I wouldn't doubt it. The aesthete in me is sort of pleased that a work of fiction, albeit one as trashy as this, is generating so much serious discussion about the effect that Art has on a culture. Maybe it will drive others to write their own pulp thrillers with a Biblical point of view. Something about the rapture perhaps and those who would be left behind...
I read you. The aesthete, the effete snob and the dilettante in me all agree. Nevertheless, I was surprised, if not shocked, (and continue to be annoyed) by the "It's FICTION, people" posts (the word 'FICTION' usually capitalized for some odd reason. An ancient conspiracy of the murderous Church of Popular Culture?), until I recalled Umberto Eco's lectures collected in Six Walks in Fictional Woods, where he describes the inner workings, as it were, of fiction (bad characterization, but Google will direct you to better ones.)
It turns out, I see, that the understanding of the rules of fiction that I, you perhaps, take for granted is not universal. Because to me Philip Roth's recent fiction The Plot Against America, which is history that never happened, but what if it had happened, is A-OK, while Brown's history that might have happened but is likely kept a secret by the evil Catholic Church, is a blasphemy against religion and against good taste, to say the least. There are other examples I have used such as Gore Vidal's Lincoln or Steve Martin's (!) Picasso at the Lapin Agile of history as a takeoff for ideas and meditations. D'uh Vinci Code is little more that a third rate thriller by a third rate writer. I hear the porno scenes are good in it!
A reviewer I chanced upon last week expressed some guilt about her snobbery (her sister, she said, read romance novels one after the other), but finally broke down, went slumming and read this awful book. She said she now felt "connected". At the same time she was kind enough to recommend a literary novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (WHO?!) going as far as offering to refund any readers money if they didn't like it. I'm reading it now.