Posted on 05/19/2006 11:09:07 AM PDT by Jotmo
“As long as there has been one true God,” Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen) tells Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), “there has been killing in his name.”
You may have heard that the polytheist Romans were quite capable of killing monotheist Christians in the name of their own gods centuries before Christians were in any position to be killing anyone. According to Teabing, however, it was Christian atrocities against pagan Romans — not vice versa — that prompted the Emperor Constantine to decriminalize Christianity.
That’s right: Constantine’s 313 edict of toleration was intended to defuse intolerance by Christians against pagan Romans — not to end three centuries of pagan persecution of Christians. (Ironically, McKellen starred in X‑Men; had he watched the deleted scenes from that film, he might have learned from Storm’s lecture that it was the early Christians being persecuted by the pagan Romans until Constantine converted and legalized Christianity.)
Luckily, renowned Harvard “symbologist” Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is on hand to offer an opposing viewpoint. “We can’t be sure who began the atrocities,” he cautions. Now, that’s fair and balanced: We can’t be sure who started it. Nero, Diocletian, Galerius, all those early martyrs — it’s all such a muddle, who’s to say who was really persecuting whom?
In terms of early Christian history, this is not uncomparable to Holocaust denial, to claiming that it was really the Jews who were oppressing the Nazis (or, at least, “we can’t be sure” who was persecuting whom). Yet the meme that “it’s only a movie” or “it’s just fiction” has largely obscured the fact that the conspiracy-theory conceits of The Da Vinci Code are by and large not novelist Dan Brown’s own flights of fancy, but are based on a lunatic-fringe view of history set forth in “non-fiction” books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation.
While these books have about as much credibility as the likes of Did Six Million Really Die? or The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, which is to say zero, many people who would find the raving anti-Semitism of the latter an insuperable obstacle in a thriller seem willing to overlook the raving anti-Catholicism of the former in The Da Vinci Code.
Imagine a popular thriller based on the version of history set forth in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, with a secret cabal of Jewish leaders conspiring to destroy Christianity and establish a global government to rule the world.
Imagine, further, that the story suggested that for thousands of years ruthless Jewish conspirators had been systematically murdering the true heirs of Abraham (or Moses or David) in order to preserve the lie that Judaism is based on, covering up the “truth” (e.g., that Abraham had no special covenant with God and was actually an adherent to a Canaanite fertility cult, and the Hebrews are not God’s chosen people).
Finally, suppose that the filmmakers tried to suggest that all this was just harmless fiction, despite the fact that for years the author of the book had been alluding to the underlying facticity of the story. Would the claim that “It’s only a story” distract any thinking person from the inherent anti-Semitism of such a project?
A few years ago, the release of The Passion of the Christ generated much discussion and concern regarding the question of possible anti-Semitism in the film. Yet, perhaps strangely, while critical reception of The Da Vinci Code has so far not been kind, most reviews seem to be sticking to safe, uncontroversial charges that the film is “boring” and “talky,” while avoiding the more pressing question of anti-Catholicism.
Is The Da Vinci Code anti-Catholic? Well, if it isn’t, then we must simply conclude that no such thing as anti-Catholicism exists, or at least that no anti-Catholic movie has ever been made. I can think of religiously themed films more profoundly oppressive to Catholic sensibilities (e.g., The Last Temptation of Christ), and more searing indictments of corruption and abuse within the Church (e.g., The Magdalene Sisters). But The Da Vinci Code may be the most systematic and sustained cinematic debunking on the institutions of Catholic Christianity and the Catholic Church that I’ve ever seen. That it is risible and dim-witted doesn’t make it less disgusting.
What’s so inflammatory about it? Not just the suggestion that Jesus was merely human and not divine — as radically repugnant to Christian belief as that obviously is — or that he was married and had children. Not just the appropriation of heretical Gnostic texts like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene in the name of a postmodern gnostic–neopagan rejection of Christian orthodoxy and the canonical Gospels. Not even just the suggestion that fanatical zealots within the clergy have carried out murderous campaigns in the name of their religion.
