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Posted by: David Bunch

I was at a party Saturday night and was asked what I thought about The DaVinci Code in general and the upcoming movie in particular. Only one other guy at the party besides me had read it, and we were trying to explain to the questioners just what the controversy was and why it matters so much.

I think this statement from the Church of the Masses blog sums it up best. Note, if you want to read the original posting in its entirety, scroll down the middle of the page. This link begins and ends with reader comments to the original post.

We need to be very clear here: The Da Vinci Code is much, much worse than The Last Temptation of Christ in the errors that it contains. Last Temptation was wrangling with what being a God-Man really looked like. Da Vinci Code asserts that there was no God in Christianity's God-Man.

The point I made Saturday night is that much like Last Temptation, The DaVinci Code takes on the Deity of Christ and therefore attacks Christianity at its core. I also contend that the primary reason for all of this backlash is that Dan Brown goes beyond Christianity bashing and specifically throttles the Catholic Church. He clearly has a not-so-hidden agenda against that group. And that group has a lot of political clout.

The other danger with this book is that Dan Brown weaves fact and fiction so closely together that it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. This is an extremely dangerous problem for a culture that has a very limited Bible knowledge. It is likely that most have read the errors and have taken them as truths.

Bottom line? Dan Brown has written a thriller. That's why it was on the best seller lists for so long. And we can only expect even more publicity and popularity once the movie comes out (my logic here is that if it is popular as a book it will be even more so as a movie since more people watch than read).

My advice to you is the same as it was to the party goers Saturday night. Go out and read the book. You should be well informed as to the content and the controversy because it won't be going away any time soon.