To be honest, I'm tired of The Da Vinci Code. Perhaps now that the book's gone to paperback and the movie is old news, it can all start to fade into history.

I had an unusual conversation with an unbeliever (he told me so) this past Friday night. In the course of the overall discussion, he asked me if The Da Vinci Code offended me.

Does it offend me? Good question.

I said that it didn't offend me in my conversation with this gentleman. But I've reflected on his question since the conversation. What are my feelings toward the book?

In the end, I don't think The Da Vinci Code offends me so much as it annoys me.

I'm annoyed at a few things. I'm annoyed at Dan Brown, who is a fairly entertaining writer, for producing a story that is so openly hostile to Christianity. What's the deal, Dan--did the nuns smack your knuckles too hard with the ruler when you were a kid and you're getting your revenge now?

I believe that Brown's book is irresponsible because it completely rewrites known history. A lot of folks say, "What's the big deal? It's fiction!" But it's a big deal because Brown starts on p. 1 of his book with a page entitled "Facts" in which he lists three supposed facts in two paragraphs. Unfortunately, two of the three facts are simply not true. The so-called Priory of Sion is a mid-twentieth century fraud.

But what I believe annoys me most is how gullible some Christians were in regard to Brown's nonsense. Too many Christians said that the books "shook their faith" and made them question the things they thought they believed. And I even heard some folks call into a local radio a couple of weeks ago show who claimed to be Christians but asked what the big deal would be if Jesus actually were married.

This tells me that too many Christians do not know three things as well as they should: (1) their Bible, (2) Christian doctrine, (3) and church history (or perhaps history in general).

If there was ever a question as to the need for ongoing discipleship in our churches, I believe The Da Vinci Code has sadly made the case for it. In one sense, the church responded very well with all the seminars on the subject. We talked about all the evangelistic opportunities that the book and movie brought to us. However, the reality is that we had to scramble to get our own church members up to speed on issues that should have been of an elementary nature.

The church at large needs to completely rethink the way it does discipleship. We need to do more than simply hold weekly Bible studies. We must address all three of the issues I mentioned above.

Tags: Da Vinci Code