No, The Da Vinci Code not only indicts monotheism itself as synonymous with religious oppression and persecution, it casts Catholicism and the Catholic Church — not just hypocritical or abusive Catholics, but the actual institution itself — as inherently perverse and oppressive, maintaining its power solely by centuries of systematically murdering those who could expose the lies on which it is based.
How does the movie compare to the book? Have screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and director Ron Howard taken concerns or objections regarding the book into account? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking — but not in a good way.
Ever since the book came out, members of the Catholic prelature Opus Dei — dismayed by Brown’s portrayal of the group as a fanatical, shadowy “sect” or “congregation” characterized by brainwashing, coercion, and self-mutilation — have been trying to get the word out that the book’s lurid fantasies have no basis in reality.
Insidiously, the film absorbs this message into the Da Vinci Worldview. In an early scene, when we meet Opus Dei Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina, Spider‑Man 2), he’s on a plane rehearsing talking points intended to defend Opus Dei against critics. Opus Dei simply rejects “cafeteria Catholicism,” he says benignly, while his aide recommends he avoid sounding defensive. It sounds precisely like the message the real Opus Dei has been trying to put across — or for that matter what any serious Catholic would say about his faith. You see, that’s what they want you to think.
In a similar vein, protagonist Langdon has been subtly reworked from an outspoken proponent of Da Vinci esoterica into a more skeptical, ostensibly neutral scholar who mouths many of the objections Brown’s critics have been making, putting the burden of the Da Vinci worldview onto Teabing. Now we have Langdon arguing that the Priory of Sion is “a myth” and “a hoax,” while Teabing retorts, “That’s what they want you to think.”
A few critics have interpreted this as a concession to Christian concerns, but the actual effect is precisely the reverse: It essentially undermines critical objections by incorporating them into the film’s overall picture and then seeming to rebut them as Langdon is gradually converted to Teabing’s point of view.
Some Christians have optimistically hoped that The Da Vinci Code might provide a potential opportunity for dialogue and discussion about Jesus with people who might not otherwise be open to such discussions. Yet if anything the film seems calibrated precisely to inoculate viewers against any such discussion — to leave viewers with a skeptical agnosticism about efforts to set the record straight is all part of the conspiracy, “what they want you to think” (or “we can’t be sure”).
The Da Vinci Code throws so much mud around that at least some of it is likely to stick in viewers’ minds. Was Constantine really a lifelong pagan who invented the doctrine of the deity of Christ and compiled the Bible as we know it? Did the Church really declare Mary Magdalene to be a prostitute in 591? Was Sir Isaac Newton really persecuted over his theories of gravitation, the way we all “know” Galileo was for his heliocentrism (or not)?
How many viewers will have any idea about all these questions? There are so many specifics, so much information, surely some of it has to be true, or is likely be true, or could be true. Or at least, “we can’t be sure.”
Most viewers will probably assume that Opus Dei doesn’t really have monk assassins (or for that matter any monks at all). Yet the general impression of something shadowy and unsettling about the group is likely to remain in their minds.
Beyond that, on an imaginative level, there is a sense in which the film’s relentless association of Catholic imagery — crucifixes, clergy, churches — with pervasive creepiness and depravity amounts to a kind of aesthetic slur that is hard to counter with mere arguments or talking points.
Astonishingly, after a 2½‑hour seminar on the evils of monotheism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church, The Da Vinci Code tries to have its cake and eat it too, as Langdon suggests to Sophie that “What really matters is what you believe,” even questioning whether exploding the “greatest cover-up in history” would really be such a good thing after all: Does Sophie want to “destroy faith or renew it?”
It almost sounds as if Langdon is saying, “So Christianity is a lie — let the Christians have their lie, if that’s what makes them happy.” Whatever happened to “For 2000 years the Church has rained oppression and suffering on mankind”?
Is it possible to put all this aside and just enjoy the story as a thriller, an enjoyable yarn? I honestly have no idea how people can take that approach.
Catholic writer Mark Shea tells an anecdote about a college bull session among students at Central Washington University over The Da Vinci Code. “Even if it’s just fiction,” a student opined, “it’s still interesting to think about.”
To which another student replied: “Your mother’s a whore.” And then, to the first student’s stunned incredulity, he added, “And even if that’s just fiction, it’s still interesting to think about.”
