Ekklesia

Radical Reformation responsible for “Da Vinci Code”; I beg to differ

rodmarmis — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:49:30 +0000

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.

How do we interpret Scripture?

rodmarmis — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:39:34 +0000

I recently had a conversation with a person who works in the construction industry. He was lamenting the growing paperwork that he has to take care to meet local building ordinances before he begins a job. Apparently several years ago Pennsylvania standardized many of the ordinances for building codes and so forth. For a few years, according to my friend, the local governments followed the standard rules to the letter making things easier. Now, as time goes on, the local governments are adding their own interpretations to the rules which is creating a diversity of applications of the building codes creating a headache for anyone attempting to build. At this point my friend and I looked at each other and I said; “Hey that sounds like the church. We have one Bible and a diversity of interpretations and applications.” We both laughed at the analogy and shook our heads. (His son was going ballistic in the van so he had to go).

I wonder, is the diversity of biblical interpretations found in the Protestant/evangelical world the result of local or cultural understandings and applications of scripture? Or is the diversity the fruit of human-centered religion where the focus is on a humanity that hasn’t died to itself in Christ but still lives in the flesh? What about the Apostolic Tradition; is there a diversity of interpretation of the Tradition and how the Orthodox understand what it means to be Orthodox?

I’m not bothered by healthy diversity; I embrace it as a reflection of the creative energy of God. So is the problem diversity or the religious systems we’ve created that guide our understanding of Scripture. Some seemingly different interpretations of Scripture found in Protestant/Evangelical circles are linguistic issues where people are potentially saying the same thing but are too “stubborn” to sit together and listen to each other for fear of realizing they may be on the same page and have to actually get along together. However, other issues of diversity in the interpretation of Scripture are the result of the religious system (i.e. the worldview of the religious community and how it’s worked out in the community’s culture) that imposes a set of values and beliefs upon Scripture. How often do we read Scripture through our contemporary lenses failing to realize that Jesus and his disciples didn’t sit around a camp fire in blue jeans singing Kumb By Ya.

Without a transcendent authority to appeal to how do we know if the diverse interpretations of Scriptures that we have in Protestant/evangelical circles are faithful to Christ or unfaithful? On what basis do we challenge such teachings as the “prosperity gospel” as being unfaithful to Christ when people in the “prosperity gospel” are convinced of the truth of their ways? We need to learn to let go of our interpretations, to die to our beliefs, and allow the Scripture to challenge and mold us through the work of the Holy Spirit. But, I also believe we need the guidance of the Apostolic Tradition as a boundary for how we wrestle with Scripture in contemporary times. Otherwise, we’re left with competing groups and individuals vying to legitimize their own views within a democratic spiritual marketplace.

Do we make Idols Real?

rodmarmis — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:56:17 +0000

I recently returned from vacationing in Vietnam where our tour consisted of visiting several temples and pagodas that are important to the Vietnamese people. Several things struck me as we visited these sacred places to the local people. 1). Some of the temples were Hindu, either run by Hindus living in Vietnam or remnants of the Cham dynasty (these were not ethnic Vietnamese people) which once covered most of central and southern day Vietnam. In spite of Vietnamese people traditionally being Buddhist and worshipping their ancestors these Hindu temples also recieved many Vietnamese worshippers who paid their respects to the Hindu gods. Some of the temples were known to have healing properties. I asked our tour guide about this and he stated that the people must respect those gods too because they’re there. 2). The Vietnamese government is Communist which means its officially atheistic. But, several years ago the city of Hanoi, which is the capital, rebuilt a portion of the Confucian temple that had been destroyed in one of the recent wars in Vietnam. Instead of reconstructing the destroyed dorms and classrooms at this temple where the first university in Vietnam was established the government submitted to the people of the country a poll to decide which students who graduated from the university should be honored at the temple. (The temple and university are at the same place since religion and academics once went together.) Four names recieved the most support and included a famous teacher and three kings who had studied at the university; all in the distant past. These four now have statues in this new building and are worshipped by anyone who wants to ask them for help. I find it remarkable that the communists government would perpetuate the worship of past heroes on a scale that transforms them into gods.

In light of these oberservations several questions have been brewing in my mind.

Do the gods exists because people remember them? If so, then when people forget the gods do they cease to exist? If this is the case then what happens in the Christian tradition when we take the Eucharist in rememberance of Christ? Does the Eucharist have transforming power because those partaking are remembering? Further more, Paul speaks of idols as being masquerading demons. If the people forget the god/idol then what happens to the demonic that is associated with it? Does the demonic, through human interaction, create a new god to “decieve” the people?

It seems that worship and the “existence” of the gods is the result of a fusion within humanity between the spiritual side of reality with the physical or material reality (In the east these two can’t be separated and I would tend to agree). Religion is a human reflection of the interaction between the created and the spiritual or Divine. Therefore, religion is a construct that reflects the worldview of the people and their understanding of Truth and the Divine. The gods and temples are not “demonic” but neither are they truth. The demonic is present where there is a distortion of the truth but the Divine is also present. It’s always a mix of the two because nowhere can God not be found but, within Creation, everywhere there is brokenness and evil.

Rodney

Paper…

brian miller — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:43:11 +0000

I am experimenting with a number of features that are new to me in blogging. This post is a test in uploading files. The link below is to the paper I presented for the Mennonite-Orthodox Dialogue at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on March 3, 2007.

Interpreting the Bible: A Mennonite Voice…(in conversation with Orthodoxy)

Peace and dialogue…

brian miller — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:04:08 +0000

“There will be no peace among nations unless there is peace and dialogue between religious leaders. The goals of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are the same.” Armenian Orthodox Archbishop Sebu Sarkissian, head of the largest Christian body in Iran, with some 150,000 members.
This quote was taken from an article written by J. Darryl Byler, who recently took part in a delegation of 13 U.S. religious leaders to Iran. I am once again struck by the profound ways in which religion guides the actions and attitudes of adherents both for good and for evil.

I just read the feature piece in the April 9, 2007 Newsweek by Jon Meacham. Rick Warren and Sam Harris (an atheist) face off over the question–”Is God Real?”

Sam Harris states: “The core problem for me is divisive dogmatism. There’s nationalism, there’s tribalism, there’s racism, there’s chauvinism. And there’s religion. Religion is the only sphere of discourse where dogma is actually a good word, where it is considered ennobling to believe something strongly based on faith. …but first let me deal with Stalin. The killing fields and the gulag were not the product of people being too reluctant to believe things on insufficient evidence. They were not the product of people requiring too much evidence and too much argument in favor of their beliefs. We have people flying planes in our buildings because they have theological grievances against the West. No society in human history has ever suffered because it has become too reasonable.”

Friends of Orthodoxy…

brian miller — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:54:02 +0000

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost, for none now live who remember it. Galadriel of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings

John Franke writes the following in the foreward to A Generous Orthodoxy.

“Like the inhabitants of Middle Earth, followers of Jesus Christ from across the diverse ecclesiastical and theological spectrum of North American Christianity have a growing sense that the world they have known is changing. Strange things are happening in unexpected places, long-familiar assumptions are being called into question, and new conversations are taking place between longtime adversaries, sometimes resulting in surprising alliances.”

To characterize Mennonites and Eastern Orthodoxy as adversaries would be a non-truth. Our ecclesial traditions have not overlapped very much in the last 500 years. As the world continues to change, however, an unexpected conversation has emerged between these two traditions. This weblog is another step in nurturing this dialogue and inviting others to join the conversation.

Peace,

Brian