Secondary: Rapid Response Assemblies
The Da Vinci Code
By Stuart Kerner
 Suitable for Whole School
Aim
To reflect on the implications of the book and film of The Da Vinci Code.
Preparation and materials
Assembly
- Begin by telling your audience that, today, you want to talk about mysteries and secret signs.
- On an overhead projector sheet or flipchart, write the following numbers: 165, 1155, 27720. Ask if anyone can guess what the connection between these numbers is. You should get all manner of possible connections, but it is highly unlikely you will receive the correct answer!
- Tell your audience that it is 165 weeks, 1155 days and 27720 hours (as of 9 June) since one book entered the New York Times bestseller list. Ask if anyone knows which book that might be. This time you should expect to receive the right answer. It is, of course, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The book alone has sold over 40 million copies worldwide and has now been made into a successful film.
- One reason why The Da Vinci Code is so popular is that it is a fast-paced, easy-to-read novel that keeps you reading. It also claims to reveal amazing ‘discoveries’ about the stories in the Bible.
- Tell them that this book is a mystery novel, a work of fiction. There are three major characters: Robert Langdon, a famous American symbologist, who specializes in religious symbols; Sir Leigh Teabing, a British historian of religion; and Sophie Neveu, a brainy and beautiful French cryptologist.
- In the book, the curator of the famous Louvre Museum in Paris is murdered. Robert Langdon, becomes the prime suspect. Sophie, the estranged granddaughter of the murdered curator, frees Robert from the clutches of the head of Interpol and the two of them go on a chase across France and England in search of the Holy Grail – the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper, the night before he died.
- Before he died, the murdered curator created clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail and a secret society that had guarded it for a thousand years. The Holy Grail, it turns out, is not really a cup, but is actually the person of Mary Magdalene who, it is claimed, was the wife of Jesus. After the crucifixion, Mary fled to France, where she gave birth to Jesus’ child.
- According to Dan Brown, the ‘lost gospels’, which were left out of the Bible, prove that Mary Magdalene is the Grail, the holy female, and that her offspring are the true leaders of the movement Jesus intended to leave behind. The Da Vinci Code claims that these gospels, discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, were hidden by the Church to maintain its power.
- Comment that these are very strong claims that have upset many Christians across the world. But why?
- Obviously, the Church might object if people began to question its power and influence. But what concerns Christians more is the fact that many people are treating the information in Dan Brown’s book as ‘gospel’: as the literal truth that has been proved. It has not!
- There are many, many so-called ‘facts’ that have been challenged in The Da Vinci Code, and much of the evidence within should be taken with a large pinch of salt!
- One of the reasons why this book is so popular has something to do with people wanting to know the truth, and trying to discover meaning in their lives.
- Unfortunately, in our desperation to uncover reality, human beings often accept half-truths and lies at face value. Why work to find out if a rumour is true when gossip will do?
- Ask your audience to stare at the ‘Jesus’ illusion (which you should project or have blown up onto a large sheet of paper) for thirty seconds. Then take it away and ask them to stare at the blank space that has replaced it. The majority will see an image of Jesus ‘floating’ before their eyes.
- Point out that, in reality, there is nothing there at all – it is merely an optical illusion caused by the image staying on the back of the eye. It is called ‘persistence of vision’ and this effect allows us to see moving images when we watch the individual frames of a film at the cinema.
- The The Da Vinci Code throws up some interesting theories which are fun to look at but, in many cases, when we look beyond them nothing is really there at all.
- Conclude by saying that we should all search for truth and meaning in our lives – but we should base it on something more substantial than fictional books and films.
Food for thought
Unfortunately, many members of the general public who breezed right through The Da Vinci Code are not likely to read the books that so ably refute its errors. Why not? Because those books are weighted with facts: they are not fast-paced thrillers made to keep the reader on the edge of his seat; rather, they are solid, accurate, and scholarly exposés, made to keep the reader firmly seated in the truth.
Larry A. Carstens
Time for reflection
Prayers
Lord,
There is so much about the world we do not understand.
So many questions we want to ask.
Give us the wisdom to separate fact from fiction.
Give us the intelligence to look beyond the obvious,
And help us to ensure that we base our lives on the firm foundations of your love for us.
Amen.
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