Wall Street Opinion Journal Daniel Henninger May 19, 2006
“The Da Vinci Code” shows that conspiracy theories have no limits.
“The Da Vinci Code” would not be the subject of this column had it not sold 60.5 million copies, according to its publisher Doubleday. Of course this does not make it the best-selling book of all time. That title, as irony would have it, goes to the Bible, half of which one of Dan Brown’s characters dismisses as “false.”
Like the Bible but unlike Mr. Brown’s novel, most of the books in the sales Pantheon have had utilitarian staying power–McGuffey’s Reader, the Guinness Book of Records, Noah Webster’s “The American Spelling Book,” Dr. Spock’s baby book and the World Almanac. Now comes “The Da Vinci Code,” selling twice as many copies as the 30 million attributed to Jacqueline Susann’s “The Valley of the Dolls.”
“The Valley of the Dolls” was about people having sex. “The Da Vinci Code” is about Jesus leaving Mary Magdalene pregnant with his baby while he dies on the cross. So in a sense, Mr. Brown’s novel respects tradition.
. . . more
I took a different track when looking at the Da Vinci Code. I have a theory about why it has achieved such resonance.
It is posted here. I entitled it, “Dan Brown’s Debt to Protestantism.”
Let me know what you think.
I am in basic agreement with the thesis Glen. I have a working theory that 1) secularism is essentially a heresy (in the classical understanding of the term); and 2) John Calvin (as the final codifier of Zwinglian theology)* is the godfather of modern secularism.
*The Luther-Zwingli debates are historically instructive here, and a harbinger of the great Christian conflict that would play out in Western culture for the next 500 years. Luther won the debate. Zwingli won the war.
Secularism is, at bottom, a religion — a moral vision of how the world is ordered. Christianity (read Protestantism here because of its cultural dominance throughout American history, although this has waned in the last three decades or so — mainstream decline, etc.) has reacted defensively to the secularist assault, mostly in political terms (an understandable development given that American culture ajudicates the great moral questions in the politcal arena) but with little creativity and little undrestanding of the real nature of this conflict between the traditional moral vision and its copy. Thus, I also agree with your conclusion about an Orthodox and Catholic response, which seems to be taking root in Europe, BTW.
I’d like to publish it as an article on the main page.
Glenn,
Good article. This thread of anti-Catholicism is something I don’t often run into but when I do I am always surprised by it’s depth and ignorance. I would like to add that my wife read the book (yes, she is Orthodox 😉 and said it was “entertaining”. She is a bit more tolerant of mindless entertainment than I am in general, and reads modern fiction much more than I do. I think that for many folks this is all the book is though they probably would not have read it without the notoriety.
Fr. Jacobse,
I agree Secularism is a religion. In fact, I think it has more “fundamentalist” adherents than any other religion in America today. The fact that it is a religion is one reason why I think it has failed as the “neutral ground” that people of differing faiths can come together in the public square to decide conflict. Certainly the direction of the American judiciary of the last 50 years or so has shown the weakness of that idea. The judiciary has imposed a religion on America that not all agree with – contrary to the 1st amendment. With the breakdown of the protestant consensus after WWII, militant secularism stepped in and aggressively tried to established itself as the dominant religion and final arbitrator of religious/political/cultural disputes. It was in part very successful, excepting a little reaction called the “culteral war”.
Father,
Feel free to publish. I’d be honored. I included a downloadable version of the article in Word as an attachment to the bulletin board post. In the Word version, I have research links embedded to original source documents.
Please let me know if that is sufficient. Thanks!
Glen, it seems to me that even the radical protestants and the Catholics/Orthodox have one thing in common, namely, a standard view of Jesus. In other words, the radical protestants hold that the church “went off the rails,” so to speak, many hundreds of years ago, but even so their view of the historical Jesus is basically the same as that of the liturgical churches.
I have heard about the DaVinci Code, but have not read it. But from what I have heard it seems to me to fit into the genre of books that posit an alternative history, not just about the church, but about Jesus himself.
