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For Immediate Release

RE: Da Vinci Code Fiction in a Post-Truth Society

Da Vinci Code Fiction in a Post-Truth Society

May 12, 2006

(On June 17 2005, Philip Jenkins, author and distinguished professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, gave a summary and critique of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code during MBU’s Christian Reflections on Contemporary Culture. Podcasts of Jenkins’ seminar are in the right-hand column.)

By Dr. Andy Chambers, Vice President for Student Development and Associate Professor of Bible

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has sold over 40 million copies world wide. The novel and soon to be released movie present Christians with a unique opportunity to bear witness to Jesus Christ in a post-truth society.

Seek the Truth. So goes the tag line for the movie. The truth according to Dan Brown’s fictional plot involves an explosive secret guarded for centuries, a secret that could undermine Christianity as the church has known it. Readers are led on a breathless chase through the cathedrals of Europe and through Christian history in search of an ancient document called the “Gospel According to Mary Magdalene” that will verify the truth of the secret.

What is the secret? According to The Da Vinci Code, Jesus Christ was neither the divine Son of God nor the only way of salvation. Rather, Jesus was a mortal prophet. He married Mary Magdalene and had children with her, intending that Mary should be the head of a church that worshiped the Divine Feminine, characteristic of pagan religions, rather than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How did a patriarchal faith displace the matriarchal goddess religion Jesus intended? It is here where Brown hooks conspiracy buffs. According to Brown, Jesus was not worshiped as divine until the fourth century A.D. when Emperor Constantine—in a power grab—imposed this view on the Roman Empire through the Council of Nicea. The bishops there voted and decreed that Jesus is God and the only way of salvation. The Nicene Creed thus placed the Roman Catholic Church with its male leadership firmly in control of the means of salvation and consequently the minds and hearts of its subjects. To pull off their coup, church leaders condemned every opposing view of Christ as heresy and secured four Gospels to support their view. They destroyed all but a few copies of the so called “more authentic” gospels, like the one at the center of The Da Vinci Code, which the Catholic Church will stop at nothing to destroy.

The novel is fast paced and full of suspense. Dan Brown touches on enough historical places and persons that uninformed readers might not recognize the story as fiction. Sadly, many will not care, and here is where the problem lies. Brown’s conspiracy story sounds plausible and has enough connections to history that some believe it may be accurate. However, if it is, then Jesus could not have risen from the dead. His body would have rotted in the grave, and faith in Christ would be utterly pointless (1 Corinthians 15:14).

So, what is the truth? What did the first Christians believe about Jesus? From the beginning of the Christian movement the early church believed Jesus Christ was God. Jesus was worshiped in the Gospels (Matthew 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38). To Paul Jesus was “in very nature God” (Philippians 2:6) and the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). To Peter Jesus was our “God and Savior” (2 Peter 1:1; see also Titus 2:13). John called Jesus the Word that “was God” who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). Hebrews calls Jesus the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being” (Hebrews 1:3a). When Thomas finally believed Jesus was risen and standing before him, he said to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

These were first generation Christians who were utterly convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was Jehovah, the creator and sustainer of the universe (John 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:3b). They believed his name was the only name given under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Whatever your belief about who Jesus is, make no mistake: the earliest Christians thought Jesus was God. They would not have died for what they knew was a lie. Jesus himself claimed to be God. He called himself the “I am”, Yahweh, who revealed himself to Moses (John 8:58; see also Exodus 3:14). Jesus claimed to forgive sins, something only God could do (Luke 7:47-48). He allowed others to call him God’s Son (Matthew 14:33). Even his enemies understood that by calling God his own Father Jesus was “making Himself equal to God” (John 5:18). Jesus promised he would rise from the dead (Matthew 20:18-19). He said he would be the final judge at the end of time (Matthew 25:31-46). The apostles who heard these things also saw Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, calm the sea, and they saw him alive again after his crucifixion. They staked their eternity on what they heard and saw (1 John 1:1-3; 2 Peter 1:16-18).

What did the early church believe? Did subsequent generations of Christians believe Jesus was God? Hear several early Christian writers. Ignatius wrote, “God Himself was manifested in human form” (A.D. 105). Clement wrote, “It is fitting that you should think of Jesus as God” (A.D. 150). Justin Martyr declared, “The father of the universe has a Son. And He … is even God” (A.D. 160). Irenaeus said that Jesus “is God, for the name Emmanuel indicates this” (A.D. 180). Origen said, “No one should be offended that the Savior is also God” (A.D. 225). Cyprian called Jesus “our Lord and God” (A.D. 250). These men preached what the church uniformly professed, that Jesus is God.

Are our Gospels the right Gospels? There were many books and letters concerning the life of Christ, so how were the books in our New Testament chosen? Why were other gospels, like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, excluded from the Bible? The church insisted that accepted books be written by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle. Their message had to be consistent with the earliest proclamation of Jesus Christ as God and Lord. Some other books, including the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the recently discovered Gospel of Judas, however, were written by heretical Gnostic teachers who denied the deity of Jesus and his incarnation as a man. Written in the second through fourth centuries A.D.—long after the apostles, Jesus’ first biographers, died—these gospels did not line up with what the apostles preached and wrote several generations earlier. The churches flatly rejected them due to their late date and because they did not proclaim Jesus as God. Official pronouncements on lists of New Testament books were as much affirmations of what the Holy Spirit had already done in the churches as they were official decrees.

Was the Nicene Creed the result of a conspiracy? In the early fourth century a heresy known as Arianism arose that said Jesus was a created being and not of the same nature as God. The conflict over Arianism was so great that it threatened to split the church. Constantine saw the dispute as a threat to the stability of the Roman Empire. Indeed, Constantine did call the church’s bishops together at the Council of Nicea as The Da Vinci Code says, but his motives were more political than anything else. The Arian controversy had to be resolved so that he could keep his empire together. The Council concluded in the Nicene Creed what the church had already confessed for generations, that Jesus is, “begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” There was no conspiracy to replace a mortal Jesus with a divine Jesus.

Why is the lie so appealing? The Da Vinci Code has very little in common with the facts of early Christian history. Dan Brown blurs the line between fiction and history, and few care, because we live in a post-truth society. Whether something is true historically is not as relevant as how it connects to me. People love a conspiracy thriller that also offers them a nice Jesus remarkably like themselves. Our culture does not want the Jesus of history with teeth, who calls sin what it is and says that he is the only way to the Father (John 14:6).

Bearing witness to the truth in a post-truth society. How do you bear witness to Christ in a culture that is confused about who Jesus is and what he has done for us? Tell them the truth and remember as you do that the gospel is still the power of God (Romans 1:16; Acts 1:8). Do not forget that God wants you, regardless of what the culture says, to lift up Jesus to a hurting world. When you lift him up, Jesus promises that he will draw all people to himself (John 12:32). Dan Brown, publisher Doubleday Books, and Sony Pictures know how to make a buck. However, Jesus Christ will still be the way, the truth, and the life long after The Da Vinci Code has been forgotten. People still need a savior, and Jesus is still enough for every seeking heart.

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Missouri Baptist University is a premier Christian university in Saint Louis, offering graduate and undergraduate studies in over thirty specialized fields and nine degrees. MBU's education and fine arts programs are nationally known in addition to business, religion, administration of justice, and more. MBU is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Missouri with an enrollment of over 4,500 students at five locations in the bi-state region — West County, Lincoln County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the new Illinois extension at Lewis and Clark Community College.

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