Friday January 14, 2005
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The Da Vinci Code: Hoodwinking the World
by John Jalsevac
A quick perusal through the ‘religious’ section at any local bookstore today reveals that a surprising number of people are pre-occupied with debunking The Da Vinci Code. Unsurprisingly the opposing sides of the debate have different explanations for this phenomenon. Critics of the book take it as evidence that the The Da Vinci Code and its claims simply can’t stand against established facts. Advocates of the novel go the opposite route and take the volume of attacks against it as evidence that Christians fear the book. Therefore—their reasoning goes—there must be something within the novel that Christians legitimately find threatening to their beliefs.
As is usually the case, there is truth to both sides. Opponents, such as Sandra Miesel, author of The Da Vinci Hoax, are correct to criticize the novel “for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action,” and more importantly for “the utter falseness of Brown’s material.” Indeed, the New York Daily News’ enthusiastic acclaim that “His [Dan Brown’s] research is impeccable,” can only be taken as a tasteless joke to anyone who knows the first thing about the ‘factual’ basis for the novel.
On the other hand, fans of the The Da Vinci Code (which has already sold over 12 million copies) are most likely right to wonder at the degree of fear that Christians, ‘conservative’ historians, and pretty much any well-meaning and educated reader reserve for The Da Vinci Code. What these pro-Code advocates have missed, however, is that what is worrying Da Vinci critics isn’t so much what the book has to say, but the fact that millions are swallowing it whole, without question. What critics of the Code are wondering is what this says about the state of our culture. The conclusions they are coming to are anything but comforting.
In a December article in The National Review, David Klinhoffer stated, “If I were a Christian…I think I would find it a little disturbing that some fellow Christians do in fact view this novel as a threat to their faith.” He adds the insight, “If the professional educators were doing their job, any believing Catholic past elementary-school age would know that Brown’s book is a total falsehood.”
However, although Catholicism and its prelature of Opus Dei are clearly the primary targets for Brown, the Code is a thoroughly vicious attack upon a great deal more than that. Indeed, it seems that anybody believing anything and who is past elementary-school age should know that Brown’s book is total falsehood.
In one of the many tiresome lectures which structure the novel, one of the main characters states with a knowing chuckle, “Every faith in the world is based on fabrication.” That’s one heck of a statement to swallow, no matter what your faith or creed. After all, religion isn’t the only thing we have faith in. We have faith in our friends, our family, our teachers, our spouses; are we to assume that these too are based upon fabrication?
In another remarkably unsubtle passage Brown ironically expresses his own relativistic opinions about history through the character of the royal historian Teabing: “…history,” Teabing states, “is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books—books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe…‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon?’” Readers are naturally left to wonder why Teabing ever bothered to spend years studying to become a historian in the first place.
Historian Character Reflects Authors Cynical Views
It is evident throughout The Da Vinci Code that Teabing’s cynical views are the author’s views. Brown unscrupulously takes the shells of typology, literature, theology, philosophy and history—in this case nothing more than the names, dates, and places—disembowels them, tosses the entrails, and throws his own manufactured contents back into their carcasses. The result is a nearly impenetrable mish-mash of fact, pseudo-fact, and blatant lie.
Forget all the controversial stuff about Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene and the predominance of the so-called sacred feminine in the early Church. Who can read Brown’s poker-faced claim that the English language has no ties to Latin without laughing outright? Or what faithful Jew can keep from gagging when Brown declares that in early Judaism the Jews worshipped a goddess equivalent of Yahweh by performing gratuitous sex-rites in the Holy of Holies? The list goes on.
Why Are Many Readers Taking its Outrageous Claims Seriously?
But if the book is as ludicrous as all that (and it truly is), again it must be asked, why is it selling, and, more importantly, why are readers taking its preposterous claims seriously?
Dan Brown himself presents us with the answer. Twice in the course of the book his characters exclaim “everyone loves a conspiracy.” David Klinghoffer explains that “the best thing about The Da Vinci Code is that the conspiracy is just an awfully neat one. What makes for an outstanding conspiracy? It doesn’t have to be real, as this one is surely not, despite Brown’s inclusion of a preface boldly headlined “FACT.”
Indeed, it is that FACT page that provides the key to the whole question. For the very pulse of a conspiracy theory is that it provides an alternate ‘truth’, any truth, just as long as it isn’t the established one.