In other words, the idea behind these books is that there is an alternative history of Jesus that has been lost, or that the church has covered up, or both, and that through an act of literary archeology one can to some extent recover the “true” Jesus. There is a wide variety of such books, ranging from the goofy to the scholarly. Here is a selection:
1) The Jesus Mysteries, by Freke & Gandy. Jesus was not an historical person, but was a conflation of various pagan gods or figures such as Dionysus, Perseus, Horus, and so on.
2) The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty. Jesus never existed. He was a myth created out of pieces of mystery religions and quotations from the Old Testament.
3) Jesus, One Hundred Years Before Christ, by Alvar Ellegard. Jesus existed, but many years before he was supposed to have existed.
4) The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, by Robert Price. A close look at the gospels reveals little or no historical information about Jesus, to the point that the “historical” Jesus virtually disappears.
5) The Jesus Dynasty, by James Tabor. Jesus and John the Baptist were leaders of a Jewish messianic movement designed to bring about the kingdom of God. After the death of John, Jesus saw his mission in terms of the Old Testament scriptures, confronted the Jewish authorities in the temple, and eventually was crucified. His brother James took over the movement in Jerusalem. The apostle Paul, based on his own personal revelation, separated from James and the followers in Jerusalem, and developed the ideas that eventually became orthodox Christianity.
There are many other books that could be added to this list, but I would see the DaVinci code as being more or less in this genre.
Glen, you write that “To adequately refute the Code it is necessary to believe that the teachings of Jesus Christ were given to the Apostles and were held by the Church as a deposit of faith that was neither altered nor abandoned. To do otherwise is to admit the possibility that perhaps nothing we know of the faith is true.”
But the real problem is that Christianity is a religion that makes historical claims, but claims that are believed on the basis of faith, not on the basis of historical evidence, and this is what opens the door to Brown and other authors in that genre.
What I mean is that in the realm of faith everything is fixed and unchanging. In the realm of faith belief in the virgin birth could never change, regardless of subsequent historical developments or theories.
In the realm of history everything is contingent and changing and uncertain, depending on the latest historical research, the best available evidence, and the strongest theories. In the realm of history belief in the virgin birth would be contingent upon evidence and theories that may very well change over time.
The problem for Christians is that if they defend Christianity on the basis of faith, they abandon the historical battlefield to everyone else. If they defend Christianity on the basis of history, then the historical assertions of Christianity become contingent and uncertain; they become no more true than any other historical assertion or speculation. And then you run the risk of “admit[ting] the possibility that perhaps nothing we know of the faith is true.”
But it seems to me that neither can you just insist that “the teachings of Jesus Christ were given to the Apostles and were held by the Church as a deposit of faith that was neither altered nor abandoned.” You can’t just pound your fist on the table and proclaim that that is true. You would have to make an historical argument for that belief. But in making an historical argument, you necessarily leave the certainty of faith and enter the uncertainty and contingency of history. If you insist that orthodox Christianity is true based on personal experience, that’s fine, but at that point you are no longer making an historical argument.
Jim,
A radical Protestant writing on Christianity Today wrote the following:
My point in this article wasn’t to refute the Da Vinci Code. My goal was to point out, as evidenced above, that the only way to refute the Da Vinci Code is to rely on the historic witness of the Church as a testimony of the Truth of Christ. Notice above that the author quotes pre-Nicene practice, the writings of Justin Martyr, and even the ongoing witness of the successors to the Apostles who eventually debated Arius. The Bible isn’t enough, since so many of the claims that Brown and others make are not directly refuted by a Biblical text.
Now, a decent debator would immediately slaughter this guy in a debate.
“You rely on the witness of people, in this regard, which you believe were in abject error about almost everything else. You mention Justin, for example, but you reject a great number of other things that he wrote about. Why are these things right, but all the others wrong? If the early Church was so prone to error that it could completely change the nature of the Eucharist, for example, or elevate Mary into a god, as you think, then why are we supposed to take anything that church said seriously?”
If the radical Protestant tries to make a comeback, then a skillful opponent will drive the blade home. “Do you accept the style of worship and Theology represented in such writings as Justin Martyr or the earlier works of Clement? If you reject them as unreliable witnesses to the truth in those regards, then what makes you so sure that the real truth didn’t lie with one or more of the sects condemned as ‘heretical?’ Many of those sects were closer to you in belief and practice than the ‘orthodox’ who won out, so why weren’t they right? Don’t some protestants accept them as being ‘true’ Christians? Aren’t there Pentecostal groups around today who embrace various modes of God, rather than Trinitarian Theology?”
