New York, USA - Doubt the Bible? Question Jesus? Hint at secrets? Make way for crowds. Books and movies about conspiracy theories and skeptical views of religion are sure paths to popular attention. And some people say the devil is behind such works — whether the authors are aware of this or not, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup survey.
The nationwide telephone survey of 1,013 U.S. adults, conducted May 5-7, found that 19% see Satan trying to destroy people's religious faith when sales soar for books, movies and studies that raise doubts about Jesus or the Bible. People who attend church weekly were more likely to believe that.
The movie version of Dan Brown's mega-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, which claims the Catholic Church conspired, even killed, to hide Jesus' secret marriage to Mary Magdalene, opens May 19.
It follows closely on the heels of The Gospel of Judas, released at Easter time by National Geographic. That was the first translation of an ancient manuscript that presents Judas as Jesus' best buddy doing God's will, not the vile betrayer shown in the Bible.
However, most people (72%) say it's human nature to be skeptical about religion. And Catholics, whose historical church fathers take a heavy beating in Brown's book, were least likely to blame an evil force.
"The devil has always been a scapegoat," says Terrence Tilley, a professor of philosophy of religion and Catholic theology at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
Still, "some of (Brown's book) is so like what people would like to believe that it's easy for people to start believing the whole thing. Scholars really get their dander up when obvious fiction and legend is called fact," say Tilley, who has spoken about the book on panels from Dayton to Dublin.
While scholars and clergy dissect, debunk and denounce the story's theology, art and history, much of the potential audience appears uninterested in nit-picking a thriller.
Other findings in the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points:
• 79% say such books and movies are popular because, as Brown says twice in his book, many people enjoy a conspiracy.
• 72% say they see such books and movies as entertainment, not serious commentary on religion.
• 72% say no movie has profoundly affected their religious beliefs in any positive or negative way; 21% say a movie they saw strengthened their religious beliefs; 4% say they have seen a movie that caused them to question their religious beliefs.
• 43% say they definitely won't go see the film — but more than half of that group (58%) also said they didn't see a single movie last year.
"The movie will come and go. It's the book, with its bizzaro Christianity, that's more troubling," says radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, author of several books on conservative religion and politics.
"In an era of almost pre-literacy when it comes to theology, a lot of lousy ideas and bad history smuggle themselves in and then get repeated endlessly.
"It's not the devil at work," Hewitt says. "It's capitalism's way of enriching fraud."