Now that all the dust has settled and the issue is no longer discussed, I wonder why I feel like writing about the Da Vinci debate, but the fact remains that I do. The main reason I didn’t feel like airing my views about it then was because the whole matter seemed so trivial. For me, it was never a matter of faith, but any Christian, I thought, would have felt outrage. I mean, if someone wrote a book stating that Krishna was just man and not god incarnate, a womanizer who is in the same league as the Peeping Tom, I'm sure the writer would have faced much more than mild debate and in some part, belief in what the book stated. Lynching would be my guess, or a long period of hiding with possibly a withdrawing of the book and a public apology thrown in for good measure. There would have been riots and killings, retaliation of no mean order. No matter if the author stated that the book was a work of fiction. Look at what happens when a place religious worship is destroyed or desecrated. This book desecrates the very basis on which Christianity stands. And we hear vague, non-united, isolated protests?? It made me ashamed. More so when I heard people criticize the
If one wrote a sensational and scandalous story about any world leader alive today with just enough half-truths to make it believable, even if the author admits it is fiction (with, of course, the mention that all documentary sources are true!), he would not be allowed to get away with it. And here we are talking about a historical figure of the most widespread religion in the world. How dared he.
I was astonished when the book was not withdrawn. More so when the protest, not the book, was disapproved.
The last straw was being asked by a friend if I believed what the book stated and being greeted with surprised disbelief when I said no, I didn’t.
For me, it isn’t a matter of doctrine. It isn’t just being born into this religion that makes me believe in Jesus. For me, it is a matter of personal experience. If I had previously stuck my hand in fire, no matter what book tried to convince me that fire doesn’t actually burn, it would make no difference to my belief. And if it did manage to brainwash me somehow, I need only to look at the scar to remind myself of the truth. It is only those who have never touched fire or have handled it with only fireproof gloves who can be swayed. It’s the same here, but in a positive sense.
Put against the millions of miracles, healings and conversions that have taken place, the book becomes laughable. Personally, I find the Bible a much more convincing read. The fact that the Code was not written in the intention of presenting the author’s proven belief in what he writes or to destroy Christianity as a religion because he thinks its beliefs are false, but very simply as a tool to obtain fame and money makes it merely cheap.
It is merely the sensation that holds a rather mediocre piece of writing together. There is no brilliance in style, there is no class. Dan Brown will not go down in history as a writer even for the wrong reasons. The book may be a mass entertainer but literature as an art is much more finicky and ten years down the line, no one is going to remember Dan Brown.
And that says it all.
