 |
| Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Book > A Question Of Truth:- Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code Writer : Annabelle BokI once posed a general question on my personal blog, asking if anyone would agree with me on the difference between what is true and what is truth. Or, more specifically, the difference truth and Truth. I read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code more than a year ago, and although my initial reaction to the book was a mixture of admiration (for his skill in incorporating obscure historical facts into a gripping modern-day thriller) and disgust (at its being one of the most horrifically blasphemous books I have ever read), I have to say that the recent uproar and controversy surrounding the movie seems rather unnecessary. After all, the book has been around for about five years now. In my opinion, delayed response that takes on such proportions leans a little bit towards overreaction. Brown's book elaborates extremely convincingly on conspiracy theories and celebrates the idea of the sacred feminine. The fact that he peppers his text so seamlessly with real facts (although one must exercise a healthy distrust of mere "fact") and a mire of general knowledge only serves to make his arguments stronger -- and what I think the whole of Christendom finds so distressing about this is the crux of his textual argument itself. The Da Vinci Code is, after all, not just about the idea that the world system of patriarchy began with the Christian era and that it was an egoistic male attempt to wipe out the previous centuries of goddess worship and the sacred feminine. Brown posits, quite convincingly, that a more than substantial amount of historical, archaeological and socio-political evidence points to Christianity as a completely human construct. The idea that Brown develops in his best-selling text is that Jesus' divinity was an invention of the instituted church, and that before that, He was nothing more than an exceptionally wise, perceptive, intuitive, charismatic, persuasive, and influential man. Almost unbelieveably powerful, especially in his ability to heal diseases and cast out devils, but a mere mortal all the same. On top of that, The Da Vinci Code also presents the claim that there is considerable evidence to show that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. Brown posits that the Magdalen was neither an unknown townswoman nor a prostitute, but a high-born noble with royal ancestry whose reputation and history was perverted and destroyed in a smear campaign by the Church in order to privilege their invention of a divine Jesus Who was the incarnate Son of God, the immortal and celibate Saviour. Most mind-wrenching of all is the claim that all the historical legends concerning the Knights Templar and the quests for the Holy Grail were in reality a cover-up for the search by a small, orthodox group of 'true believers' for the entombed remains of Mary Magdalene who was the true divinity, and who had actually borne a child fathered by Christ. Apparently, the (real and existing) sect called the Priory of Sion is dedicated to protecting the documentation of these 'facts', the secret location of the Magdalen's remains, as well as the bloodline of Jesus Christ. Brown draws up a long list of 'coincidences' involving centuries of occurrences, and the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton and other famous individuals, creating a thread of reasoning which culminates in his blasphemous deductions. There is just too much mind-boggling information and logically sound reasoning, as well as uncanny linkage and coincidence, for Brown's work to be pure imaginative fiction. However, I do possess a somewhat less-than-vague idea of some of these historical figures' biographies, and while Brown is not simply talking off the top of his head, I am convinced that any inidividual who puts in a reasonable amount of time and effort will be able to uncover where the truth of the matter lies. So Mr Brown did his research. Well, so can I. There is nothing to stop Christians from getting their minds and their hands moving in order to discover history for themselves -- which is partly why I find myself somewhat distanced from all the public furore. While I do not wish to appear to be writing in Brown's defence, I must add that as a writer myself, I find it hard to stomach the fact that most of the criticism being fielded in the public sphere appears to conflate Brown with Robert Langdon, the protagonist of The Da Vinci Code. Doubtless Brown is not innocent of anti-Christ sentiments, but to equate him with Langdon or with the other fictional characters of The Da Vinci Code is utterly unprofessional. My opinion is that he should be criticised for his decision to yield to the spirit of anti-Christ, and not for being, in himself, a comspirator against Christ and the Church. If anyone has had the sense or the integrity to do a check, they would know that from the very first edition, Brown's book contained a disclaimer in which he pled leniency from believers and posited his book as a work of fiction, a patchwork of various interesting facts and fragments of historical information. To put it plainly, Brown may be being used by the devil to cause confusion and anxiety within the Church, but it is completely absurd to equate him with the Anti-Christ himself. What does appear to be the real cause of anxiety, to me at least, is the fact that Brown's style is so readable and convincingly persuasive. An extremely intellectual friend of mine had been totally enamoured with the book; when I finally read it for myself I was shocked at how much she had been quoting from it in our conversations and discussions at the time; and there I was wondering where on earth she had suddenly found a fresh determination in believing that Christianity is a fallacy and a sort of madness. While pondering the fact that the ideas in The Da Vinci Code share close links with Feminist Theory and the hopelessly aimless circularity of most Feminist arguments, I could not help but conclude that Feminism as a radical movement was instigated by the devil himself. One need