“Like the murmurs of spirits in the darkness, forgotten words echoed. The quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one.
With a sudden upwelling of reverence, Robert Langdon fell to his knees.
For a moment, he thought he heard a woman’s voice…the wisdom of the ages…whispering up from the chasms of the earth.” (The Da Vinci Code)
This is the close of Dan Brown’s mega selling fictional novel. Here’s all the mystery of dark murmuring spirits, the pride of discovering the ancient secret, the code that only the initiated know, and all the knightly virtue of coming to the rescue of an outcast damsel and defending the rights of abused women everywhere, especially those disenfranchised by the male dominated, authoritarian Church.
In interviews Brown smiles and simply states that it’s fiction—a good story. His desire is to generate an illuminating debate, but when Charles Gibson pressed him on Good Morning America in 2003, Brown stated that if he had written the work as a nonfiction book, it would not have been different. He spoke as a convert. He said he began researching the work as a skeptic but two years of research in Europe convinced him. He became a believer.
The author can’t duck. He is talking about “faith,” and as you read the book and go to see the movie, according to his official website, he wants you to join him in the attempt to decipher life's big mysteries and to join him on the path of enlightenment.
As you walk this path, I want to challenge you to ask where Dan Brown is taking you, what he wants you to believe, and whether you really want to go this direction with him.
To help you I want to open the pages of his novel and help you see the plot and listen to his characters as they express what they believe. At this Truth Encounter web site I’ll give us some basic questions to ask, allow you to do some work for yourself, and then share with you my own convictions.
A good place to start our DaVinci Code journey is with Brown’s definition of “faith” and “Christian.” On his web site in response to the question, “Are you a Christian?” he writes,
“Yes. Interestingly, if you ask three people what it means to be a Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as absolute historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the point where we entirely miss the obvious--that is, that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries, and we're each following our own paths of enlightenment. I consider myself a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress.”
Think about it:
--According to this paragraph, how does Dan Brown define “Christian?”
--How does he define “faith?”
--What does he mean when he says “faith” is “ethereal?”
--How do you define “Christian?”
--How does the Bible, the original first century source of the Christian faith, define the term?
--Do you agree or disagree with Brown that spiritual faith is a quest “to decipher life's big mysteries,” and that “we're each following our own paths of enlightenment?”
--What did the first century Christians mean when they used the term “faith?”
--Take a careful look at Romans 1:8, 16-17, 3:23-28, 1 Corinthians 2:5, 15:14, Hebrews 12:2, 1 Peter 1:1-9 and jot down how these first century Christians used the word faith.
After you have had a chance to wrestle with these questions, I’ll give you some of my own answers.
Keep checking www.truthencounter.com for my answers and some more clues on Dan Brown and his “code.”