The Da Vinci Code is fiction, but its supporters and detractors act as if it's worth debating as fact. It's not. It is a novel, and now a movie. Novelists are allowed to invent fantastic tales. Nay, novelists are required to invent fantastic tales.

Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is fantastic. In other words, it's the work of fantasy. That's okay. What's not okay is the suggestion that the Da Vinci Code is something more than imagination on paper. This tactic has allowed the book's author to make inferences about historical events without taking responsibility for those inferences. Dan Brown gets to have his cake and eat it too. He gets to make outrageous claims, and then when critics mock those outrageous claims he gets to respond: loosen up, it's only a novel. It is just that, and nothing more. It's not worth debating, just as Journey to the Center of the Earth isn't worth debating as science. Sorry, but fact and fiction don't hang out on the same block. Praise Dan Brown the novelist if you like. Praise Dan Brown the historian only to damn yourself.

Do novels. Do history. Don't do both at the same time.

Like the films National Treasure and Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Da Vinci Code takes an actual event in history and spins a wild conspiracy tale around it. This generally makes for a good movie but a bad history lesson. Perhaps filmmakers don't intend to act as teacher, but theatre-goers, who enter the theatre with hopes of suspending reality, occasionally act as students, very good students, and absorb all that's offered. That these same people were generally poor students in actual classrooms has a great deal to do with their gullibility. Empty minds get filled somewhere.

And perhaps this is what all the fuss is about. Unable to study The Bible in public schools, and unwilling to read it elsewhere, many people get their religious instruction from sources interested in religious destruction. Unscrupulous people attempt to goad dim people into believing that Jesus and his apostles were gay, or that Jesus slept with Mary Magdalen, or that Jesus was a Roman agent. And the inclined believe it so--even if they tell you in the next breath that they don't believe that Jesus ever existed. People will believe all sorts of crazy stories about Jesus without actually believing there was such a person as Jesus. Talk about blind faith!

I probably won't go see The Da Vinci Code. This is not based on any outrage. It just doesn't beckon me forcefully enough to cough up nine bucks. Few movies do. Maybe I'll see it when HBO runs it. Though my disinterest doesn't stem from moral qualms, the descriptions of it--the book, and the movie--suggest that The Da Vinci Code is based on a blasphemy. And that's hardly groundbreaking in the current age. What would be truly revolutionary is if Hollywood released art more in the style of the Da Vinci of fact rather than the Da Vinci of fiction.

Leonardo Da Vinci, among many other titles, was an artist. The subjects of his paintings include the Last Supper, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist. In other words, he was one of those God-fearing rubes, albeit one prone to skepticism of miracles and not averse to taking money from the Borgias, that Hollywood tries so hard to offend. He'd have beed horrified to have his name attached to a work of art that debases God. And this horror would have been only in part because the Church often bankrolled him!

Hollywood doesn't produce art that glorifies God, and when renegade filmmakers do this, and do this well, they transcend Hollywood. The Passion of the Christ proved this. And perhaps Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ offers the best lesson to those outraged at The Da Vinci Code. Its critics, who generally didn't take the time to see the actual film (perhaps, like The Da Vinci Code, the book upon which The Passion of the Christ was based soured them on the film), protested, questioned its creator's sanity, and, in extreme cases, called for its ban. Rather than silence Mel Gibson, they amplified his voice. People wanted to see what all the commotion was about. They found that the actual movie differed from the movie imagined by critics unwilling to see it. Those offended by The Da Vinci Code could do no better service for it than to tell others not to see it.

See the movie if you're going to condemn it. Stay home if you think it's silly. And if you start to find yourself among those who view The Da Vinci Code as something more than fiction, also check out what four contemporaries of Jesus wrote before falling for a yarn spun twenty centuries after the fact.

...or just check any Wiki, or better yet the site www.newadvent.org, before claiming that it's based in fact...

I was riding the elevator to my office one day last year, and as I walked in, there was a conversation going on. I only heard this: "...but what I really like about it is that it's historical". I knew, in an instant, which book they were discussing. I looked, and lo and behold, there was the Da Vinci Code, lying at the top of the speaker's bag of "stuff". What the hell does "historical" mean, anyway?

Too funny.

I was on a golf trip two years ago and one of my buddies handed me the book and suggested I read it. It didn't take many pages to realize where the plot was heading, and as a Bible-believing, born-again evangelical Christian, I shortly handed the book back to my friend. When asked why, I simply told him I found the central tenet of the book contrary to my personal beliefs and was disinclined to finish it.

I will not be seeing the movie for the same reason. However, like anything else, any effort to discourage or prevent others from doing so are not only doomed to failure, but most likely counter-productive as Dan has already stated.

By the way, thank God for Mom's!

I disagree. I do think The Da Vinci Code is worth debating despite it being a bunch of hooey. For one, the opening of the book claims "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." Furthermore the novel sold over 40 million copies! That's bound to influence readers. Already we have a flux of people claiming that Jesus was indeed married to Mary, Da Vinci was a part of the Priory of Sion, the Bible was compiled by Constantine, the Gnostic Gospels are more telling about Jesus than the the Gospels, etc. I can go on and on. The book needs to be reftued.

Christians who want the Da Vinci Code censored are no better than Muslims who riot at the sight of a Muhammad cartoon. Either there is free speech or there isn't. Can't have it both ways.

I agree... it is just a book. A very entertaining book. I may go see the movie, I may not. It really just isn't that big of a deal. Seriously, if people believe it to be true then who cares? They are clearly fools and therefore unable to significantly harm anyone.

Roger: There's a stark difference between using one's own right to free speech to protest what someone else is saying and rioting to protest what someone else is saying.

Satanic Verses: Muslims riot, kill, burn, self-flagellate and put out a hit on the author.

DaVinci Code: Christians decide not to read the book or see the movie.

Which one is the religion of peace?

Nicely put, asdf.

I think if Christians try to censor the book or movie it would have a bad backlash. Personally, I'm not against the publishing or the making of the book but it's something worth debating against in my opinion.

Good idea, Dan. I'll bear this in mind. And I won't condemn hard core pornography anymore until I watch some.

Good point Sage, I had the same reaction. I have no interest in watching child pornography but apparently I have to if I want to reject it. (I mean if I can't protest blasphemy then what do I really believe in?).

Dan's attitude towards protests is a common one. It is the same as the argument "don't tell your kids to not do X b/c then they will be sure to do it!" (X being "drugs" or "sex" and so forth).

Look, this film is going to make 500 million dollars w/ or w/o protests. Polls show that the book has had a major impact on mainstreaming Gnosticism and has greatly increased the amount of people who think Christ had children, married the Magdalen, etc. So, all in all, it is better for the film to be actively protested by Christians in the hopes that even a few people will listen to the truth. When souls are at stake protests are the least that can be done.

The sad fact is that our culture has been so utterly destroyed, and moreover the Catholic Church in America has so completely sold itself out (Catholics as well) that Hollywood would never have been able to make a film like this fifty years ago under the production code, but now this crap is routine. Dan may think protests do no good, and I basically agree with him. But, if they do no good that is b/c the country is irremediably removed from its Christian roots and we have only more and more decline to look forward to. We may as well throw in the towel.

Brian and Sage: The concept is pretty simple: don't hand down a verdict if you're not willing to review the evidence. So, feel free to condemn crimes--murder, rape, burglary. But don't feel free to tag someone a murderer, rapist, or burglar until the evidence has been reviewed.

Turned out to be a great movie. Interesting story, very good acting. Well done.