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Two Summers ago I headed off on holiday with a book I felt I had to read. It was first brought to my attention by a member of the congregation who had read it and had some serious concerns about it. As I was researching it before I bought it, I began to realise that this same book was being talked about in Press and on certain television programmes. It was causing a stir in many religious circles too. By the time you read this it will be showing in the cinemas the length and breadth of the country. It has been estimated that if the movie does as well as the book it could break all box office records…only time will tell.
The name of the book? Well I’m sure that by this stage you have guessed it, it’s “The Da Vinci Code.”
Some of you might find it strange that I read it since there has been such an uproar about it but I believed that I needed to know first hand what it was all about. In fairness to Dan Brown the massive best seller is a gripping read. It caused me on more than one occasion to want to turn the page just to see what was going to happen next. It twisted and turned on many occasions and left you wondering what was going to happen next. It is a story of deception and hidden truth and yet what many fail to realise is the fact that the whole premise of the story itself is an extremely dangerous deception.
Dan Brown was not the first and I fear he won’t be the last to try to claim that Jesus Christ was simply a good man, a prophet perhaps but certainly not divine. And yet the Bible affirms Jesus’ words that no one could come to the Father except through him. The book claims that the Bible is unreliable and simply the product of men trying to deceive the rest of us does not in any way stand the test of academic scrutiny. The danger here is that this sounds very attractive to a lot of people because it would then undermine God’s authority when He tells us for example that we have rebelled against His right to order our lives…
If you have read this book or plan to, if you have seen this movie or plan to, you need to be aware of the lie that this book claims to be based on fact. It is not. Sandra Miesel of Crisis Magazine writes: “So error-laden is the Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth…”
Richard Abanes writes in “The Truth behind the Da Vinci Code,” The Da Vinci code clearly contains many historical errors covering a wide range of issues: church architecture, religious symbolism, the Roman Empire, ancient Israel and different spiritual belief systems. If Brown cannot be relied upon to accurately recount the most basic of historical facts then how can he be trusted to correctly explain more complex subjects?”
As C.S Lewis said, “Either this man was and is the son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
My friends be careful with what the world tells you is truth… Jesus Christ said HE was the way the truth and the life. Unlike Dan Brown, Jesus has never lied to us.
I hope you enjoy your summer holidays and you get some decent reading done!
God Bless
Your friend - Alan Johnston
For further reading can I suggest:
Exploring the Da Vinci Code – Lee Strobel and Garry Poole;
The Da Vinci Code – Fact or fiction? – Hank Hanegraaff and Paul L. Maier
Da Vinci – A broken Code – Brian Edwards
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