I’ve had a couple of people recommend Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it (with a three-year-old, a six-week-old, and sermons to write every week, I’m a little behind on time for new fiction—new adult fiction, at least). After running across Sandra Miesel’s evisceration of the book in the September issue of Crisis, however, I think that’s just as well; I still intend to read it, but now I’m aware it won’t be for pleasure. The abuse of history to serve contemporary causes infuriates me, and from Miesel’s analysis, this book is a particularly egregious example of that offense. Clearly, though, that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from buying into its portrayal of history and Christianity.
Another piece worth reading on this book is one Miesel co-wrote with the Catholic theologian Carl E. Olson; this is the first part of what will be a two-part article.