From my reading, there seem to be two reactions - strong abhorrence to the book and/or movie and a lighthearted take on what we should all understand is just 'fiction'. Below is an example of the latter sentiment, from the The Grail Code Blog:
The best thing about The Da Vinci Code is that it's getting a lot of people interested in Christian history. You can get a conversation about the Gnostics started in the dentist's office; you can talk with a stranger about Mary Magdalene while you're waiting on the safety island for the streetcar. These things didn't happen before Dan Brown. (That whole article can be found here.)
I agree with the writer of this piece. Prior to the Dan Brown novel, we were not having these conversations, much less even thinking about such things (at least I wasn't). While I have given some time and attention to early Christian history, Dan Brown's novel forced me to re-think my perception of Jesus, the role of women in the early church and my whole concept of sin.
The book did not, however, shake my faith. And I don't believe, in a widely quoted passage from the book that 'everything we had been taught about Christianity is wrong'. I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I believe that he was the Son of God. So that didn't change upon reading the book.
But it did make me re-think what I thought about Jesus, the workings of the early church and church history as a whole. And the thing to remember (as has often been pointed out) is that the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction (with some factual content about the Priory of Sion, architecture and art history). (The Catholic Answers website does a really good job of debunking the book in 'Cracking the Da Vinci Code'.) So, ultimately, though I thought the book was a pretty good read (though I liked Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons better), it was just one more good read among many. But, as the Grail Code Blog pointed out, we certainly are having a lot more interesting conversations now!
Religion, Spirituality, Christian, Christianity, Articles, Da Vinci Code
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