Given a few minutes, a decent debator can have any radical Protestant tied up in knots and wondering exactly what he or she really does believe.
In their situation, I would answer the following, “I believe that the orthodox Christian Church is a reliable witness to the truth of Christ. His teachings were handed down without addition or detraction and are with us today. You may reject Christ, you may reject His teachings, but they have been faithfully and accurately communicated to you. There is no ‘hidden agenda,’ there was no mistake. They are what they are and the Church has always taught them as they are presented today.”
What the radical Protestant method opens up is the door to doubt that will lead people to ‘re-invent’ Jesus to suit themselves. Rather than dealing with Him as He is, they can turn him into whatever they wish Him to be, since no one can ‘know’ what He might have actually taught.
I feel sorry for the Radical Protestants. I went through that crisis of doubt that lead me to Orthodoxy. I finally decided, that either the early Church was a reliable witness to the Christian faith, in which case I had to join it, or that the entire idea of Christianity was fiction and that I should get on with my life. It is hard, really hard, to reject the entire historical witness of the Church, but then cling to a semblance of the faith anyway.
That is too hard for me. What eventually happens among radical Protestants, is that they end up rejecting all history and then become prey to the various ideas in the books that you referenced. If we can’t know anything about Jesus, really, then Gnosticism is not that far away.
Glen writes: “It is hard, really hard, to reject the entire historical witness of the Church, but then cling to a semblance of the faith anyway.”
What I have noticed among the people you call the “radical protestants” is a desire to get back to what they see as a state of purity of religion prior to when it was “corrupted by man.” These folks also typically have a very Bible-centric view of Christianity, in which anything not specifically mentioned in the Bible is rejected.
The problem is that there is no such “state of purity” that also includes the Bible. As I have pointed out to these folks a number of times, the New Testament comes along fairly late in the game. In other words, Christians living in 40 a.d. didn’t sit around reading the Bible at night. Written texts were very expensive, so it would have been rare for an individual to have even a piece of the Old Testament. Most people were illiterate, probably around 80 to 90 percent of people from what I’ve heard. No one sat around reading the New Testament, because there wasn’t one. So basically, anyone who wanted to “live like the early Christians” would have to do that without the Bible.
Another problem is that the radical protestant view of the Bible is itself not biblical! I have talked to people who insist that the books that are in the Bible are the very books that God wanted to be in the Bible, and that God has protected the Bible from all error, and specifically protected it from the corruption of the Catholic church. I reply, that’s fine, but the problem is that none of that is in the Bible. In other words, one can’t say that Bible is the sole source of religious information, while at the same time holding beliefs about the Bible that are not in the Bible; it’s simply inconsistent.
It is obvious to me that the Bible, in particular the New Testament, is a product of church tradition. Therefore it seems strange to me to reject church tradition on the basis of the Bible when the Bible itself arose from that very tradition. The Bible can only be understood in a religious sense within the context of the tradition. An interesting question is the extent that the Bible can be understood historically outside of the tradition.
Here is a great article on Hollywood’s slick and exploitative PR campaign designed to manipulate Christians into generating more publicity for the movie.
“HOLLYWOOD HERESY” by PETER J. BOYER,Marketing “The Da Vinci Code” to Christians.
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060522fa_fact
Check out the comments by Christian blogger Barbara Nicolosi who, concerning the studio’s Da Vinci Dialogue web site, wrote:
Dean,
What caught my attention even more was this little gem from that article:
I’ve actually started seeing this idea show up now among Evangelicals. The sort of question as posed here, “Maybe Jesus was married?”
In other words, maybe the historic church lied about that also. Evangelicals are sliding more and more. With no dogma, no concrete Theology, and no belief in the historic church, many of them are falling headfirst into Unitarianism and don’t even get it.
This is not the only person, by the way, who is talking in these lines. I’ve been hearing it show up among Evangelical pastors on the talking head shows. They are a small group, I think, at the moment, but they are likely as not to expand their ranks. After all, if the church lied about so much else….
