The Katrina Code

Two recent events have had surprising impacts on me. First, I read the novel, The DaVinci Code. Second, I visited a house in Chalmette, LA, a city east of New Orleans with massive devastation from flooding related to Hurricane Katrina. After having had the time to consider both, I have discovered similar reactions to both.First, the house. Several months ago, a couple began visiting our church and finally joined. Jimmy and Jolene Black moved to our community from Chalmette. We all knew they had lost their home to Katrina, and had decided to begin anew in our area. Currently, they are building a new house north of us.

Several weeks ago, we were discussing an upcoming relief volunteer trip. We had not yet decided where to go, but were thinking of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Jimmy made a remark about their home, and after a few questions, we decided to head to Chalemette. Another member of Enon and I visited the Black’s house this morning. I hardly can describe what I saw. I will tell you that the water came within a foot of covering their home totally. Also, they were in the area affected by chemicals from Murphy Oil.

As I stood in what had been their living room, I was able to look into the next room and the attic; the walls and ceiling were gone. Dried mud was a couple of inches thick, which means before it dried, the mud was very deep. Ruined furniture, furnishings, family photos, clothes, and everything else we take for granted in our homes were lying where the water had scattered them. Jolene has not seen her home since she left after being forced out when the levees were breached. Jimmy will not show her even a picture. No one was ready for the tragedy visited upon them by the effects of Katrina.

Second, The DaVinci Code. I consider myself to be a minor authority on mystery and suspense thrillers. I have been reading novels of that genre for a number of years. Such books are what I call "mind-candy." Your intellectual powers are not tested, but you do have to think off and on. Good suspense writers don’t give away too much and hold the resolution of the plot to the end. Mystery novels are supposed to keep you guessing till the end. After a few pages, I had Dan Brown’s book figured out.

I was amazed at how poorly written the book was. The characters were, at best, one-dimensional. Narrative critics in New Testament studies would call them flat as opposed to round. The research for the book was what one would expect in a term paper written by a sophomore in high school. Worst of all, Brown’s hidden agenda was as evident as the proverbial fox in the hen-house. Strangely, though, millions of readers have bought into the author’s agenda without ever raising a critical question.

We live in an era of spiritual emptiness. Too many people get their "religion" from TV. People get a steady diet of "me-ism" from the mass media evangelists. Rarely does one hear a real challenge to sacrificial living when listening to those who dare not alienate the audience. If they do, ratings will fall and contributions along with them. So, folk learn how easily they can use God to become wealthy. Do we wonder why people are so cynical about organized religion?Into this spiritual wasteland wandered Dan Brown. He soundly condemned organized religion in his book, as well as offering an alternative. Sadly, though, he is guilty of what he condemns organized religion of doing: distorting the truth. In order for his story to be "true," he had to change history.

Lots of folk will not be prepared for the brick wall they’ll run into down the road if they persist in believing trendy philosophies such as what Brown offers in The DaVinci Code. They will not be ready when the unexpected tragedy occurs and their self-determined spirituality falls apart and fails them in their time of need. Nothing Brown offers in The DaVinci Code would strengthen a person in the midst daily challenges, much less a real faith-trying trial.

Jimmy and Jolene Black persist. They have not given up. They continue to live because of their faith in God to sustain them in the terrible crisis they, and many others like them, have experienced. Fortunately for them, their lives were not rooted in what they owned, but in who they knew: Jesus. Readers of Dan Brown’s novels will not encounter a personal Lord. They’ll hear about the sacred feminine and the goddess, but not a personal relationship with God through Christ.

The lives and dreams of many who accept uncritically Brown’s philosophy, or theology or whatever he might call it, will be as devastated as the homes in south Louisiana. These people will have nothing to sustain them in their trials, or to strengthen them to move on with life. All they’ll have left will be lives in shambles, with precious things scattered in disarray by the storm known as The DaVinci Code