Ekklesia

In an article entitled “Dan Brown’s Debt to Protestantism” written by a Nickolas and posted on the web site for the “Orthodox Church of St. Stephan the Protomartyr” (http://www.ststephenoca.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=76) a compelling but unconvincing case is made for the false claims of Dan Brown’s novel, the “Da Vinci Code”, being born out of the Radical Reformation (i.e. Anabaptists, Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.).  It’s my response that the heart of the issue is a lack of understanding of how pop culture works in a pluralistic, consumer driven democracy which I tackle in the later part of this blog.  But first I’d like to wrestle with the difference between truth and perceived truth. 

At our last Mennonite Orthodox meeting Grahm made the comment that “the golden rule is still in effect, those who have the gold make the rules”.  Another way of stating this is that history is written by those who won the wars and have the power.  Throughout most of the history of the Anabaptist movement, or the Radical Reformation, history has been “controlled” and “constructed” by either Protestants, Roman Catholics, or secularists; most of whom have not had a favorable view of Anabaptism and therefore, used extreme forms of the movement, misunderstanding, and slander as a means to counteract or deride what they did not accept.  This would be the equivalent of understanding Orothodoxy through the eyes of Arianism or blaming Orthodox for the birth of Arianism.  It’s important that we take into consideration the source of our information.  

It’s interesting that Nickolas uses sources that present extreme views of the Radical Reformation to seemingly justify the argument that he is making which is what I’m calling perceived truth.  Through fringe groups and misconstrued (whether intentionally or unintentionally) writing we can create a perceived truth about a group of people that shapes another group’s understanding of them and reinforces stereotypes and prejudices while failing to see what the misconstrued group really believes.  In other words, I’ve had to jettison the percieved truth that my family taught me about Orthodox and other liturgical Christians in order to accept Orthodox as fellow believers in Christ.  Orthodox are not part of the anti-Christ or Satan’s kingdom on earth as I was once taught.  It would be helpful for Nickolas’ to take the same position in order to wrestle with some very good critiques of the Radical Reformation that he raises such as it’s tendency towards ahistoricism, misconstrued understanding of Constantine, rejection of the sacraments, etc. 

However, it feels like quite a heavy burden to place the full weight of the theory of Christ having married and the belief that Jesus’ Divinity is a conspiracy upon Anabaptists.  First of all, we need to take into consideration that the theories Dan Brown spins in the “Da Vinci Code” have existed since the early church before the Radical Reformation ever came on the scene.  So while Radical Reformers help to radicalize a climate of questioning the questions are not new.  The Radical Reformation should be held accountable for what it willingly rejected of truth in the Apostalic movement but it can’t be blamed for what existed before it’s time.  Like I already stated, this would be the equivalent of blaming Orthodoxy for the rise of Arianism or any number of the other heretical movements that arose within the Byzantine empire.

The real heart of the problem is not the challenges or problems the Radical Reformation brings to theology but the need to understand the nature and mode of operation for Pop Culture within a postmodern (in the popular sense of the word) context.  The Da Vinci Code is not historical and any allusion Dan Brown makes to it being such is a marketing ploy that connects with the human psyche that is looking for mystery.  Those people who believed the theories Dan Brown spins probably had a propensity to believe them before reading the book and are thus part of the pluralism in spirituality that constitutes the world. 

I think we fail to understand the importance of Dan Brown’s work if we cast it to the Inquisitional fire (not that the theories don’t deserved to be burned).  Dan Brown, like any writer or movie maker or artists, is creating a fictional world within which various thematic elements, ideas, questions, etc. are being wrestled with.  While Dan Brown’s novel is written as if it were the real world we know it’s fiction because of the outstanding performance of the characters.  How many albino monk assasins are there in this world?  How many cryptologists that can solve such outstanding riddles are there who are also able to outwit the police across the whole of Europe.  The novel is a fanciful world constructed to wrestle with certain issues and problems that are also entertaining. 

It’s important to critique the novel and movie to uncover the underlying questions and ideas it’s really wrestling with (this is not the plot but the heart of the story that holds the plot together).  Once we understand the theme of the novel then we can bring to bear a theological dialogue with it’s premise.  Dan Brown is wrestling with the loss of mystery and humanness in the church that have been replaced with cold, abstract doctrines that don’t bring it’s people into a warm relationship with the living God.  The question for us is how much of Dan Brown’s critique of church is true and how much is a failure to understand the reality of the church and truth because of sin and brokenness. 

Whether or not Dan Brown’s challenge is good it points to the reality that people are looking for a God that is capable of stepping into their world and loving them.  They find the Da Vinci Code entertaining because it’s wrestling with assumptions and ideas that are latent in the postmodern heart; the institution is suspect and the church is more concerned with cold doctrine than it is with mystery and humanizing (theosis) the person. 

In Pop Culture people like Dan Brown are going to say whatever they want about church, Christianity, truth, etc.  They can’t be stopped no matter how many protests or boycotts we muster.  And they shouldn’t be stopped.  Instead they need to be heard without the fear that somehow they’ve accumalted the power to knock God out of Heaven and once their heard the church needs clear, insightful, engaging and honest dialogue/critique with the issues and questions that their raising because these are the issues and questions people have.  It’s through such conversations and dialogue that the Apostalic Church will be able to communicate and icon the reality of Christ, the Son of God, who has conquered death by his death.