Glen writes: “In other words, maybe the historic church lied about that also. Evangelicals are sliding more and more. With no dogma, no concrete Theology, and no belief in the historic church, many of them are falling headfirst into Unitarianism and don’t even get it.”
Whatever story the DaVinci Code contains, the book does open people up to the idea that certain aspects of the life of Jesus, that are not necessarily written on the pages of the gospels, can be discovered through historical investigation. As I understand the book (having not read it) it is composed of both bad history and bogus history.
Nonetheless the idea that the life of Jesus can be discovered and understood through historical research remains. And this is what poses a difficulty for the traditional church. It’s easy to dispose of the DaVinci Code content, but difficult to dispose of the idea of historical research.
If you simply insist that the traditional view of Jesus is the only historical view, but don’t present any historical evidence for that, then your belief is not historical. If you enter into the discussion of the historicity of traditional Christianity, then you open the possibility that some or all of the assertions of traditional Christianity may be questionable or even wrong. It’s a tough problem, and it’s not going away.
Glen: That same author, Peter Boyer had another great article about the current troubles in the Episcopal Chuch that makes the same point. The article isn’t on-line but there is this interview with the author in which he says:
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/online/060417on_onlineonly01
I believe in respectful debate and exchange of ideas within a denomination, but there have to be some central beliefs that hold a Church together and which every member accepts. First among those has to be a belief in Christ’s resurrection. How could you come to an Orthodox church if you can’t say “Christ has Risen”? But in the Episcopal Church you have figures like Bishop John Shelby Spong who reject Christ’s virgin birth, miracles and resurrection because they sound too supernatural.
“With no dogma, no concrete Theology, and no belief in the historic church, many of them are falling headfirst into Unitarianism and don’t even get it.”
I would argue that many (most) Evangelicals still have a realist view of language and the world, and a certain steadfast faith in Scripture. With these two, it’s difficult to fall into Unitarianism. It’s much worse for the Anglicans, who even though they do have an understanding of the historic church none the less are captured by nominalism in language and physics. They are only about 20 – 30 years from full blown Unitarianism IMO. Interestingly, one of the things that keep this realism in Evangelical circles is their emphasis on personal experience and the conversion experience. This keeps them grounded in a certain way. The mainlines have of course abandoned the Real long ago…
One thing to remember about the Episcopalians however is that the abandonment of Christianity occured largely from the top down. There are still many (and former) Epicopalians who have not traded historical Christianity for the vagaries of gnosticism, or even neo-paganism.
The collapse of the Episcopalian Church was largely the betrayal of its Bishops of the creeds and dogma of historic Christianity. And that betrayal was of such paltry content and defense as well. Take John Spong, for example. I’ve read his books and frankly, they are intellectually shallow. No real engagement with the past there but page after page of self-congratulatory moral posturing — that terrible affliction of secular liberals but one that they never really see.
Thoughts at random from the preceding posts:
Christ and the Church are not defined or determined by history. Christ defines history because he is supra historical, intertwining and interpenetrating and resurrecting His Creation. God is not linear. Real history is not linear either, but most are unable to grasp that and so fall into falsehood. Christian faith does not deny, nor is it threatened in any way by history. History is a tool of understanding. Like all tools, it can be misused in destructive ways or simply used badly.
To hold that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children is a subtle, yet profound way to deny both the Incarnation and the Divinity of Christ. Jesus was tempted in all ways as we are, but He is without sin. To participate in sexual relations, even within marriage would be, for Him, to participate in man’s falleness, i.e., to be of the world, not just in it. Also, why would He? He knows the creative power of God; He is in perfect union with God. He is the Hypostasis. He has no need for marriage.
While it is certainly essential for Orthodox to be able to shout with joy and knowledge that Christ is Risen!, without the same knowledge of His Nativity, fully God and fully man with out mixture or confusion, the fact that He rose would have little meaning.
The only way to refute the Da Vinci Code and other false teachings is to live the truth. Then, if we must speak, our words will have authority. If we attempt to do it solely from our academic minds, we have already lost. Christian faith is not a matter of belief in abstract principals articulated by a long dead person (or even a live one). Christian faith is participation in the life of the Holy Spirit who is ever the same, yet always new. Christian faith is communion with the living God.
