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The Shocking Truth about the Church

The Church according to Dan Brown

One of the accusations that the book the Da Vinci Code makes is that the Church has for centuries covered up the truth about Jesus Christ and did so through waging a particularly vicious campaign against those who tried to tell the truth. It teaches that the church is particularly oppressive of women and free thought. We read "during three hundred years of witch hunts the church burned at the stake an astonishing 5 million women" (p. 173 of the Da Vinci Code). The actual figure is about only one per cent of this claim, between fifty thousand people between 1400 and 1800 across Europe.

It is hard in the novel to separate the fact from fiction though Dan Brown seems to believe what he writes. At one point a Newspaper Editor says this about the ideas in the book to the central character, Robert Langdon, "it will kill your reputation. Besides you are a Harvard historian (for Gods sake), not a pop schlockmeister looking for a quick buck, where could you possibly find enough credible evidence to support a theory like this". Ironically that fictional line could well be said to be true of Dan Brown, his story and his theories.

For instance he states that the Emperor Constantine, who according to Dan Brown wrote the Bible, was a life long pagan who was baptised on his death bed, to weak to protest. (p. 313). This is not surprising since at the time it was not unusual to be baptised late in life. As an Emperor, Constantine certainly showed evidence in the way he made laws of some true faith. He showed compassion for the poor and weak.

Another example of Dan Brown's historical inaccuracies regarding the Church occurs in the treatment of the Priory of Sion. He states that it was a real secret society founded in 1099 AD. The document on which he bases this is actually well known to be a forgery. Those who helped to plant the forgery in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris have admitted such.

The shocking truth about God's people

if Dan Brown wanted to expose some of the weakness of the Church, he did not need to dig around in some obscure corners of history and use unreliable documents and exaggerate it. God's people have always been a very mixed bag. You only have to look in the Bible to see that. Abraham gave away his wife to an Egyptian Pharaoh because he was afraid. Moses murdered a man and went on the run. King David committed adultery and then in a cover up operation arranged for the women's husband to be killed. Peter was a coward and ran away when Jesus was arrested.

The fact that the Bible does not hide the sometimes very serious faults with God's people suggest that it was not written as propaganda. It was not written by people promoting their own agendas while hiding the real truth. on the contrary people were sharing the truth about themselves and the amazing truth about a God who loves them despite.

The real truth about God's people is certainly as shocking as the fiction that Dan Brown writes. Perhaps more so because it is true. The history of the church since the times of the Bible has been equally as bad at some points. However there was another side to the church.

The Radical Church. Acts 4: 32 - 37

At one point Dan Brown describes the church in these words "nobody could deny the enormous good the modern church did in today's troubled world and that the church had a deceitful and violent history". Here in the early days of the church (this passage is dated about 35 AD) we see something quite remarkable. We read "no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had". They certainly did not do things by halves. People even sold land and houses and gave away the proceeds. They did it so much that were "there were no needy persons among them". Though it is not saying they gave away everything they had, or that anyone could come into your house at any hour and borrow anything that you had. Nor was it denying that people had personal possessions. These things were personal possession in as much as you chose to lend or give them away.

What the church in Jerusalem renounced was not possessions but possessiveness. It was a change of attitudes in their hearts. This kind of social action has been seen throughout the history of the church. Numerous social organisations and charities that we are familiar with have their roots in Christianity - for instance the RSPCA. More recently the church has been a major driving force behind the campaign to cancel the unpayable debts of third world countries.

What we read of in Jerusalem might sound like a bit of primitive communism. Karl Marx described communism as "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". Unfortunately socialism (a stepping stone on the root to communism) has almost never come into power democratically. It has usually had to compell people to share their possessions of land, housing and industry through brute force. Millions have been executed in China and the Soviet Union during the last century as a result.

The communist desire of fair shares for all is a good one. But the problem is we do not naturally or easily want to share what we have. It is fine looking at a distance and thinking it would be good if people did that, but would I do it? What made these people so generous? For this is not the sort of generosity we see in normal life. We might see it in one or two people, but not in a whole community. Where does it come from? The truth about the church is shocking but it is also shockingly wonderful. But why does it happen? We'll come back to that question later on.

The Scandalous Church. Acts 5:1-11

There is another side to the church and we see that in the story of two church members. Ananias like many had sold some property and then gave some money to the church. Only that is not quite what happened. It looks that as he had kept some money back. When the collection was being taken up by Peter the leader of the church he suddenly turns and says to Ananias, "how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept some of the money for yourself". Ananias lied, that is he pretended to have a generosity he did not actually have.

When he heard that he falls down dead. Being a hot climate he is quickly buried. It seemed to have happened so fast and that his wife came to the meeting in ignorance. The same thing in turn happens to her. Is this a direct supernatural intervention or was it simply shock, leading to a heart attack at such a great deception being exposed so quickly? Which ever way it is not meant to be a model that we should expect to be common in church practice! The Book of Acts records many things but by doing so it is not necessarily stating they are normal church life. There examples but not commands.

However whilst what we do may be different, the God behind it all is unchanging. If the truth about the church is shocking, but so too is the truth about God.

Think on these four things -

So when faced with God it is not surprisingly that the passage concludes v 11 "great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events".

We ask the question what made the church so radically generous and now we face a second question if God is like that how are we (not simply other people but we) going to escape the wrath of God.

A life changing message 4 :33

The answer as it often is, is found in the Bible. And indeed the very passage we have been looking at. As someone said the treasurers are in the text. Lets backtrack to what happened just before these extraordinary events. Look at v 33 and see what the Apostles were doing. It was very simple they were reminding people of Jesus. Look at v 33 "with great power the Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and much grace was among them". What does this mean? The Apostles were men that followed Jesus around. They had known him initially as a friend and a neighbour. As man like themselves. And then they'd seen him as a very remarkable man and a miracle worker. Then tragedy happened. He was arrested, tortured and with a great miscarriage of justice condemned to death. When someone is dead it is permanent.

It was meant to be the case with Jesus but instead after three days in a grave he came back to life. He reversed the impossible. The only explanation is the power and reality of God. That is the answer to both these questions - why were these people so generous and how do we escape the anger of God at sin.

Maybe the early Christians reasoned like this. If this man rose from the dead he is no ordinary man indeed he must be as he claimed he is the messiah and indeed God. If God had to die for my sins then they must have been very serious indeed. I do indeed stand under God's wrath. They might also have thought if Jesus is God and he died and rose again for my sins then they must really and truly totally removed and forgiven.

They might have continued thinking like this. If he died for me I owe him everything. He loved me enough to lay down his life for me. So I must love others in the same way. That is what they have been doing by sharing their possessions. They recognise that all they had was his.

It is understanding the events of Jesus that makes the church a supernatural fellowship.

d yet although this is true the church still seems a very mixed bag. Dan Brown wrote "nobody could deny the enormous good that the modern church did in today's troubled world and yet the church had a deceitful and violent history".

I cannot say for others but I am responsible for myself. The church has done a tremendous amount of good and yet. When I am gone I hope people will not have to say Simon Falshaw was a Christian AND YET and have a very long list of things to add on. I hope that I will hope the words AND YET will be as small as possible. The Da Vinci Code may be full of inaccuracies but it does at least one small good thing for the church. It reminds us of the challenge to live up to the calling, to be worthy of being part of Christ's church.

What keeps us that way? What kept the early church that way? Look again at verse 33 "and much grace was among them all". Grace is God's undeserved mercy. The church has failed humanly God should have got rid of it ages ago. But by the grace of God it continues so let us keep our eyes on Jesus.

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