Pastors Crack the Code as 'Da Vinci' Makes Film Debut

Christians packed pews to crack the ''Da Vinci Code'' over the weekend as the religious thriller drew near-record crowds to box offices worldwide.

By Pauline J. Chang, Christian Post Reporter Monday, May 22, 2006

VIENNA, Va. – Christians packed pews to crack the ''Da Vinci Code'' over the weekend as the religious thriller drew near-record crowds to box offices worldwide.

According to Sony Pictures, the film was the largest weekend opening of the year and so far became the second largest worldwide release after “Star Wars: Episode III.” It garnered some $224 million worldwide, $77 million of which were spent in the U.S.

Pastors across the nation had already prepared for the debut, some by calling for protests and boycotts, but most by equipping their flock with educational sessions and resources addressing the key historical flaws behind Dan Brown’s story.

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The book tells a story of a Harvard professor and a French cryptologist who team up to help solve a murder mystery. The plot reveals a Catholic Church conspiracy to cover up the “true” story of Jesus’ love affair with Mary Magdalene. The author claims that the books in the New Testament were selected and edited by the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., and that many legitimate gospels were purposely left out because they contradicted the “false” story of the Bible as we know it today.

At Mclean Bible Church near Washington, D.C., senior pastor Lon Solomon began the first of his three-part series entitled “Cracking the Da Vinci Code” on Saturday evening, dedicating the full weekend to defending the integrity of the Bible.

“The real focus of Dan Brown’s attack deals with the formation and the makeup of the New Testament,” Solomon explained. “Brown says the early framers of Christianity were a bunch of devious, corrupt, power-hungry hypocrites and that the Christianity we know today is product of a bunch of male-chauvinist bishops…”

Solomon countered three of the author’s claims regarding who, why, and how the New Testament came to be formed in early church history by focusing largely on the life and faith of Emperor Constantine.

“Was Constantine merely a cheap opportunist? No. Absolutely not,” Solomon said as he shared a story of how the emperor converted to Christianity. “Constantine became a proactive champion of Christianity through the Roman Empire, and he erased all pagan symbols from Zeus, paid for churches to be built, and declared Sunday as a day of worship.

“My point is that Constantine embraced Christianity not because of political expedience, but that he had a true spiritual encounter with the living Christ, and his actions prove it,” Solomon said as he debunked what he called Dan Brown’s lies of “phantasmagorical proportions.”

He further explained that the emperor convened the Council of Nicea in 325 to strengthen the new Christian tradition, not to commission and finance a new Bible as Brown claims.

“We know from history that the Council never even discussed the contents or formation of the New Testament,” Solomon said.

He then addressed Brown’s claim that dozens of legitimate gospel books were omitted from the current-day Bible to hide the secret behind Jesus’ mortality and love affair.

“These scrolls, commonly called the Gnostic gospels … were written by a sect of heretics called ‘Gnostics’ who believed that they had been given ‘secret knowledge’ from Jesus,” Solomon explained. “The reason [the Gnostic gospels] were omitted was because the early church considered them to be heretical and wrong, and this happened long before the Council of Nicea. They didn’t get into the New Testament, because they were fraudulent documents written in the second century.”

Ultimately, Solomon said, Christians should remember that the Bible is truth and that Brown’s novel is fiction.

“The book is all wrong and good scholarship can prove it,” said Solomon. “The Da Vinci Code will pass away, and I want to urge you not to let the lie in Dan Brown’s book shake your trust in the Integrity in the Bible.

The “Cracking the Da Vinci Code” series will continue at the Mclean Bible Church next week by addressing “The True Nature of Jesus Christ,” and will conclude on June 3-4 with a look at the “Esteem given to Women by Christianity.”