Belief Systems and Worldviews

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code

A friend of mine, knowing of my interest (like that of millions of people) in Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, sent me a booklet by RBC (Radio Bible Class) Ministries, "The Da Vinci Code: Separating Fact from Fiction."

The general thrust of the booklet is that Dan Brown's novel is a great big hoax. Not historical at all.

For those who have been living in Outer Slobovia, the novel concerns a supposed nearly 2,000-year-long conspiracy on the part of the historical Christian (mainly, Catholic) Church to suppress evidence that Jesus wed Mary Magdalene (MM) and fathered a child, born on French soil after Mary fled the post-Crucifixion Holy Land.

Putatively, certain important personages down through history — Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, and many others — knew or guessed the truth. They even formed a secret society, the Priory of Sion, to preserve the hidden documentary evidence of MM's being designated by Jesus to be, disciple-wise, first among equals. Leonardo, the novel claims, put veiled references to MM's special status in his famous painting, "The Last Supper."

The evidence concerning Jesus's marriage to Mary Magdalene had to be kept hidden, saith the novel, because it was too hot to handle. Imagine: a Church which has historically derogated bodily desires, sex, the fertility of women, and the "sacred feminine" being confronted with proof that Jesus himself, in terms of his own life on this earth, did not!

Before disclosing who has actually been committing brutal murders to get his hands on this suppositious evidence, the novel suggests it may be a (again, supposedly) fanatical bunch of Catholic zealots called Opus Dei. The implication is made that the Vatican itself may be secretly complicit in keeping proof of Jesus's connubial life buried by killing those who might reveal it.

Enter the RBC booklet with the stated mission of "separating fact from fiction." It's far from the only recent publication to aim to do so.

Dan Brown's Angels & Demons

Why, I feel entitled to wonder, all the fuss? After all, the author's previous book, Angels & Demons, was a page turner, too. But its "conspiracy theory" was about the Illuminati, pretty much a dead letter today. So no one is writing a lot of books debunking it.

Why, that is, do so many people care whether Jesus was a husband and father?

Why do they care whether a woman named Mary of Magdala was not only his wife but his favored disciple?

One answer might be that Jesus can't have had conjugal relations — sex — because (as the booklet, which I'll henceforth call SFF, puts it on p. 17) he "lived a single life of devotion to His mission."

As if being in the married state robs one of one's mission-orientedness, one's "devotion." Tell that to all the Protestant ministers who are happily married today.

Well, but ... but how could God (for Jesus presumably was God) have sexual desires and potency, and be fertile for fathering children?

Well, why not? Jesus was like us in all ways but sin, was he not?

Well, but ... why don't the Gospels in the Bible's New Testament say Jesus married Mary of Magdala, or anyone else for that matter?

Well, they don't say he didn't. The best SFF can do is point out the "indirect evidence" in the Bible that Jesus remained a celibate bachelor (see pp. 16-17). For example, Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (chapter 9) takes up the topic of Christian missionaries "taking along a believing wife." Paul lists "the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas" as having done so — but not the Lord Jesus himself. Says SFF, "If Jesus had married, Paul would have included him in the list."

But maybe not.

Maybe Jesus simply did not "take along" his wife during his ministry.

Or maybe the books of the New Testament were set down in an atmosphere, during the first few centuries following Christ, in which it had already become a faux pas to suggest a married, sexually active Lord and Savior. Maybe that's why "Mary is never tied to any male when she was named" in any of the four Gospels, and why "Jesus showed no special concern for Mary Magdalene at the cross" in John's Gospel.

Yes, that's all speculation on my part. But to me it's enough of an objection to the "indirect evidence" of the Bible to insist that Jesus's bachelorhood cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Which brings me to my real point: this argument is about belief systems and worldviews, not facts.

Traditionally, Christians have had a belief system, a worldview, in which women have taken a backseat to men, and sexuality to celibacy, virginity, and chastity.

The SFF booklet has to do some fancy footwork to hold that the Church has not historically devalued women except to the extent that "followers of Christ have missed the spirit of their own Scriptures and Leader" (p. 14). It may have been "Paul's teaching that men should love their wives as Christ loved his Church" (p. 15), but Paul also taught that wives should defer to their husbands, and women should keep their heads covered and their mouths closed in church.

The Catholic Church won't allow either female priests (with no exceptions) or married male priests (with certain exceptions).

As for sexuality and religion, don't get me started. Suffice it to say that the Church has always placed tight strictures on sex. It has also historically looked mightily askance on — as Dan Brown put it on p. 125 of The Da Vinci Code — "female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, herb gatherers, and any women 'suspiciously attuned to the natural world'," potential witches all.

Whatever the rationale for it, there has been a devaluation of the very idea that there could even be a "sacred feminine." It's as if honoring lusty female fertility may pose an obstacle to heaven.

And, yes, it may ... depending on your worldview. It would be foolish of me to maintain that the patriarchal, paternalistic worldview hasn't made sense to millions, including millions of women, down through the centuries.

It would be equally foolish of me to imagine that the record sales of The Da Vinci Code don't betoken millions of modern women and men who now question that worldview and any belief system that goes along with it.

(I'm one of them. Though I'm a practicing Catholic, I don't agree with my Church on many matters having to do with sex: homosexuality, birth control, and the legality of abortion among them.)

And — however many liberties Dan Brown takes with the actual facts — it's thrilling to suppose that maybe, just maybe, Jesus would have rejected that sexually repressive, patriarchal view himself.