Author Dan Brown wrote the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. At first glance, the plot isn't anything that stands out above the normal mystery fare: The murder of a curator at the Louvre in Paris leads to a trail of clues found in the work of Leonardo da Vinci and to the discovery of a centuries old secret society. But as the plot unfolds, we find woven throughout the narrative a thoroughgoing rejection of the truth of the Christian faith. Specifically, Brown suggests that the church invented the deity of Jesus. So it wasn't just a novel. Brown put forward a blend of fiction and historical assertion that suggests that the entire foundation upon which Christianity is established is false.

In an interview to promote a later book, he was asked, "Are you religious?" Here was his answer:

I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, "I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?" Unfortunately, the response I got was, "Nice boys don't ask that question." A light went off, and I said, "The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me." And I just gravitated away from religion.