Unraveling the Da Vinci 'con'

Pastor Pat Duffin
High Prairie Christian Church

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the movie, is an admittedly 'fun' murder mystery.

Made with the skill of master movie makers, the sympathetic characters are immersed in a complicated and fanciful plot comparable to the movie National Treasure. Myths and legends and shadowy history are combined with secret codes and mysteries disguised in massive architecture, hidden in clever devices, and wrapped in intriguing riddles. The heroes' quest is to solve the puzzle and reveal the shattering secret of earth shaking proportions. Fun stuff!

However, unlike National Treasure, Brown crosses the line by distorting documented history and purporting to make use of legitimate research to back up his hypotheses that Jesus was not divine but a mere mortal man who, by Mary Magdalene, sired a royal lineage that still exists today. Although he says his story is fiction, Brown makes every effort to convince his audience that his historical evidence is true and that only the murder mystery is fiction. The murder mystery is merely the vessel used to convey the real contents of his message which is "the big con" to which I object.

Here is Brown in his own words:

"All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals are accurate." -- 'Fact' Page, Da Vinci Code, page 1.

"The only thing fictional in The Da Vinci Code is the characters and the action that takes place. All of the locations, the paintings, the ancient history, the secret documents, the rituals, all of this is factual." - Dan Brown, interview on NPR Weekend Edition, April 26, 2003.

Unfortunately, the average lay person does not have the tools to sort out the legitimate from the false. It requires scholarship and access to resources spread around the world. The result has been a great deal of confusion about what is truth, and what is fiction. Confused people are asking, "Who am I to believe? What am I to believe?"

On the other hand, a whole new industry has erupted overnight simply to refute these patently false claims of Brown. Numerous books have been written and various videos have been produced which irrefutably prove the fallacy of Brown's reasoning, the distortion of the real facts, and how silly his claims actually are.

The Priory or Scion, which is central to Brown's story, is a proven hoax that never existed until the early 1970s. And that was a fraud perpetrated by a convicted con-man named Pierre Plantard who, for nefarious, personal reasons, forged and secreted documents in the French archives pointing to the existence of this supposed secret society. His ruse worked and even the experts were duped at first.

I simply don't have space in this column to go into it all here. Suffice to say that it is not just the Church that takes exception to Brown's 'research.'

Laura Miller, of the New York Times wrote: "Plantard's hoax was debunked by a series of (as yet untranslated) French books and a 1996 BBC documentary, but curiously enough, this set of shocking revelations hasn't proved as popular as the fantasia of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," or, for that matter, as "The Da Vinci Code." The only thing more powerful than a worldwide conspiracy, it seems, is our desire to believe in one." (The New York Times, Feb. 22, 2004)

There have always been conspiracies throughout history. They have been a fixture as natural as furniture to every government since time immemorial. Conspiracy debunkers scoff at rumors of a widespread conspiracy to dominate the world.

They are wrong. There is one who has been plotting and scheming to dominate this world since before the fall of Adam and Eve. Every empire has had this dark, secret power working behind the scenes. His ambition is no less than total world domination. His name is Satan, Lucifer or the Devil.

Every tragedy of man can be traced back to this implacable, evil despot.

And the Bible predicts that he will soon make his most fearsome, and ferocious bid for power since the world was created. He will work through a coming dictator called 'The Antichrist.'

And we know the time of his appearing is near because the prophetic time clock began ticking the final countdown when Israel was reborn in 1949 after 2,000 years of non-existence. Never before has a nation come back from the dead, but God predicted He would do this for Israel and then, figuratively speaking, 'all hell would break loose' on the earth.

Now there is a true conspiracy story you simply must read ... and heed. You will find it in the Holy Bible, located in the Book of Daniel and in the Book of Revelation. It's no 'con' and a highly recommended read.