only examine the movement's track record to feel an inward shrinking of the spirit. While I have recently had to come down quite a few notches from my radically anti-Feminist stance, my general uneasiness and deep-seated sense of being highly disturbed remains. Even the cause of the so-called 'moderate feminists' who try to distant themselves from the 'radical feminists' seems suspect to me. Consider, for one, the Feminist notion of equality. They strongly resist the idea that this world should be perceived as one made up of dualities. Any binary system apart from computer language is supposedly anathema to the rational Feminist, because all definitions are arbitrary -- and, supposedly, also a patriarchal invention. This means that there is no such thing as black/white, true/false, good/evil, or any either/or set of choices. Feminists believe that people should not be gendered by the organs they were born with, because biology is not good enough a reason why all people should have to be only either male or female. Everything should be therefore thrown into question, flung into doubt, open to questioning and inquiry. Nothing is certain, nothing should be taken as 'correct'. Right and wrong are arbitrary. Situational morality becomes more than a merely philosophical possibility. Therefore there cannot realistically be a God... much less a male one, since no one can prove without a doubt His existance, much less His gender. Why should we not all take a more pantheistic view of things, since Mother Nature is full of mysterious and beautiful harmonies (like Phi, the Sacred Proportion, the number 1.618)? Why should anyone see faith as anything but a hallucination of absolute Truth, due to man's intrinsic desire and yearning for what is higher, greater, loftier, immortal and sublime? Meaning, isn't faith logically just about self-delusion from a formless, innate human desire for the escape from the meaningless chaos of this life, towards the infinite? And there's more -- Feminist believe that most women only believe that they were born to be domestic because, being born into an intensely gendered world/society, they have been bred to believe that from birth. To them, almost everything can be read as part of the conspiracy of patriarchy to retain its stranglehold on its/his female possession. They dispute the belief that men are meant to be leaders. They are angry that the Bible posits woman as man's helper, because to them, it means that she comes second, comes beneath, and is therefore being restricted from her full potential. To them, Christianity is emphatically patriarchal... that it is one of the foremost institutions in the subjugation and villification of women. There's that whole furore (my God, it's been going on for centuries) about the Edenic myth and the sole implication of Eve in Original Sin. But if you have never read the Bible objectively for yourself, and are only going by what other people have previously interpreted and presented for your perusal, and base one's lifelong convictions on that, then I feel sorry for you -- first and foremost as an academic. Where is your intellectual integrity? Who are you to judge a text solely by the words of its critics? You who deem yourself worthy and able to objectively critique works of art in the historical canon -- why do you simply take the world best-seller of centuries to be a lie simply based on what people say? Why should something be untrue or unreal just because you can't seem to find 'factual evidence' or 'proof' of its genuinity, its accuracy, its Truth? Feminists are even attacking the notion that woman, being supposedly more sensitive and spiritually attuned, was placed by God as man's helper to assist in his relationship with the divine through quiet and gentle mediation. To them, this is an insult -- a relegation of the woman to a mere role, a mere object, a mere tool, for egotistic man to reach his male God. Is this not, then, clearly demonic in origin? Open your eyes -- we are in the Last Days. This is the Third Day Generation. This world as we know it is running on borrowed time. Satan knows his reign will not last many more years. The apocalypse is at hand and there is nothing in all creation that can stop its coming. The time is up on the oldest property lease in known history -- the 6,000 year least on Planet Earth. In desperation, Satan has cut right back to the very beginnings -- to Genesis, to destroy the first harmonies of God's eternal Truth. Here he intends to sever the beautiful and delicate balance of the relationship between man and woman. It would destroy the picture of our Lord as the divine Bridegroom with the Church as His bride, and it would destroy the very idea of love itself: Feminists argue that love is a patriarchal construct meant to 'dupe' women or 'compensate' them for their willing submission to male domination. The world is undeniably getting darker. Sometimes, pressed by all these academic writings and philosophical arguments, one feels somewhat alone and scared -- ...But we have a hope that cannot be shaken, for we have the One Who is unshakeable in His faithfulness. Personally, I am so glad that I have Him, for He alone can give meaning to this life. He alone can give real peace. He alone is the source of joy. He alone is the answer to every question. He alone is the Rock where I find stability. Someday I want to write on how what is unseen and un-proveable is logically more real then this world of sense that we exist in. A lot of the Christian writings I've come into contact have not really made the attempt to appeal to the rational. I believe our God is a rational God who created a rational universe. Phi is evidence enough that something had to be the Designer-Creator of this world... look at the amazing order all around us. The heavens declare the glory of God. He who has eyes to see, let him see; he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And whatever your own free decision, upon your own head be it.
|
| PREVIOUS ARTICLES Book > Faith & Fiction: The Fallacy of the Da Vinc... Book > SCRIBBLING IN THE SAND: Christ and Creativi... < back to Backstage : Literary Arts' newest posting
|
| | | ||
|
|
 |
 |