Chesterton once said of Christianity that what made it so unique in world history was that it was a myth that just happened to be true. Historically Christ did live, die and resurrect from the dead. Hundreds of witnesses and corresponding written eyewitness accounts attest to this. What Dan Brown is doing in The Da Vinci Code—and what his readers find so attractive about it—is presenting his own myth and attempting the gargantuan (although ultimately impossible) task of legitimizing it with the same sort of historical authenticity that the ‘traditional’ story of Christ has.
However, his attempt falls flat on its back, for several reasons. The first is that the ‘sources’ from which Brown gleaned his so-called ‘impeccable research’ are largely unheard of texts that no principled or sane academic would ever take seriously. That is to say, the whole thing is pure bunk.
And the second, more important reason that it falls flat on its back is that by the half-way mark any inquisitive reader of the Code can’t help but ask, “Who the heck cares?” For Brown’s views of history are entirely post-modernist in nature; that is he refuses to acknowledge the existence of historical truth altogether. And like any other post-modernist view of history, his opinions are fraught with contradiction.
As Brown’s characters race through France and Britain, sharing breathless conversations that reveal long suppressed ‘truths’ about history, literally dodging bullets and risking their lives at every turn of the road, the reader wonders what on earth it’s all about. If history, after all—according to Brown—is only written by the winner, than this whole attempt to bring to light the ‘true’ history of Christ is nothing more than another attempt to impose a new and equally false interpretation of history on the world. Why all this ridiculous stress on revealing the ‘truth of history’ when the characters themselves have admitted that there is no such thing as truth to begin with? Now we get to the real purpose of The Da Vinci Code.
The Real Purpose of the DaVinci Code
However idiotic Brown’s attempts to popularize a ‘new’ version of history might be, his book and the popular response to it is a useful gauge for the present state of our culture. With all the focus on the ‘conspiracy’ of the suppressing of the ‘sacred feminine’ by the Catholic Church, etc., many readers have no doubt missed what is perhaps the most fundamental passage of the whole book. It occurs when Teabing (the royal historian) jubilantly declares, “Now, however, we are entering the Age of Aquarius—the water bearer—whose ideals claim that man will learn the truth and be able to think for himself. The ideological shift is enormous, and it is occurring right now.”
Just to make sure that nothing has been misunderstood, the idea was put even more clearly by Brown in a Washington Post Interview: “In the past, knowledge was something that was handed down by authority figures; now we seek and discover for ourselves.” And that, sadly, is an accurate depiction of the predominant mindset of the Western World. It is the core belief that lies behind books like The Da Vinci Code, and it is what makes them so attractive. There is no truth. We are all gods.
Those who are actively engaged in the culture wars are alarmed by the popularity of this book, and for good reason. Not only does its popularity and widespread acceptance as an accurate view of history highlight the intensity of the struggle they are engaged in, the impact of the book is hardly helping matters. It is spreading the destructive mindset that the truth is always esoteric, never in the hands of the accepted authorities, and rarely achievable.
Recent polls have remarked how ‘spirituality’ in the Western world appears to be increasing. And yet if the spirituality that is becoming predominant is based upon relativistic beliefs such as those found in The Da Vinci Code, there is reason to be apprehensive. Remarkably it seems that millions might be on the path to casting aside four millennia of human history, four millennia of mistakes made and lessons learned and wisdom passed on from generation to generation, in favour of a vague, shadowy and ultimately false quest for personal truth.
There Can be a Positive Outcome From This Controversy
And yet there can be a positive outcome to the Da Vinci controversy. Co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax Carl Olsen states that although “these distorted views of history and Catholicism…are the closest thing to theology and catechesis that some people will ever read,” his “interest is not in telling people to not read the novel, but to encourage them to analyze and carefully assess what it is saying and to consider why it was written.”
Indeed, it is indisputable that as a result of the incredible popularity of The Da Vinci Code millions of individuals who may never have considered many of the more challenging religious, historical and spiritual questions presented in the novel are now looking into these issues. Sadly, this new generation of seekers has begun by being steered in precisely the wrong direction. But the seed of inquiry has been planted. Instead of deadly apathy, now there is at least a growing interest about these matters; and sincere curiosity is the seed that if nourished can grow into the tree of true knowledge. Even Dan Brown seems to recognize this (although it is doubtful that he understands the full import of what he is saying) when he states on his personal webpage, “Religion has only one true enemy–apathy–and passionate debate is a superb antidote.”
Although the world could certainly have done without the book, those who are on the right side of the culture war must strive to use the climate created by books such as The Da Vinci Code as the platform to guide the new generation of seekers without answers towards the answers for which they crave and the truths which in their hearts they know exist.
20 year old John Jalsevac is a first year student in the demanding classical liberal arts program at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. His home is in Toronto, Canada
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