Wednesday, May 24, 2006

'The Da Vinci Code'

Commentary by David Reinhard


By DAVID REINHARD

David Reinhard

Why are orthodox Christians in general and Roman Catholics in particular bent out of shape about the "The Da Vinci Code"?

For many, this is a rhetorical question that's supposed to end rather than start discussion. Everybody knows the right answer. At least, everybody in the secular smart set. "The Da Vinci Code" is only fiction, for heaven's sake. You know, fiction as in make-believe. It's a pulp potboiler turned Tinsel Town flick. It's not Hollywood's take on Aquinas' "Summa Theologica." So pass the popcorn, padre.

For others, however, the question is a real one, and the answer more complex than, "It's fiction!"

Let's assume "The Da Vinci Code" is just fiction. Consider its brute claims:

Jesus was not God, the son of God or divine at all. He was a man who married and had a daughter with Mary Magdalene -- preggers at the crucifixion -- and members of their bloodline survive to this day. The early church knew this. It was right there in the early Scriptures.

But fourth-century Roman Emperor Constantine turned Jesus into an unmarried, desexualized deity for his own purposes. The Church has been playing along ever since. The Priory of Sion still worships Mary Magdalene as goddess and is struggling to keep the truth alive, but the male-chauvinist weirdos at Opus Dei will stop at nothing, not even murder, to kill the truth of "the sacred feminine."

Would any other religion just brush off this kind of assault and slander? Would Jews? Muslims?

Somehow I doubt it would matter that the anti-Semitism or anti-Islamicism was only fiction. It didn't with the Muhammad cartoons. And for good reason. We all grasp the power of pop culture to shape and instruct. Fictionalizing bigotry, insensitivity or slander doesn't make it less ugly or compelling. On the contrary. It can make intolerance more tolerable.

But the problem with "The Da Vinci Code" goes beyond a fictionalized attack on Christianity. The book pretends it's something more than fiction. Its first page contains a claim about the factuality of material in the book. "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel," author Dan Brown writes, "are accurate."

This and the pronouncements by his main characters -- Harvard professor Robert Langdon and historian Sir Leigh Teabing -- give the impression the fiction thriller is built on a base of facts about Scripture, history, art and contemporary religious organizations.

In fact, "The Da Vinci Code" is a testament to what Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness" -- "truth" that will not stand to be held back by facts.

Did the church believe Jesus was a mere mortal until Constantine presided at the Council of Nicaea? Not at all. This council was held in 325 to take up the views of a priest named Arius, who believed Jesus was not fully divine. This heretical view conflicted with church teaching.

There's no evidence for Brown's claim in Scripture, but never mind the Bible or biblical experts. Consider the artistic evidence Brown uses to advance this claim. The unbearded individual next to Jesus in Leonardo's "Last Supper" is Mary Magdalene, the "bride of Christ," dressed as a man, and not the accepted figure of John the Evangelist.

"St. John was invariably represented as a beautiful young man whose special affinity with Jesus was expressed by his being seated at Jesus' right," Bruce Boucher, curator of European decorative arts and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, wrote in The New York Times. "Leonardo's St. John conforms to this type."

The book and movie are no better when he touches on the present. Consider his slander of Opus Dei. It's an organization to help lay Catholics become more holy and grow closer to God in their everyday, secular lives. Brown has Opus Dei committing all manner of evil to maintain the great "lies" of faith. Its agent is an albino monk named Silas. It says all you need to know about Brown's accuracy that Opus Dei has no monks, albino or otherwise.

Heaven knows, the Catholic Church has much to answer for of late. But is "The Da Vinci Code" a fitting penance? Is an attack on Christianity and Catholicism -- even an attack masquerading as fiction, a fiction tarted up in pseudo-fact -- fair? Would we tolerate it, much less commercialize and celebrate it, if it were directed at another religion?

It's often said that anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals. We're about to see if anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of moviegoers.

Of course, it's just fiction.




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