Leonardo, The Templars, and the Antichrist

Fiction with Biblical themes? You mean To Kill a Mockingbird or Cry, the Beloved Country? Oh, probably not.

I wasn't going to write about The DaVinci Code. I thought it was entertaining when I read it, and I think the movie will be fun; end of story. I thought the Narnia series was insufferably boring (I read all seven volumes out loud to my kids one summer, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when they became competent enough readers to revisit the series on their own). I read a few of the Left Behind books and found them revolting.

But Ubuntu asks whether The DaVinci Code is no worse than Left Behind, and I thought I'd reprise the comment I left there:

********************************

I think the Left Behind series is far worse than The DaVinci Code. Left Behind presents a nineteenth century cult-like view of an angry, vengeful god, and details and glorifies violence a la CSI. It plays into the very worst of our natural inclinations to seek power and redemption where there is none.

The DaVinci Code, while certainly disingenuous with its historical claims, at least keys in to some of our more rational and generous inclinations -- a natural curiosity about the earthly life and humanness of Jesus, and a desire to unearth the sacred feminine in a glorious faith that has largely sought to deny that element of both God and humanity.

*********************************

I thought about this subject a little more today, and I concluded that the gender dilemma is at the heart of it all. Left Behind presents a fierce and intensely masculine god -- a version of God with whom most Christians have at least a passing acquaintance. In fact, many Christians embrace exactly that characterization of God. And many people who don't just shrug their shoulders and conclude that, since that appears to be who the Christian god is, they're not interested.

The DaVinci Code offers an intriguing look into a god who is is both and neither male and female, and into fictional cultural attempts both to suppress and to revive that understanding of God. A number of people find that latter effort appealing, but have so little knowledge of the Bible and Christian traditions that Dan Brown's concoctions seem like a refreshing bit of clarity illuminating a murky pool. And then, of course, there are those who find any mention of "female" and "god" within more than a few words of each other an appalling denigration of their version of the Christian story.

Yep -- gender. The female one in particular -- such a subversive Other in her very existence that fundamentalists decry even the questions raised by The DaVinci Code and laud Left Behind as something akin to fact.

As usual, "there are more things in heaven and earth. . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Sometimes we need a Hamlet or a Scout Finch or a Stephen Kumalo far more than we need a Tim LeHaye or a Dan Brown.