Barb unloads

Just to see what all the fuss is about, I am about 140 pages into the Da Vinci Code and I don't see how this got to be such a big book. It is written like a third-rate John Grisham novel. I'm having a hard time picking up the book to read, but feel I have to plow through it to see what everyone's talking about.>

In happier times, I would snort at popery with the best; it was more from traditional Anglophilia than religious belief. But now I look on DVC and its like with great malice. Sort of, "Hands off the Whore of Babylon!, damn you!" We live in funny times.>

Dovid, that alliance immediately after the election was short lived, just like the lull in racism. Old habits die hard.>

I don't see it as a threat any more than I see other pieces of bad fiction as a threat. It's a fast-moving adventure story with a transparently silly historico-religious concept at its heart. If that's sufficiently convincing to people, then the fault isn't in the book. At most, it highlights how ready people are to believe pretty much anything put in front of them--but I'm inclined to doubt that readers take the book all that seriously.

If I want to get worked up over something, it'll be the volumes of Biblical pseudo-scholarship that masquerade as scholarly nonfiction. At least the press refers to Dan Brown as "novelist"; they're still calling Elaine Pagels "scholar" and "expert".>

Adam said: "I don't see it as a threat any more than I see other pieces of bad fiction as a threat. It's a fast-moving adventure story with a transparently silly historico-religious concept at its heart. If that's sufficiently convincing to people, then the fault isn't in the book. At most, it highlights how ready people are to believe pretty much anything put in front of them--but I'm inclined to doubt that readers take the book all that seriously."

I'm with Adam on this one. I don't think the DVC is a threat to Christianity. To those that are strong in their faith, the contents of the book/movie will have no impact. Those that start to buy into its notions were probably weak in their faith to begin with.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church is the target, per usual, because it is both one of the oldest and certainly the largest denomination on earth...and it is also especially the dominant faith in the western world where much of this Da Vinci nonsense took place. So I don't think it is so much an anti-Catholic conspiracy so much as that is the only target to attack given the setting of the book. Would she recommend they go after Pentecostalists instead? (even though they didn't appear on the 'scene' til around 1900).

BTW, I am not sure why Barbara Nicolosi takes such issue with the prepend name of Roman, as that is the official name of that church.

I liken the DVC to all the sundry titles I see in the "Politics" section at bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble. Anybody can publish a book these days and fill it with whatever rubbish they want.

Too much big deal is being made of all this and it will die just like the Last Temptation of Christ et al. did.>

Christine,

Very well and good point. It is a name of convenience and therefore easy to confuse...but since the title "Roman Catholic Church" is appended to the monument signs in front of nearly every one of those churches, you can see where people attain this understanding and where it is still correct in a way, since that is what they call themselves.>