When reporters attempt to dissect the "reaction" to the Da Vinci Code, they concentrate on the Christians. The non-Christians deserve a day in the sun as well.

If you visit various discussion boards on the web, what you’ll find are conversations that usually end up focusing on the basics: Does God exist? Who was Jesus?

And for some reason, unknown to me, atheists and materialists seem to believe that DVC is on their side.

Of course, I hasten to say that in my opinion DVC is on no one’s side except Dan Brown’s – I’ve always tried to walk a line that’s careful to answer the questions the novel raises in readers’ minds, but without taking the book itself too seriously. There is no great thinking going on here, and to expend a lot of effort arguing over what ideology or spiritual system lies behind it seems to give the book way, way too much credit.

But as I’ve been reading over discussion boards and reflecting on my own email, I’m struck by two points:

1) Atheists and materialists who use DVC, thinking that the book is an argument for their side. To the extent that we even want to dignify it with the word "argument" – let’s remind those guys of something important. There’s divinity in DVC all right. It’s all over the place. All over women, all over and in Mary Magdalene, and perhaps (main oui!) even in Sophie Neveau. It’s just Jesus who gets left out. It’s a fun little point of illogic to bring up in discussions.

2) Those who don’t care about the specifics of DVC, but are glad that Christianity gets drilled. I think I mentioned last week about the letters I get scoring my DVC work that barely mention DVC. It’s kind of weird, but also kind of explains a lot.

And just a reminder (I post this occasionally, because we have new readers all the time) – my work isn’t a response to The Da Vinci Code. The existence of this novel in itself is of no consequence to me, as is the case with 99% of what’s on the "fiction" shelf. Okay – 97%.  I wouldn’t have said a word past my initial review if the mail hadn’t begun to pour in after that review was published. Mail indicating that some readers were taking this seriously. So, my work is a response to questions some readers have about DVC.

Christopher Blosser of the Ratzinger Fan Club has put together an excellent page of resources and articles. He’s got linked an article that I also link on my own DVC page, and one that I would heartily recommend if you’ve got someone who’s sold on DVC, but won’t listen to you because you’re a religious fanatic and all that: Laura Miller’s "Da Vinci Crock" article from Salon from 2004. Not exactly a religious fanatic, there. And she gets the job done just fine, pressing the basic point: Hey. The Priory of Sion was a fraud. Why do we need to talk about this for even one second more?