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The Da Vinci Code and It's Human Christ The Da Vinci Code, both the book and the movie, have generated considerable controversy due to their alleged misrepresentations of Old Testament Roman religion (which has traditionally referred to itself as "christianity") and misrepresentations of the history of the Roman Catholic Church (which has defined the Roman Christ over the past 1700 years). This entertainment package has received mostly negative reviews from the religious community because it dares to alter the character of Jesus upon which Roman religion was built in the early 4th century. The Roman church made the Christ into an absentee savior, supernatural (a man of little substance), reachable through prayer, a man presumably above human worldly concerns. In point of fact, no one has misrepresented the Christ to a greater degree than Roman religion. The Da Vinci Code is, like the western Bible, largely a work of fiction, but it weaves a different story of the Christ (based on latter day fact and fiction) that is seen as denigrating the Roman story by making the Christ out to be human, way too human, with perhaps even a wife and children (1). The Da Vinci Code makes the Christ out to be a family man, for Christ's sake. The faithful will have none of that in the world of Rome. Suggestions have even been made to have the movie subtitled with the warning that the movie is "fiction" (in contrast to the ostensibly "factual" Roman version). Rome preferred a supernatural Christ who resides in heaven and apparently enjoys the specter of punishments and wars for those who fail to be Roman "christian," i.e., obedient to Roman law (2). As for the "factual" history of the Catholic Church, there is also the fact that the entire Orthodox branch sees that history quite differently than do those in the Roman branch (3). Humanizing the Christ is seen in Roman religious circles as "undermining faith" in Rome's supernatural Jesus. In that regard, a genuinely human Jesus would undermine faith in faith itself, as Jefferson well knew. It would leave the religious with nothing to have faith in but nascent Christian human rights (faith they should already have in a democracy) and faith in the actual person (i.e., the Christ) who started the quest for human rights in a despotic world of religion. The religious are intent on preserving a supernatural Jesus, not as a model for their behavior, but as a savior watching over them in their daily lives and protecting them from evil and harm's way. If that protective role were true, then natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina would only kill non-Christians and otherwise undeserving people. In truth, natural disasters make no distinctions based on religion. To run out of the basement of your hurricane-devastated home screaming "Jesus saved me!" (when, in fact, you held on to the water pipes for dear life) is the height of religious self-righteousness. It implies that everyone who did not survive the hurricane was either a bad person or of no interest to the Christ (4). This in turn, implies that the Christ is judgmental, vindictive and vengeful (as is the Roman religion built in his name). The enormous controversy surrounding The Da Vinci Code is also testimony to the enormous ignorance of the American people with regard to the founding of their own country, ignorance to the point of being religiously unpatriotic. Humanizing the Christ was part and parcel of the theology provided by Thomas Jefferson and America's Revolutionary fathers. For the first time since Rome bought into a dehumanized Christ, the Christ was able to set foot back on earth in Jefferson's America. There is not one shred of supernaturalism in Jefferson's Bible, no resurrection, no ascension. It is just the story of a man who stood up to Jewish and Roman legalism in the name of human rights. The problem was an absolute legalism that served the rich at the expense of the poor and kept the poor in their place. The problem was literally rooted in religion, the same religion that the British had used to oppress their American colonies. In the minds of America's Revolutionary fathers, God was not "out there." God was on the human inside, in the "head and heart" of every person, specifically in "the will of the people, substantially declared" (5). That would be why Jefferson opted to put the people in power. Neither God or the Christ was held apart from the people as Roman religion had arranged it. God became, in principle, an integral part of being human and an integral part of the decision-making apparatus in America. God's Son, the Christ, was inside all people as compassionate and knowledgeable thought. With their emergence two millennia ago, nascent Christian human rights already constituted a global human synthesis because human rights are the dialectic synthesis of complementary eastern and western values, a human synthesis derived from the values of western religious systems and eastern ethical systems. Western culture sought law and order through obedience, eastern culture sought ethics and harmony through political correctness, human culture sought human rights and the freedoms that flow therefrom (6). It was that general human appeal that was recognized by Constantine, the emperor of Rome who perverted nascent Christianity beyond recognition by re-embedding it in Jewish theology (which the Christ had rejected). That kept the doors open to self-righteousness and vengeance. Constantine's corrupt "genius" was in realizing that Rome did not have to behave in a Christian manner. Rome only had to be a defender of those values. Rome only had to be a "christian" soldier. That kept the doors open to Roman imperialism (which the Christ had rejected). All in all, the Christ was defined by the two "isms" that had seen to his death. How is it then that modern "christians," centuries after the Lutheran and Protestant Reformations,centuries after the American Revolution, still believe that Old Testament Roman religion has something Christian to offer? Why don't Americans know very much about the founding of the modern world's first democracy? The man who gave the world human rights might be expected to be human himself, certainly more human than a conquering Roman emperor could even hope to be. The Roman church's theology has been a denigration of the humanness of the Christ from the start. The man who taught that we ought think for ourselves might be expected to be human himself, thoughtful and caring, certainly not demanding that we be obedient to absolute Roman law, certainly not willing to believe that law and punishment are the way to human maturity. The man who taught that we ought love "the little ones" and our fellow man might be expected to be honestly human, certainly nothing like a pious celibate priest with an eye for little boys, certainly not a spokesman for religion-based political despotism as exemplified by the current Bush administration. Jefferson intentionally made both God and Jesus human and real. He did so because he knew that if the Christ can find his way back to earth, he will only be able to do so through the people, certainly not through the apocalyptic Roman church and state. Jefferson knew that Jesus was ultimately of, by and for the people. For Christ's sake, people, read Thomas Jefferson and learn something about God and Jesus. If you find merit in the Christ, it surely can do you no harm, not in Jefferson's democracy (5). Readings
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