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| Every now and then a piece of 'popular culture' becomes so talked about and so massively consumed that it becomes a 'phenomenon'. It is rare that any pop phenomenon takes itself seriously enough to raise matters debated by scholars. Dan Brown's fictional account The Da Vinci Code not only has become a phenomenon in recent years (a literary bestseller that has spawned games and a successful movie) but it also asks important questions about the nature of primitive Christianity, the development of church doctrine, the relation of church and power, and so on. In this respect it possesses potential for raising the level of interest in complex matters of western history, theology, ethics and politics, and the history of art. |
| My worry, however, is that in practice while many are talking about The Da Vinci Code phenomenon few are seriously engaging at a deeper level with these questions, content to assume that Dan Brown's a competent historian of the emergence of the Christian Church. Historians are rightly bothered by this assumption - the historiography of the book is simply weak to the point of lazy. Sure, it makes for a great conspiracy tale, but the manner of the way many receive it as securing them in their suspicions of Christianity force us to consider just what makes for responsible literature in an era of increasing historical and theological illiteracy. But that is far from all. Any intelligent observer of the arguments Brown's writing has generated will be rightly disappointed to discover that the vast majority of responses are defensive and polemical. Just look at the titles of many of the books: - Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code - The Da Vinci Code: A Response - The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction - Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You - Da Vinci Code Decoded: The Truth Behind... - The Truth Behind The Da Vinci Code - The Da Vinci Hoax - The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers - Breaking The Da Vinci Code - Black & White, and Brown: The Da Vinci Code Deception - Counterfeit Code - The Truth About Jesus: Not 'The Da Vinci Code' |
| There is, of course, a sense in which these kinds of works are highly appropriate - anyone claiming to be presenting historical facts, the truth of how things were (whether that be Mel Gibson or Dan Brown) leave themselves open to honest and rigorous checking of those perceived 'facts'. And yet there is something disturbing in many of them, and this has something to do with the psychology of religious believing (we should not, though, forget that there is a psychology of atheism too) - what is it about religious belief and commitment that prevents one from listening carefully to another and responding to them fairly and with conversational sophistication? In my paper 'Seeing Our Distorted Selves in The Da Vinci Code' I argue that the matters raised by Brown and others like him cannot be simply dealt with at the historical level - there are real theological worries too. The kind of Christianity that flexes its muscles and shouts back 'but we have the truth' is precisely what writings like those of Brown, among others, have problems with. In that respect, the typical apologetic protest against Brown's shoddy historical claims entirely misses the point and expresses in its performance, the kind of response that comes naturally to it, something of the politics of power that he accuses the Constantinian church of falling prey to (interestingly, a good number of Christian theologians have a considerable degree of sympathy with this particular point). |
| Some Thoughts |
| Paper |