Orthodox and Protestant churches all affirm the divinity of Christ as defined by Nicaea and other early church councils, all accept nearly the same canon of Scripture, and, in the case of Protestant churches that have diminished the role of Mary in their theology and practice, might merit more criticism for banishing the "sacred feminine" from spirituality far more than Catholicism does. Some also engaged in just as much heretic and witch-hammering as the Roman Catholic Church (Catholic bishops, for example, weren't in charge in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts).īut for some odd reason, it is not "Christianity" that Brown identifies as the culprit, the enemy of the true intentions of Jesus, but only the Catholic Church-consistently, and without exception. Those understandings are what Brown's scholar-character Leigh Teabing asserts violate the "original history" of Jesus. Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches embody that ancient tradition just as deeply as the Roman Catholic Church does.Īnd then, of course, there are the Christian churches that emerged in the wake of the Reformation, which despite deep differences with Catholicism and Orthodoxy on issues ranging from justification and salvation to sacraments, still continued to affirm the traditional doctrinal understanding of Jesus' human and divine nature as found in those early creeds. For example, much of the theological action in question-the formation of the Canon, the discussions of Jesus' human and divine nature-was centered not in the West, but in the East, and involved mostly Eastern bishops. After all, according to Dan Brown's vision of past and present, the only embodiment of Christianity the world has seen is the Roman Catholic Church. In a way, Roman Catholics reading The Da Vinci Code should be flattered. Excerpted from De-Coding Da Vinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of The Da Vinci Code with permission of Our Sunday Visitor.
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