When one has that communion, history reveals both the reality of our fallenness and His Glory. When one is not in communion or denies His existence, then history is merely a fantasy pastiche created to satisfy our own vainglory.
Fr. Hans writes: “The collapse of the Episcopalian Church was largely the betrayal of its Bishops of the creeds and dogma of historic Christianity.”
I don’t think I would call it a betrayal. I think that they simply don’t believe that many of those things are true, at least not in an historical and literal sense.
So far in this venue the “solution” seems to be to simply insist that these things are true, without actually arguing for them. Or more precisely, the only argument is that they are true becasuse the church said they are true — which as I have pointed out is not an historical argument.
Now in most fields of knowledge the warrants and justifications for belief have to come from within the field in question. For example, we would find it strange were someone to insist that an unproven mathematical conjecture was true because ancient mathematicians thought it was true. We would have problems with a physician who advocated drilling a hole in someone’s head solely on the basis that esteemed ancient physicians recommended it. And so on.
But in the case of religion, everything is different. In religion one can hold beliefs with scientific, historical, or any other kinds of content, on no other basis than that illustrious and respected ancient authorities held them. And then in religion one can criticize all others who do not believe on that basis — and not merely criticize but denounce or even condemn — and without ever having to make an actual historical or scientific argument oneself.
Thus, traditional religious belief is a wonderful thing. One can have beliefs with historical content that don’t have to be historically supported. And when asked for evidence, one merely shrugs off the question and refers to the esteemed ancients. When presented with contrary evidence, no problem, because the belief isn’t based on historical evidence anyway. And with a wave of the hand, one disposes with one’s opponent as heathen, secularist, or whatever. It’s a great thing if you can pull it off, but I lost that ability over 20 years ago.
Michael wrote,
To you this may seem like profound wisdom, but it isn’t complete. Christ is the Eschaton, of course, the Alpha and the Omega. However, Christ did come to Earth at a specific time in history. He had an earthly ministry in which he performed actual deeds. He was crucified for us “under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried. On the third day he rose again.”
It is very important that these things actually happened, and that we know they happened. That is the major demarcation between Christianity and the mystery religions, who had similar elements but did not believe in the historical, literal presence of a redeemer.
If you allow for the approach that the historicity of the Incarnation and the Resurrection are not as important as some kind mystical belief, then we are trending away from Christianity and into Gnosticism. Many others are already in that mode.
Yes, we have to live in communion with God, and the history of the Church by itself is not sufficient. However, as Father Hopko said, “We have to know what we believe, and believe what we know.” We know what we believe because it has been handed down to us in revelation. If we question the truth of that revelation, either explicitly or implicitly by denying the veracity of the witnesses to that revelation, then the entire belief system collapses and becomes something else.
This could be, as Orthodox Christians, a shining moment. If we don’t mess it up. A lot of Protestants are going to come face-to-face for the first time in their lives with the Early Church. Some of them will come away shaken in their faith because of the cognitive dissonance that I alluded to in my article – the ‘Early Church’ is so different and alien to Evangelical faith that either the ‘Early Church’ is wrong, or they are wrong.
We, the Orthodox, can provide the solution to this crisis by affirming the essential truth of Christian doctrine and its practice throughout the ages. By accepting that truth, we then can bring catechumens into the fullness of the Church and into participation of the life of grace.
Christ belongs to both history and Theology, which is why some icons have the almond-shaped image depicting an event (like the raising of Adam and Eve from Hades) that occurred out-of-time, while also having icons that depict what were historical events. We must hold fast to all aspects of our faith, including its historicity, in order to properly combat what will emerge from the Da Vinci phenomenon.
Many, many Protestants (and some of our own) will be seduced into believing that Jesus was married, that He had children, that the Church was corrupted early on. They will proclaim that this changes nothing in the faith, and that they still preach Christ and Him crucified.
It is our job to convince the world that this is heresy, and that objective Truth about the faith does exist, and can be known. We stand for Orthodoxy – and we must condemn that which is injurious to the faith, not engage it.
Note 15.
Of course it’s a betrayal. If they did not believe in the Gospel, they should not be bishops. If they were men of integrity, they would have resigned.
