NEW BOOK DEFENDS THE DA VINCI CODE AND DAN BROWN FROM VATICAN ATTACK

    NEW BOOK DEFENDS THE DA VINCI CODE AND DAN BROWN FROM VATICAN ATTACK
IN DEFENSE OF THE CHRIST: WHY JESUS WOULD DISOWN CHRISTIANITY by Shawn Patrick Thornton, published in January 2005, provides historical data in support of Brown


/24-7PressRelease.com/ - March 22,2005 - A March 18, 2005 front page article in the Los Angeles Times, by staff writer Tracy Wilkinson, reported that after selling 20 million copies, " 'The Da Vinci Code' has infuriated leaders of the Roman Catholic Church", who in a Vatican Radio attack called the book "a pack of lies". The message was, "don't read and don't buy 'The Da Vinci Code'". Church leaders particularly objected to Brown's characterization of Jesus as an ordinary human being who had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene.

Shawn Patrick Thornton's new book, In Defense of the Christ: Why Jesus would Disown Christianity, cites the recently discovered Gnostic Gospels, some of which are believed to predate the New Testament and are thus part of the primitive oral Gospel, as proof that many early Christians believed that all men share the one spirit of God and thus are like Jesus in every respect. This also happens to be the belief of the best known spiritual mystics, such as Buddha, as well as the leading Christian mystics, according to Bertrand Russell's legendary book, Religion and Science. The Gnostics also believed that the leaders of the orthodox Roman Catholic Church were unable to understand their oneness with God due to their lack of a necessary spiritual experience that they called Gnosis (AKA Spirit Baptism). The Catholic Hierarchy's problem with this belief in oneness is, that if all men possess the one spirit of God they are accordingly inherently righteous and have no need for the 'salvation' that the Catholic Church claims to offer through Christ. Simply stated, such a belief would put the Roman Catholic Church out of business.


There is also evidence in the Gnostic Gospels that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene.


These same Church leaders referred to Brown's book as part of the "increasingly unashamed and virulent anti-Catholicism" of today. Mr. Thornton's book, however, insists that considering Catholicism's brutal history such attacks are appropriate in the name of truth. It is well known that the Catholic Church has used torture and barbaric means of execution, such as drawing and quartering, disemboweling and boiling in oil to advance its ends. The brutality of its Crusaders is legendary. And, the Church continues to threaten homosexuals, young defenseless children who masturbate, adulterers, the poor and ignorant who use birth control, those who divorce and remarry, as well as a long list of other 'sinners', with Hell's eternal flames. The anguish, fear and mental torture that the Church has forced upon all of these people is almost beyond estimate. In Defense of the Christ: Why Jesus would Disown Christianity concludes that Christianity, and Roman Catholicism in particular, has been such a scourge upon mankind that Jesus would have had nothing to do with it. Copies can be ordered at http://www.christbestseller.com .

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