Garth Rattray
DAN BROWN'S book The Da Vinci Code sold over 50 million copies world-wide and the movie adaptation made $77 million in the United States alone during its opening weekend. The Code is filled with tantalising tidbits of geographic landmarks, a lot of name dropping and an avalanche of furtively imaginative fiction.
It's all about mystery, intricate plots, anagrams, the decoding of puzzles and chasing down clues.
It takes advantage of our innate distrust of powerful organi-sations/governments and secret societies. This is the common theme throughout Dan Brown's other best-selling novels (Angels and Demons, Deception Point and Digital Fortress).
It's easy to understand where Brown derives his inspiration. He is the son of a presidential award-winning math professor and a professional sacred musician. He was nurtured on a disparate mixture of science and religion.
His wife, Blythe, is a painter and art history enthusiast. He was motivated by Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity series, which he admits, "got me interested in the genre of big-concept, international thrillers".
MAKING A BUCK
The trouble with the Da Vinci Code is that the book opens with so-called 'facts' regarding a secret organisation and a Catholic sect (the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei). It also asserts that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate", thus laying surreptitious claims of authenticity to the entire fictional work.
In his bid to 'make a buck', the irreverent and iconoclastic Brown conveniently failed to mention that interpreting works of art and documents are an entirely subjective matter. His wilful creative misinterpretation attempts to devastate the very foundation of Christianity by 'painting' Jesus Christ as only a prophet and not deity.
In the story, Jesus is supposed to have married Mary Magdalene and fathered a child (Sarah) whose progeny exists to this very day.
Perhaps Brown believed that since other great religious figures (the Old Testament prophets of Judaism, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha and Islam's prophet Mohammed) married, then so, too, could Jesus. But they were all mere mortals, none claimed to be divine (like Jesus, the Christ).
Besides, many Roman Catholic priests, nuns and numerous religious devotees from other faiths do not marry or have sexual relationships. If they can remain celibate for the Lord then what say the Son of God.
There's no need for me to defend my religion. Many very learned Christians have written books, published articles and appeared in every form of media to lambaste, discredit, counter and ridicule every single one of the story's scurrilous assertions of authority.
I, however, respectfully disagree somewhat with a statement made by Cardinal Paul Poupard (head of the Pontifical Council for Culture since 1988) in which he said, "What I'm concerned about is that decent people who do not have the proper religious education will take this nonsense for the real thing."
Religious education alone is not the sole determinant of faith. We can remain confident in the tenets of our faith even with only a basic knowledge of Christianity.
There is no Da Vinci cloud over our faith because this simple, preposterous tale of religious conspiracy and cover-ups could never threaten Christianity; we're not that wispy.
The Code is an imaginative, interesting but irreligious yarn, nothing more. Brown achieved exactly what he wanted, controversy, curiosity and ton loads of money.
Dr. Garth Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice.
