creator and Redeemer.