Glen, you are correct. What I was writing was what I view as a corrective of Jim’s approach, a type of historical reductionism. Your comments serve to remind us, however, of how easily we can fall into error by just looking at one part of the antinomical nature of Christ. The full truth must always be acknowledged and confirmed. That is why I wrote ” While it is certainly essential for Orthodox to be able to shout with joy and knowledge that Christ is Risen!, without the same knowledge of His Nativity, fully God and fully man without mixture or confusion, the fact that He rose would have little meaning.”
Yes, Jesus was acutally born at a particular time and place and did all of the things (and more) recorded in the Gospels. Jesus’ acutal Incarnation is the key to the whole of Christianity. It is the most significant event in all of our history. If he were only a myth, we are fools. If he were only a man, we are fools. The historical record, the testimony of the Apostles and saints, and the living Church all bear witness to the fact that our faith is real. The unwavering nature of God’s call to us throughout time and space is one of the reasons I am Orthodox. The Church has always acknowledged the importance of working out our salvation in time, in earth, not just in spirit. Our communion within the Church that stretches across time and space exists because Christ really did Incarnate and is fully God, fully man. You and Dean and I are brothers because Jesus Christ acutally sacrificed Himself for the life of the world. His Resurrection and Ascension however provide the rest of the story. He did not cease being fully man, He is still fully man. Because of the actual, historical reality of His Ascension and Resurrection, we have become more our history has become more. All that we do in our worship redeems not only us now, but also, by the Grace of God, time as well.
The fact that He did incarnate at a specific time in a specific place has more salvific meaning, I am sure, but I have yet to really comprehend that part of the Mystery at all but the specifics are important.
P.S. I don’t think of anything I write here as profound wisdom. It is mostly an attempt to come to a clearer understanding of the nature of the Church and how to live a Christian life in a non-Christian world.
RE: 17. The New Yorker’s Peter Boyer notes that the agnostic approach towards core Christian beliefs by clerics like Bishop Spong is a chief reason why their churches are shrinking.
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/online/060417on_onlineonly01
It makes more sense to me that mainstream churches are losing members because they are liberal in a theological sense, rather than simply because of their position on a few political issues. The failure to affirm and uphold core Christian beliefs dramatically diminishes the importance of a church in the lives of its membership. If Jesus Christ was just a smart guy who lived (or was invented) two thousand years ago, and who had some good ideas about how we can all get along better, why do we need God?
An approach to religion that diminishes faith, diminishes itself. Belief in the existence of a loving God is something we arrive at intuitively, not by reason or any scientific process. How arrogant to say that God must not exist because we cannot prove it!
Consider how scornful we are now of people a thousand years ago who believed they possesed all the scientific knowlege necessary to make conclusive statements about the nature of universe. They would have scoffed at things we take for granted, flying metal vessels, machines that allows millions of people all over the world to talk to each other at once, nanotechnology, trips to the moon. Now consider how scornful people a thousand years in the future may be of people in our time who assume thay possess all the scientific knowlege necessary to make conclusive statements about the nature of universe.
Note 18. The paradigm (if you will) for faith is the Apostle Paul — the apostle “born out of due season.” Convinced that Christianity was a heresy, he worked tirelessly, even to the point of persecuting Christians, seeking to eradicate it. Then, on the road to Damascus, he encountered the resurrected Christ; an encounter that drove him even more deeply into scripture to understand this Christ whom he heard speak on the road.
“Did our hearts not burn within us, when he spoke to us and opened up to us the scriptures,” the disciples recalled about their encounter with the resurrected Christ on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:32).”
Fr. Jacobse writes:
“One thing to remember about the Episcopalians however is that the abandonment of Christianity occurred largely from the top down. There are still many (and former) Episcopalians who have not traded historical Christianity for the vagaries of gnosticism, or even neo-paganism.”
As a formal Episcopalian (granted just a few years) I would have to disagree in part. My experience tells me that while there is certainly a significant “remnant” of Christians in Episcopalians, the majority of the folks “in the pews” have bought into secularism/materialism/Epicureanism hook line and sinker. The top reflects this trend and is certainly on the leading edge of it. The top has even helped it along, but it is not the sole or even primary reason for the churches basic apostasy.
