The Da Vinci Code Controversy
Posted in Religion by George
The Da Vinci Code Movie, which should be in theatres soon, has sparked a lot of controversy. This is because in the story, it says that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children together, and that Jesus still has heirs alive today.
The Catholic Church has been going crazy, in particular, about this movie. I have already heard multiple Catholic priests on the radio during commercials talking about how absurd the Da Vinci Code is.
This is going way too far. Dan Brown writes that the Da Vinci Code is FICTION, not fact. If Dan Brown wanted to attack the Catholic church, he would not have wrote that his book was simply fictional. James and the Giant Peach was a great, fictional book too. However, it defied the laws of gravity. Does this mean that physicists should call for it to be banned from theatres?
Censorship is a dirty thing. When I was in high school, I was a member of the Freedom to Read Club, and we fought against a group called PABBIS (Parents Against Bad Books in Schools) who wanted everything banned from books about sexual education to Where’s Waldo (no joke!). Asking that this movie be censored, especially considering that it is openly a FICTIONAL STORY, is ridiculous.
Note From the Author: I have yet to read the Da Vinci Code. I’ve read the first 30 pages or so, but not the entire thing, unfortunately. I promise to read it soon, hopefully before I see the movie.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:08 am
It’s a rehash of old stuff in the Da Vinci Code. There’s very little new stuff there but people don’t really read much on the background of western religion; they get it spoonfed and like it that way. You could get a better, more interesting read by following Wikipedia links if you start at the “Gospel of Thomas” entry and follow through to other Gnostic entries. The Gospel of Judas is new as well and has very interesting content.
The RC church has some serious problems; Stephen Colbert parodies them and the Pope routinely — and he’s a Catholic. Last week was Mother’s Day and I accompanied a friend to mass — as is habitual, the priest gave out plenty of advice on parenting despite an obvious blind spot regarding parenting experience or an institutional history of pedofilia.
The Da Vinci Code is disturbing to the church because it pits mainstream fiction against the fiction of the accepted Gospels. The catholics do NOT view the Old and New Testaments as inviolate — they understand and teach that the texts are the results of translations, mistranslations, and all the lexical gibberish that accompanies unattributed 2000 year old documents composed by committee.
Bottom line; Browne says his book is fiction; the church knows large parts of their own books are fiction. Result? Shrieking theocrats on the tube. The best that the church can hope for is that the movie sucks as a storytelling vehicle, because if people start reading the background texts, that’s where the real trouble starts.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:17 am
I went to the advance screening last night.
I was underwhelmed, too, and several critics (including me) chuckled out loud at the biggest “revelations.”
I posted my review on my site, Scribe Life.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Those Where’s Waldo books are corrupting the youth of America and tearing apart the fabric of our society. Those parents were looking out for your and society’s best interest. You should be thankful people still want to protect the moral beliefs that made this nation the greatest nation on earth.
/sarcasm
May 17th, 2006 at 11:52 am
it may be a fictional story, but so is south park…and they rip on people all of the time. I mean gulliver’s travels is a fictional story, but it is considered one of the best satires ever.
If I write about an author of a fictional website “gimme-four” and talk about his views on environmentalism, it would fictional, but everyone would know it was about you.
note on roman catholicism coming after i run…
May 17th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
That list of books is too funny.
I cannot believe someone banned the American Heritage Dictionary.
May 17th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Having read the da Vinci code because it was the only book in English at the Lyon Train station I would recomend George not read it.
It is poorly written and is simply put bad. It starts out ok for the opening but manages to grap horrible from the jaws of mediocre.
While it is understood that the book is fiction, Dan Browne does quite a feint of hand with the opening namely the discussion of the Priory of Scion, Opus Dei, and “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate”.
Thus it opens itself up to this line of attack.
Should it be banned, of course not. Should the church complain about it, no.
However, Browne invites the controversy with his opening statements of the facts. Not suprisingly most readers believe in the word as written by Browne.
So to sum up, I can sort of understand where the Church is coming from but still am opposed to their treatment of it.
I don’t understand Opus Dei’s view on the book because in reality they do not come across that poorly.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
I’m Catholic… and I’m not offended when people question my religion. Why? Because I don’t expect anyone to have the exact same viewpoints as me. Also, I hate evangelism.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
well…i agree with mike…ever read angels and demons? oh wait…it is the same book as the davinci code…just with lamer conspiracy theories.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:42 am
As Shaniqua and Mike pointed out, “The DaVinci Code” is crap, and it has nothing to do with who takes offense. The allegedly controversial revelations have been kicked around for quite some time now. The big fuss is that these ideas have been conveniently packaged in a supermarket thriller–and even for a supermarket thriller, this is not a work of quality.
It’s just bad writing, plain and simple. Every chapter ends on a major cliffhanger, which turns out to be no big deal within the first two lines of the next chapter. The characters are completely two-dimensional, the romance is shoe-horned in for its own sake, and the plot twists are visible from miles away.
It reads like a desperate plea for money from Dan Brown. In fact, if you highlight arbitrary letters in the first hundred pages, you can spell out a hidden message from the author: “Please, make this into a movie. I’ll make several million dollars more.”
Don’t bother finishing the book. Just watch the movie. It’s likely to be much better, and the book is more of a movie treatment than literature anyway.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:29 am
As an English Literature student at university, I almost cried when I read the Da Vinci Code. All the controversy in the world cannot excuse such a poorly written book!
I approached reading it with curiosity, having been submitted to rave reviews from friends and critics. Having read ‘Holy Blood and Holy Grail’ prior to Dan Brown’s ‘fictitious’ atrocity, I can honestly say that I was severely disappointed to see the authors lost the plagurism case against Brown. All this controversial material? You can find it expressed far more eloquently and intelligently in ‘Holy Blood and Holy Grail’. Without it’s controversial selling point, the Da Vinci Code is nothing but poorly written trash. The grammar and lack of punctuation used by Brown to create a sense of pace and urgency only succeeds in infuriating those of us who actaully were expecting something a little classier from so much hype. If one more person calls this book ‘a good book’ in front of me, I swear I’ll hit them. HARD.
As for my opinions on the religious controversial material featured therein? I am an atheist. I couldn’t care less if the Catholic church is flawed or not. In my opinion it’s flawed anyway - surely praying to icons of saints and the entire Pope cult is Biblically speaking considered heathen? (see commandments regarding flase idolisation). Any Catholics want to explain that for me?
May 18th, 2006 at 10:02 am
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A prayer is not overt worship, hence no contradiction. When Catholics pray to Saints, it’s strictly intercessory–a request that they will act as a go-between for the Catholic and God. The Saints themselves are not worshipped.
The use of icons seems to have become rather arbitrary–once a breaking point between the Eastern and Western churches, now more of a decorative/stylistic option than a requirement. I believe the idea is that focusing on an image of the Saint serves as a way of helping the Catholic focus on the relevant Saintly qualities, but an icon is not required for prayer.
The Church hierarchy is several steps removed from the Old Testament, but it’s rooted in the post-Gospel section of the New Testament. Sure, it’s picked up some heathen bits along the way (note that Catholic clergy dress in the style of Roman nobles, the emphasis on Latin, the use of incense, etc), but the thing to remember with the Catholic Church is that it’s a bit of a mishmash between the Bible and tradition.
May 19th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Yeah, it’s fine to discuss The DaVinci Code and how bad of a book it is, but let’s not turn this into an argument trying to prove or disprove the existence of God. There are plenty of really smart people on either side of that issue. I am a Christian, but I recognize that it could be pretty easy for people to believe in something else or nothing at all.