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Novel faiths: The junk food of gnostic stories

At first glance, it might seem that The Da Vinci Code and the Left Behind series occupy opposite poles of the cultural spectrum. The former’s effort to reaffirm the “sacred feminine” with the claim that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife is the sort of reworking of tradition that presumably appeals to far-out liberals. The latter’s unfolding of the apocalypse according to a dispensationalist eschatology presumably appeals to far-right biblical fundamentalists who scour the news for signs that the rapture is coming.

Teaching moment: Temple Church and The Da Vinci Code

As master of the Temple Church in London, one of the sites featured in The Da Vinci Code, Robin Griffith-Jones has had the chance to talk to hundreds of people about the claims of the best-selling novel. His own book, The Da Vinci Code and the Secrets of the Temple (Eerdmans), is based on a regular talk he gives to visitors at the Temple Church. Griffith-Jones was educated at Cambridge University and ordained a priest in the Church of England. Before coming to London, he was a minister at a housing project in Liverpool; he also worked with Mother Teresa’s sisterhood in India. The Century talked to him about the popularity of The Da Vinci Code and how it has affected his life at the Temple Church.

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Dan Brown's truthiness

In a culture supersaturated with information, overwrought and overstimulated by media, none of us is immune to the allure of truthiness. With our attention stretched thin and largely confined to the surface, we are forced back on our intuition, to some reflexive sense of what “feels true.”
Enter The Da Vinci Code. With the benefit of hindsight we can say the novel got noticed because of able marketing, and because it played into the manic milieu of truthiness.