My wife and I would intentionally seek out “conservative” parishes, but even here at least half the members were not Christians in any meaningful sense. What to do with the real Christian’s left in Episcopalian of course is the big question. I certainly encourage them to look at Orthodoxy in my own limited way. One thing is certain, these Christians our Christian not because of their “church”, but in spite of it…
Dean writes: “It makes more sense to me that mainstream churches are losing members because they are liberal in a theological sense, rather than simply because of their position on a few political issues.”
Many religious scholars see these trends in the larger context of how American religion works. In the U.S., the established churches are always being nibbled on by the newer groups. One scholar, cited in Kevin Phillips’ _American Theocracy_ documents that from 1776 to 1850 the Episcopal church went from around 15 percent of all religious adherents to around 4 percent. This was certainly long before they “went liberal.” There were similar trends for other established churches. During the same time the Methodist church had tremendous growth. Then, after 1850 newer groups came along and Methodist church memebership as a percent of total adherents declined.
So this is how it works in the U.S. Fifty or 100 years from now, the Southern Baptist church will be staid and established, and will slowly be consumed by whatever new and exciting revival movement comes along.
Michael writes: “What I was writing was what I view as a corrective of Jim’s approach, a type of historical reductionism.”
But “reductionism” in what way? Is believing mathematical truth only on the basis of mathematial proof considered “mathematical reductionism?” Is believing scientific proposition only on the basis of scientific evidence “scientific reductionism?”
I’m not saying that only scientific knowledge is legitimate. I’m saying that if someone wants to make scientific or historical claims, those claims need to be supported by scientific and historical evidence. It is my observations that in traditional Christianity, that evidence is often very tenuous. And it is not clear to me how believing something on the basis of inadequate evidence is a virtue.
Jim, you seem to reduce what you consider historical proof and evidence only to that evidence outside the Church. You seem to specifically exclude the Holy Scriptures, the documentable lives of the saints and the historical witness of the Church herself. As someone who came to the Orthodox Church percisely because of my study of history and the historicity I found in her, I have yet to see any credible historical evidence that debunks any historical claim of the Church and a great deal which supports her.
But once again I must point out that history never has been and never will be a discipline of facts, it is a discipline of interpretating the facts in an attempt to better understand ourselves. Both the self-selection of time and the further selection of what is considered relevant and material make any historical narrative subjective and incomplete. In deciding which narratives more accurately reveal reality one must evaluate the nature of the evidence used, the manner in which it is used and the bias of the historian.
There is really no valid comparison between history and science as they are distinctly different disciplines, however, many scientists today will only look at evidence that proves what they want to believe and yes, that is scientific reductionism.
One of the primary reasons I came to the Orthodox Church was what I found to be the unbroken continuity of both God’s call to us, and His mercy toward us from the beginning until now. It was a clear indication to me that people did not make all of it up, i.e., Christianity is not a myth but revealed truth–God making Himself known to His creation–an unchanging, yet ever new truth that is firmly historical in nature, yet so much more. The Orthodox Church has maintained the historical reality of that revelation better than any other body purporting to be Christian. As Glen points out in his articles, my statement is historically documentable. She has done so despite all manner of attempts to destroy that truth by those opposed to her.
The choice is always before us, serve God or serve the world, the flesh and the devil. The Jesus and the Church depicted in the Da Vinci code are demonstratably false, historically, theologically, and spiritually. The only life the Da Vinci Code claims have is because they echo ancient heresies that have resonance in our hearts still.
Note 21. My analysis might be colored by my experience. I knew two Episcopalian priests. Both were good men. One in particular helped me out greatly. When I served Duluth, Minnesota I was responsible for entire Northern Minnesota, part of Wisconsin, I even did a wedding in Northern Michigan once. The Episcopalian priest in Bemidji on the west side of the sate would look in on the Orthodox believers for me. This was something he did not have to do but did anyway, out of respect for me, but moreso out of his love for Christ.
The second would attend my weekday liturgies. He lived in Duluth and was part of the conservative resistance to the liberal decline. This was about ten years or so ago. He would come in quietly, sit in the back, and just worship. He came in about twice a month and told me the worship helped center him and give him more strength for the battles with his bishop.
Michael writes: “Jim, you seem to reduce what you consider historical proof and evidence only to that evidence outside the Church.”
