Comments on The DaVinci Code
You are probably reading this article because you have
just watched the movie version of Dan Brown’s bestseller, The DaVinci Code. It was
fun and exciting, wasn’t it? It was full of suspense, intrigue, and
mystery.
It wasn’t just any ordinary mystery,
either. It was the mystery of all
mysteries because it was about a person who has been at the core of Western
civilization for two thousand years. We
have defined ourselves in the light of his message for mankind. That person is
Jesus Christ.
The big question everybody is asking
is “Is it accurate?” And the answer is,
“Well, sort of no and sort of yes.” Yes,
Jesus was married and yes, there is an esoteric tradition in Christianity that
involves ritual sex, a sacred lineage, and the destiny of mankind.
No, the deity of Christ was not
invented by Constantine and the Council of Nicea. No, Christianity was not originally a Gnostic
cult involving goddess worship.
Yes, the Holy Spirit is the feminine person of the Triune
Godhead. No, there is not a dualistic godhead of a god and goddess, or even of
a God and Satan, for that matter.
This whole website is about the kinds of
questions raised by Brown’s books, but it is not a response to his books. The
The best place to start for the most
pertinent information relating to the evidence of a married Jesus and its
religious significance is to go to this link: http://www.grailchurch.org/marriedjesus.htm.
The first three chapters of my book Hierogamy
& the Married Messiah are available free on-line by going to http://www.grailchurch.org/outline.htm. Phipps’s book is reviewed in chapter three.
There is only one passing reference to The
DaVinci Code.
Why?
Well, because I don’t believe there is really anything new in Brown’s
book. If you want factual information, a
novel is not a good place to get it. His
book is riddled with errors. It’s a fun
read, but it’s a fictional novel.
Remember that.
The significance of the book is its
phenomenal reception by the reading public.
It represents a great hunger for the kind of Jesus portrayed in its
pages. It represents a disappointment
with organized religion and the desire for something different and real.
However, there is a down side. In my
opinion, people ignore the fact that The
DaVinci Code ends with the Grail enthusiasts as the bad guys and the
Catholic Church as the good guys. Remember that?
Doesn’t that seem odd to you?
Historically, champions of the Grail have been painted
by the Church as Satanists, Antichrists, and immoral libertines. Today, Fundamentalist Christians are getting
into the act and doing the work for
I don’t think that Brown is consciously
defending the religious establishment.
He is out to make a buck. There
is nothing wrong with that. But his
first novel, Angels & Demons,
explains more his relationship with the Church.
If you read that book, you will find, again,
the Roman Catholic institution under attack - this time by a renegade within
the Church who is using the lore of the Illuminati as a cloak for his power
grab. The end is the same: the Church is
the “normal” world; the mystics are the freaks.
To write his book with such detail,
Brown needed cooperation from the
Why is this important? Well, think about it. A novelist, like Stephen King, needs new and
hard-to-get information to write a book that’s different from everybody
else’s. He needs inside information.
Suppose I am a representative of a
government agency with that inside information.
Am I going to give it to an author who is going to trash my agency? Of course, not. I want a flattering novel. I want good publicity so that my superiors
will be pleased with my decision to help this guy. I might even demand a promise from the author
that I can edit his novel or prevent its publication if I don’t like it. If the information is sensitive enough, I
might even be willing to murder the him “to protect
national security.”
You think I’m joking? I think most people have forgotten what the
price of truth can sometimes be. We
watch movies and documentaries, thinking we’re getting the straight scoop. We have no idea that we are getting
somebody’s propaganda. That’s why there
are TV commercials.
Is Brown giving us propaganda? I think so.
He seems to be an
iconoclast. He seems to want us to believe an alternative view of Church
history. But he must also satisfy the
“sensitivities” of the Church. So, he
makes the most informed person in the script – the Grail aficionado – the
freaking lunatic. In the end we have an
encounter at Rossylyn Chapel . . . a dud ending in my view. The notion that Jesus was married and had
descendants does not change the world in The
DaVinci Code. Everything stays the
same, including the Church. It becomes a
question of existential faith. What is
real to me is what matters. If I want to believe Jesus was married, fine,
just don’t get into it too deep. I might end up like Sir Leigh Teabing.
It’s the same tactic used in the
investigation of UFO’s. Turn the subject
into a comic strip or a TV show like the “X-Files” and the general public will
treat it as a passing fad.
You need to realize that the matter of the Holy Grail
is deeper in the subconscious experience of our Western heritage. It is not a passing fad. It keeps coming back. The Grail legends were a latent protest to
the fact that we have a major world religion founded by a eunuch. It has
addressed an unresolved psychological dichotomy that has profound implications
for our species. It deserves to be
treated seriously.
-
James Wesley
Stivers james@grailchurch.org