The Da Vinci Code and American Culture

Editor’s note: This article by Mark Rathel, a theology professor at The Baptist College of Florida, is the first of five exploring some of the claims of The Da Vinci Code in the weeks leading up to the May 19 release of the motion picture of the same name.

GRACEVILLE (FBW)–In 2005, Time magazine named Dan Brown one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Dan Brown has risen from college professor of English at Amherst College to an international personality because of a series of best-selling books. Brown’s suspense-filled and controversial The Da Vinci Code has been on The Publisher’s Weekly list for best-selling fictional works since the release of the book three years ago.

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On May 19, Sony Pictures will release the movie version of The Da Vinci Code. Ron Howard directs the movie. Award-winning superstar Tom Hanks plays central character Robert Langdon, a Harvard University symbologist. With such heavy-hitters involved in the production, the movie version also will be hugely successful.

Christians should be aware, however, that the central theme of the book undermines the heart of Christianity.

According to The Da Vinci Code, Jesus was a mortal man who married Mary Magdalene and who did not survive His crucifixion. After His death, the pregnant Mary relocated to France where Sarah, the child of Jesus and Mary, was born. The bloodline of Sarah became the royal bloodline of the Merovingians – a dynasty of Frankish kings. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary is the legendary Holy Grail. A secret society formed in the medieval period has revealed the secret of the bloodline through various codes placed in influential pieces of art. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, implanted a code revealing the secret of the Holy Grail. In da Vinci’s The Last Supper a “V” symbol, a symbol for the feminine, separates Jesus from the person on his right side. This effeminate-looking disciple actually is Mary Magdalene, the wife of Jesus. The Roman Emperor Constantine promoted Jesus from human status to divine status and commissioned an official Bible that embellished the divine activities of Jesus. The patriarchal Catholic Church conspired to cover-up the Grail secret and oppress alternate Christianities open to the feminine and sexuality.

Christians should fear neither the book nor the movie; after all, Dan Brown’s creation is a novel – a fictional story. The movie, however, will give Christians a unique opportunity to share the biblical truth about Jesus with family, co-workers and friends.

Christians need to realize that both the book and the movie reveal more about American culture than the book reveals about the historical Jesus.

First, the prominence Brown gives to “lost gospels” mirrors a long tradition in American cults, specifically the period 1880’s to the 1920’s. Philip Jenkins, professor of religious studies at the Penn State University, in an excellent book Hidden Gospels noted that since the 1870’s subcultural religious groups, namely esoteric, theosophical and occult movements operating on the fringes of American culture placed a strong emphasis on “lost gospels.”

Jenkins characterizes this period from 1880 to 1920 in the following ways: discovery of new religious texts, acceptance of key Gnostic teachings, favorable comparisons between Jesus and Eastern gurus, popularity of religious fiction detailing the life of Christ, an emphasis upon the sexuality of Jesus, and the deviance of Pauline Christianity. During the last 20 years, these subcultural phenomena entered mainstream American culture through the media. Brown’s book reflects a more-than-century-old emphasis in American religion.

Second, The Da Vinci Code popularizes numerous conclusions of a media-savvy group of academics called the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar claims that the gospels of the Bible contain very little information about the historical sayings and deeds of Jesus. For the Jesus Seminar, various non-biblical gospels predate the four accepted gospels and reveal an alternate Christianity: an individualistic, egalitarian, feminine, libertarian Christianity that highlighted mystical relationship rather than doctrine. The Christianity of The Da Vinci Code imitates the Christianity envisioned by the Jesus Seminar.

Third, The Da Vinci Code illustrates numerous aspects of postmodernism. In contrast to modernity’s quest for certainty, postmodernism denies that certainty is possible. Postmodernism approaches any written text with a hermeneutic of suspicion, that is, they approach any written texts, including the gospels, with an attitude that the text masks political oppression. According to The Da Vinci Code, the Catholic Church limited the number of gospels to four as a means to politically oppress and disenfranchise those who disagreed with the male leadership of the church. Postmodernists, therefore, affirm a need to study alternate texts. Further, postmodernists affirm the necessity of historical revision – history that focuses on oppressed groups.

Fourth, The Da Vinci Code contains some teachings from the New Age Movement. For example, major character Sir Leigh Teabing contrasts the Age of Pisces, a time of fervent hierarchical religion symbolized by the fish, with the dawning Age of Aquarius in which humans think for themselves (pp. 267-68). Thus, the character reveals the real code of the book – Brown desires people to reject what religious authorities told them about Christ and think for themselves.

Be of good courage, Christians. The Da Vinci Code cannot defeat the historical reliability of the New Testament. Begin now praying for opportunities to share the real Gospel that arise because of the release of the movie.

Sony Pictures graphic

The Da Vinci Code stars Audrey Tautou and Tom Hanks. The movie is based on the book by Dan Brown and is directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. The Da Vinci Code is slated for release May 19.