Well, Mr. Chick is a known "idiot".... HOWEVER, I feel that of all the words on the cartoon, the ones about the Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Jews are so horrible that I wonder if the cartoon has ANY place on FR at all.... unless a VAST explanatory comment is made in regard to its placement on this forum.
You've got understand that the Roman Catholic Ustashi slaughtered hundreds of thousands of my people, the Serbs, during WWII and the Church protected the killers by moving them through the Ratlines out of Europe into South America. One of them, Andrija Artukovic, lived here in the US until the 1980's and the Church provided his financial defense.
During the recent break-up of Yugoslavia, it was the Vatican's premature recognition of Croatia that lit the fuse for that war, too.
I will admit that I am not in the Vatican fan club, although I respect the right of Roman Catholics to worship.
Interesting. I typically use that cartoon when a thread in the "religion" forum turns tinfoil-hat vicious against Catholicism. First time I've used it in the "news" forum. I'll have to keep in mind that I should include a disclaimer in future threads.
Yes, I agree it's repugnant. But that's it's point...
--come to think of it, I really don't want to get into another argument with a Serb Nationalist--
Is that like a Croatian or Bosnian or Albanian( islamic) nationalist??
"Serb Nationalist' -- I suppose that is the modern day version of "heretic"?
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005449
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(history)
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/063.shtml
Gone there before...
If you take any position on the Balkans other than being on the Serbs' side, you are wrong (and evil)
If you take the Serb's position on the issue, but without sufficient pure, unadulterated hate for all other parties than the Serbs, you are evil (and wrong)
Therefore, I try to avoid going there....
Understand. Been there. Feel the same way about the Roman Catholic Church.
I tend to agree with you there. Even if (as is apparently the case) the poster meant to hold the cartoon up to ridicule, it's so offensive, what's the point of posting it at all?
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A form of satire...
One can point out the ridiculous by being ridiculous.
One can also point out the offensive by using the offensive.
But his most important contribution was a study of his own family --- the four above-mentioned offspring, and their descendants and other relatives --- which resulted in the General Theory of Relativity. His unique and brilliant work was, of course, suppressed by his arch-rival, the red-eyed Jewish albino Albert Einstein. All of this is recorded in the alluring yet cryptic verses of his sister, Gertrude Stein, and their incestuously-conceived son, Frank N. Stein.
Who was also, of course, Jewish, All Steins are Jewish except for Beer Steins and Lichtenstein.
This is all true. You can look it up. You probably never heard of it, though, because They Don't Want You To Know.
OK. Can I be paid by the word?
OK. Saw the film, yesterday.
As entertainment --it wasn't nearly as bad as its reviewers said, nor was it as good as its intial hype. I'd give it a "B" -- some decent action and thrills, but Tom Hanks, in the lead role, looked like he was in a fog through most of it.
I didn't read the book -- although I had read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, upon which the Da Vinci Code was based -- but the people I was with at the film, had read the DVC book and said it followed the book pretty closely.
The Whole punchline of (the book and) the movie was that here was the last of "the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdeline", in the form of one female character -- which was to me at least (as entertainment) was a big "who cares?" as "a climax".
The whole concept of the book and the movie overlooks one enormous glaring fact -- The Orthodox Church (which has also been around since the beginning) -- who would have to simultaneously and independently be keeping the same "secret" for all of these years -- and the Orthodox Church is never mentioned in the book or the movie.
Do I think that the DVC is theologicaly "dangerous" -- only for those with little or no Faith to begin with. Because you could make a better "case" for "Jesus Christ having schizophrenia" (He heard voices, didn't he?) than you can for this off-the-wall scenario.
As for the Roman Catholic Church "having conspiracies worth killing for" -- other than than historically documented ones, maybe, probably --but this isn't one of them.
First it was the Virgin Mary, "not being a Virgin at all", then it is "Jesus Christ, not The Son of God, but just a man" -- I suppose that the "logical progression" of this baseless theological tangent had to eventually become "Jesus Christ got married and had kids". Ultimately following this tangent takes you on a train that goes spiritually nowhere, except to leave you sucking your thumb in fetal position in a corner. Thanks, but no thanks -- not a trip for me!
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