Book Review: De-Coding Mary Magdalene

I mentioned in the previous post that I read the blog of Amy Welborn, a Catholic author. Several of Amy's recent books were written in reaction to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. I recently read one, Decoding Mary Magdalene. I have to hand it to Amy. She has done a terriffic job of balancing readability, scholarly credibility (she lets you know the source of her quotes and ideas without microscopic footnotes) and spirituality. Her background as a teacher comes through when she ends each chaper with reflection questions. She takes on the modern thesis that Mary Magdalene was made into a whore by the Church so as to lessen her importance to early Christians and points out that in the middle ages, no saint had a bigger following than she did, except for the Blessed Mother.

I have to say though, that reading The DaVinci Code was more fun--kind of like comparing the well-balanced, low-fat, high fiber meal with the chocolate cake. One is good for you; the other has its place and can be more pleasurable.