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I’ve heard this remark quite often over the past few years, referring to the Left Behind series and the Harry Potter novels, and now to the latest fiction sensation, The Da Vinci Code. “Those books are just fiction,” readers remarked, “Why be concerned about them?”
When such comments are made about the Left Behind books, they don’t usually come from Rapture-believers or fundamentalist Protestants, but from Catholics. I regularly hear from readers explaining how entertaining the books are and how they’ve “opened up the Bible” for them, helping them to understand the Book of Revelation and current events. Many state that the Left Behind series changed their lives and inspired them spiritually. But most of them also emphasize that the best-selling end times novels are “just fiction.”
It seems that fiction, for many people, is simply entertainment and escapism that can have only a positive effect. So, the Left Behind books explain Scripture, but never misinterpret it. The Harry Potter books inspire children to read, but never to explore the occult. The Da Vinci Code explains the true history of Christianity, but never misrepresents it.
Yet the enormous success of the Left Behind series and of The Da Vinci Code in particular indicates that novels promoting esoteric beliefs, presented in a fast-paced fashion, and loaded with attacks on the Catholic Church make for best-sellers. It also suggests that best-selling fiction—despite being “just fiction”—is a source of theology, philosophy, and history for a growing number of readers.
The Illinois Conference of Catholic Bishops recognized this fact and recently issued a statement describing the Left Behind series and its creator, fundamentalist Tim LaHaye, as anti-Catholic. LaHaye denies the charge, saying the bishops are “reading into these books something that’s not there.” However, those familiar with the novels and with LaHaye’s books on “Bible prophecy” know the San Diego-based pastor is a throwback to the nativist anti-Catholicism of the nineteenth-century.
In several non-fiction books, LaHaye claims Catholicism is “pagan” and is a “Babylonian idolatrous religion,” marked by corruption, murder, and numerous false doctrines. The anti-Catholicism is more subtle in the Left Behind books, but obvious to the alert reader. LaHaye is adamant that “true Christianity” was nearly destroyed by the Emperor Constantine, who allowed pagan practices and “Babylonian mysticism” to infiltrate the Church. In his commentary Revelation Unveiled, he admits that the Catholic Church today does hold to truths such as the Trinity and “the personal deity of Christ, but errs in adding Babylonian mysticism in many forms and salvation by works.”
Armageddon, the latest installment in the Left Behind series, was published in April (2003) and quickly topped the best-seller list. The Da Vinci Code, a whodunit with a theological agenda, appeared around the same time. The author, Dan Brown, states he is a Christian, “although perhaps not in the most traditional sense of the word.” That’s a mild understatement considering his novel is based on the beliefs that Jesus was not divine, was married to Mary Magdalene and had children, and that the Catholic Church has kept all of this hidden through intimidation, deception, and even murder.
Just as many readers believe the Left Behind novels are God-given guides to understanding the “end times,” readers and critics are fawning over The Da Vinci Code and its explanation of the real history of Christianity and the Catholic Church. This despite Brown’s stiff, disjointed thriller being packed full of historical errors, feminist propaganda, and neo-Gnostic sermonizing.
Ironically, characters in the novel (who clearly mouth Brown’s views) condemn Constantine for abandoning paganism and endorsing Christianity despite never becoming a Christian himself. The absurd assertion is made that Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to deify Christ. As one character, a historian, soberly explains, “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet. . . . Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”
Sadly, these distorted views of history and Catholicism—views that really are fictional—are the closest thing to theology and catechesis that some people will ever read. Bad fiction distorts truth by pretending to be more than just fiction, while good fiction should reveal truth, not misrepresent it.
 Carl E. Olson is the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
He is the co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code and author of Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? He has written for numerous Cathlic periodicals and is a regular contributor to National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor newspapers.
He resides in a top secret location in the Northwest somewhere between Portland, Oregon and Sacramento, California. Visit his personal web site at www.carl-olson.com .
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