Having a conversation over a week ago with some friends brought up all the reading I did during the Da Vinci craze, but also made me realize how the ideas and trends that are much larger than Dan Brown, most importantly questions about faith that might have been stunted in people's past or church environments, are important ones that need attention.
I found a great article from NT Wright, here's a quote that deals specifically with gnosticism. You can read the whole thing (which is much borader) here.
"The Gnostic conspiracy theory says that orthodoxy hushed up the really exciting thing and promoted this boring sterile thing with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And of course there's a great lie underneath that. In the second and third centuries, the people being thrown to the lions and burned at the stake and sawed in two were not the ones reading Thomas and Judas and the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. They were the ones reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because the empire is perfectly happy with Gnosticism. Gnosticism poses no threat to the empire. Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do. It's the church's shame that in the last 200 years, the church has muzzled Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and turned them into instruments of a controlling, sterile orthodoxy. But the texts themselves are explosive."
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