Doubt for Christianity in The Da Vinci Code

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Recommended: An essay on religion

Many people have written accounts about the events that took place in the past. They used as their source of material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other eyewitnesses of what God has done in fulfillment of his promises. Having carefully investigated all of these accounts from the beginning, I have decided to write a careful summary for you. The Da Vinci Code is not just a thriller written for entertainment; instead, it's somewhat of a journal chronicling Dan Brown's spiritual journey and as the plot of the book unfolds, it casts significant doubt on the veracity of Christianity.

I chose this topic for personal reasons – primarily as an exploration of my own faith and my own ideas about religion. I believe that one of the reasons the book has become controversial is that religion is a very hard thing to discuss in quantitative terms. If you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as immutable historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify heavenly concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the point where we entirely miss the fact that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries.

"Dan Brown says in an interview: the secret I reveal [in the book] is one that has been whispered for centuries . . . My sincere hope is that The Da Vinci Code, in addition to entertaining people, will serve as an open door for readers to begin their own explorations....the secret I reveal [in the book] is one that has been whispered for centuries….My sincere hope is that The Da Vinci Code, in addition to entertaining people, will serve as an open door for readers to begin their own explorations."

Now I am going to put the Old Testament to the test to see if it has credibility to be the trustworthy document that it claims. "Religion, if it is worth believing, must be based on facts. Yes, there is room for faith, but unless it is faith in facts, faith is not only useless but destructive….The Bible cannot afford to have historical errors.

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