DaVinci, DaVinci, DaVinci - What have you Done?

OK...another Hollywood blockbuster has hit the scene -- The DaVinci Code -- from the Dan Brown novel has made a big splash with mainly "not so great reviews". Translated that means that even Tom Hanks can't save a plot built off of lies.
It's interesting to watch the public reaction to the DaVinci movie. It seems that most newspapers and movie reviewers go to great lengths to avoid getting involved in the overall controversy associated with the novel and movie theme. One local writer editorialized that "it's just fiction". That's interesting given that the author, Dan Brown, states even before the prologue, “All descriptions of artworks, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” Book reviews followed suit. The author himself has claimed on television and his web site that his depiction is based on credible facts that he believes.
The Da Vinci Code is a murder mystery coupled with a conspiracy claim. That claim is that the story of Jesus in our gospels is actually a lie that has been covered up by the Church for centuries and there are other gospels revealing that Jesus was just a man who married Mary Magdalene, had children with her, and left her in charge of his church when he died. The overall premise is that the church, around 300 a.d., under the control of Constantine sought to make Jesus divine -- more than human -- and therefore squelched all other gospels that might reflect on Jesus as mere mortal. A 2004 article in Christianity Today makes that point: "The Da Vinci Code, villain Leigh Teabing explains to cryptologist Sophie Neveu that at the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) "many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon," including the divinity of Jesus. "Until that moment," he says, "Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet. … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless."
Neveu is shocked: "Not the Son of God?"
Teabing explains: "Jesus' establishment as 'the Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea."
"Hold on. You're saying that Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote?"
"A relatively close one at that," Teabing says.
A little later, Teabing adds this speech: "Because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke…Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned." The link to the full article is... http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/006/7.26.html
Almost 20 years ago a religious scholar, Elaine Pagels, published The Gnostic Gospels in which she lays claim to many other sources of information about Jesus from gospel accounts written in the early church period. Thus has begun a resurgence in a populist, and relatively humanistic attemtp at de-divinizing Jesus.
The problem is that Pagels simply chooses to ignore the theological history of the early church. By the end of the 1st century Gnosticism had reared up as a competitive voice to the Apostolic fathers. Gnosticism isn't easy to define, but it looks a lot like modern day Pseudo-Intellectual Humanism with a bit of Eastern Religion mixed in. Basically, the early Gnostics claimed that Jesus was only a human whom God came upon and endowed with supernatural abilities until his mission was completed. His mission? -- to bring knowledge or enlightenment to people in darkness (hence Gnostic from the Greek word gnosis). So, the modern Gnostics, like the ancient ones made claim to a human Jesus, who God used as a noble prophet teacher, but who was not God. Pagels, Brown, and other modern Gnostics simply pick up where the early church Gnostics left off.
Why?
I have pondered that question for a while as I've seen the popularity of Dan Brown's novel take off and the movie come to pass. I am of the opinion that there are a number of things at work in this.
1. There is the underlying tension that has often existed between people who believe in Christ and non-believers. This just serves to give ammunition to those who aren't inclined to "trust" anyone other themselves.
2. There is the tension of authority around what we believe. If we say that we are believers in the authority of the bible -- that it is timeless truth -- of necessity anything that can undermine that truth becomes important. While many see the DaVinci Code as an assault upon the divinity of Jesus Christ, I think the greater issue is the assault upon the notion of the Bible -- as we know it -- to be the truth of God. There's a good article on the authority of the Bible written by the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright on the Mars Hill web site and can be found at http://www.mhbcmi.org/learn/HOW_CAN_THE_BIBLE_BE_AUTHORITATIVE.pdf
3. Finally -- and as a church historian I can tell you this is clear -- this is just one of many attempts that the enemy has made down thru the centuries to discredit the person and the work of Jesus Christ. It should not surprise us -- ever -- to see someone argue that Jesus is not who the church has confessed him to be for 2000 years, and that Jesus has not done what he did in terms of God and mankind.

If there is one great benefit of all of this it is that people who have read the book, and/or seen the movie are more open to dialogue about Jesus as a result of it. This is a great opportunity to ask someone what they think about Jesus and share with them the truth.
Thanks DaVinci!