Food for Thought: The Da Vinci Opportunity

In less than a month, Ron Howard's screen version of Dan Brown's best-selling novel, "The Da Vinci Code," will open in theaters. There are rumors that the film tones down some of the novel's extreme anti-Christian bias, but that remains to be seen. To date, the book has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and has spawned a veritable cottage industry of books and articles expanding on it or debunking it. The novel is part mystery, part romance, and a lot of conspiracy theory. And what is the conspiracy supposedly all about? Covering up the fact that everything we think we know about Christ and his church is wrong.

This is not the place to refute "The Da Vinci Code" or its underlying thesis. That would take a whole book and, in fact, a number of them have been written that do just that. (The one I read was "Cracking Da Vinci's Code" by James L. Garlow and Peter Jones). What I want to do is point out that the release of the film version presents Christians with a marvelous opportunity.

No doubt the movie will be the catalyst for a lot of conversations around a lot of office water coolers and in a lot of lunch rooms. Even in work environments where "God talk" is frowned upon, people are bound to talk about this movie; this gives us a perfect opening to set the record straight, and maybe even get others to consider the truths of real Christianity.

To do that, though, we first need to educate ourselves. In addition to the book by Garlow and Jones, there is Darrell L. Bock's "Breaking The Da Vinci Code," Olson and Miesel's "The Da Vinci Hoax," and Erwin Lutzer's "The Da Vinci Deception," as well as others. You can find some excellent articles online -- e.g., Collin Hansen's article on the Christian History website or several articles by Sandra Miesel. (article1)

Even if you don't get to use this knowledge in conversation, you'll at least learn something about the true history of the early church and how we actually got our Bible. And that's an opportunity that's always worth pursuing.

--Phil Manger