I certainly wouldn’t excluding any evidence merely because it came from inside the church, nor would I give automatic credibility to evidence merely because it came from outside the church.
My view of the history related to Christianity comes from several sources. First and most importantly, there are the gospels. From a close study of the gospels one can see the various sources that went into their composition, and how the editors of the gospels changed various parts of the source material. While we do not understand the sources of the gospels with certainty, there is verwhelming evidence that that the gospels are not eyewitness accounts written by the authors attributed to them. This is obviously not how the early Christians understood them, and early Christian beliefs were not formed with any consciousness of that.
I believe that the gospels are primarily theological documents, not historical documents. That said, there they certainly do contain history, and there is no good reason to doubt that some of the material goes back to first-century Israel and to Jesus himself. But they were never intended to be historical records of “what actually happened.”
Second, my understanding of Christian history comes from academic fields such as anthropology, sociology, and archeology, as well as other sources of ancient history. These fields fill in many of the gaps present in the gospel record, especially with respect to the larger context of what was happening “on the ground” with religion, politics, and the economy.
Third, I have a very different view of the Old Testament from how the early Christians saw it. I see the Old Testament “prophecies” as dealing mostly with situations that existed at the time they were written. In contrast, for the early Christians the Old Testament was the source of much of what they “knew” about Jesus.
Fourth, I live in a world in which the miraculous does not appear very often, if at all. I live in a world in which people have people have psychiatric or organic brain problems, but are not possessed by demons. I live in a world in which the dead saints of Jerusalem rising and walking around simply makes no sense. (Where did they go? Did they have clothes? Why would such a monumentally extraordinary even not be noticed and recorded by some other source?) I do not deny the possibility of the miraculous, but in my world it just doesn’t happen. If miracles related to Christianity were happening on a regular basis, then there wouldn’t be a religion of Christianity, but a science of Christianity. There would be no room for doubt or questioning, and Christianity would be a fact accepted by all rational people. But we don’t see this.
Without getting into endless details, I would say that many of the stories in the gospels are very problematic from an historical point of view. It doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen, but it does mean that a reasonable person could doubt that they happened. This is because in many cases the evidence just isn’t very good. Frankly, were the evidence good, none of this would be a matter of faith. Nobody believes “on faith” that Lincoln was president.
Michael: “But once again I must point out that history never has been and never will be a discipline of facts, it is a discipline of interpretating the facts in an attempt to better understand ourselves.”
Well, yes, but only to an extent. In other words, I think the DaVinci code is wrong. From what I know about it, it is bad history. There are things in it that are just false. And it’s not just a matter of interpretation. I don’t believe the DaVinci Code “on faith,” nor would I believe it was true just because it helped me understand myself better. While history does involve the construction of theoretical models that are designed to help us organize and understand evidence, there must also be some “isomorphism,” as the scholars say, between the history of an event and “what really happened.”
Michael: “There is really no valid comparison between history and science as they are distinctly different disciplines, however, many scientists today will only look at evidence that proves what they want to believe and yes, that is scientific reductionism.”
They are different disciplines, but they are related in this sense: that the conclusions of both science and history are subject to revision and doubt based on new evidence or better interpretations of the evidence. In other words, truly historical and scientific beliefs are contingent, not permanent. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard a traditional Christian say “well, I believe in the virgin birth at the moment, but I’m open to alternative explanations.” In that sense I would say that belief in the virgin birth is not an historical belief, but a theological belief that happens to have some content that is said to have taken place in an historical setting.
Michael: “The Jesus and the Church depicted in the Da Vinci code are demonstratably false, historically, theologically, and spiritually.”
Yes, exactly. We can show that certain things in the DaVinci Code are historically false. In other words, there are certain standards that must be met for something to be accepted as history. But I think it is inconsistent to hold the DaVinci Code to that standard, while excluding the Bible from that standard.
Take the virgin birth, for example. Certainly one can make the case that it is historical. But as I see it, the weight of evidence is simply not sufficient to support that conclusion. I think you would agree that the evidence is not of the same weight by which we conclude that Augustus was ruler of Rome, or that Lincoln was president. People who believe in the historicity of the virgin birth do so on the basis of faith, not on the basis of overwhelming historical evidence.