Earlier in 2003, novelist Dan Brown published his sensational and provocative novel, The Da Vinci Code.  The best-selling novel posits an alternative view of Christianity that has caused no small tremor in the literary world and has caused ABC to air a program in early November entitled, “Jesus, Mary and da Vinci.”  I want to think with you about this controversy:

• First allow me to summarize the thesis of Brown’s novel, which I read this summer.  The central event of the novel is the murder of a Louvre curator, found in the pose of Leonardo’s celebrated “Vitruvian man”—a figure inscribed in both a circle and a square—which sets in motion an ingenious plot involving numerological symbolism, verbal puzzles and an alternative version of Christianity, wrapped around the legend of the Holy Grail.  Brown posits that Leonardo is at the center of a secret society that has maintained a secret from biblical times, namely that Mary Magdalene, far from being a prostitute, was the rightful wife of Jesus; Mary and Jesus had a child and heirs; and finally, the heirs, whose existence threatened church dogma, were protected by a clandestine priory that counted Leonardo among its members.  The novel also contends that the Holy Grail, contrary to most ideas that it was the chalice Jesus used as He introduced the ordinance of communion, was actually the pregnant Mary Magdalene, the lost vessel of Jesus’ blood.  Thus, the figure sitting on Jesus’ right in Leonardo’s “Last Supper,” generally taken to be the effeminate apostle John, was actually Mary Magdalene, leaning away from Jesus in a telltale “V” that represents an ancient female symbol for a chalice or grail, or the letter “M” representing matrimony or Magdalene.  In addition, Peter, who sits next to “Mary” in the painting, gestures in front of Mary in a menacing manner that could denote jealousy.  Since there is no object on the table that could be a grail or chalice, Brown contends that Mary symbolizes the actual grail, which is a metaphor for the sacred feminine and a form of goddess worship suppressed by Christianity.   
 
• Second, how accurate historically is Brown’s novel?  First, the name da Vinci refers to that fact that Leonardo was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero of Vinci, in the Florentine territory.  Therefore, historians refer to him by his given name Leonardo, not by da Vinci.  Further, as Bruce Boucher argues, Brown’s work suggests a lack of familiarity with the copious bibliography on the painter.  For example, Brown refers to Leonardo’s “enormous output” of Christian art and “hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions” he received.  In fact, Leonardo was known for his notoriously meager production of Christian art and actually spent little time in Rome.  Brown also calls Leonardo a “flamboyant homosexual” when the actual evidence of his sexuality remains inconclusive and most fragmentary.  Finally, how should we view Brown’s interpretation of the “Last Supper” painting?  As Boucher argues, Leonardo’s composition points, in fact, to the traditional Florentine depictions of the Last Supper, stressing the betrayal and sacrifice of Jesus rather that the institution of the Eucharist and the chalice.  At the same time, John was invariably represented as a beautiful young man whose special affinity with Jesus was expressed by his being seated at Jesus’ right.  Leonardo’s John conforms to this type and parallels for the absence of a chalice appear in earlier Italian examples.  In short, Brown’s working of the historical evidence is spurious at best.

• Finally, how do we process this as Christians?  The book is well-written and is a form of entertainment drawing on the conspiracy-theory genre, arguing that the Christian church is bent on conspiring to keep the truth about Christianity’s origins suppressed and will even kill to keep it suppressed.  Furthermore, ABC legitimizes the book’s approach to Christianity in its program, “Jesus, Mary and da Vinci.”  This is rather tragic; for any serious scholarly discussion on Brown’s thesis presented as a novel cannot be done in a short TV program, because it raises hosts of questions that cannot be answered on TV.  So, where do we go from here? 

As Christians we must reaffirm the historicity of the four gospels.  Until German theological liberalism in the 19th century abandoned the historical Jesus and embarked on its proverbial quest, there was no controversy over the historical Jesus.  He was the Jesus depicted in the gospels.  But with no anchor in Scripture, any theory, idea or hypothesis is now regarded as legitimate.  Brown has based his novel on the curious, the strange and the bizarre.  He argues that at the Council of Nicea (325), church leaders consolidated their power base by creating the doctrines of Christ’s deity and the infallibility of Scripture.  In fact, Brown actually sides with Arius, whose belief that Jesus was a created being was condemned as heresy by the church.  But any church historian can easily prove that the early church from the four gospels on claimed clearly Jesus as the Lord and God of the universe; the evidence is abundant and compelling.  Brown would not have you believe this and, because of the general ignorance among the laity of church history, he can be convincing.  His work is not history and it is not credible.  Jesus is the incarnate God who came to earth with one express purpose—to pay the price for the redemption of humanity.  The gospel accounts do not support the premise that He was married, that He had children or that Mary Magdalene was in the upper room.  The result of Brown’s novel is that people are believing it as a viable option on how to look at Jesus.  It is not!  It is a fabrication and a novel—fiction!  It is well-written, but it is not fact and bears no resemblance whatsoever to historic, biblical Christianity.

See Boucher’s article in the New York Times (3 August 2003) and Virginia Hefferman in the New York Times (3 November 2003).

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THE SENATE AND JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS

This past week the Republican leadership of the Senate engaged in a marathon session to protest the unprecedented filibuster against President Bush’s appellate court nominees.  It brought the nation’s focus on this issue but it changed few minds and did not result in any of the nominees being confirmed.  How significant is this filibuster engineered by the Democratic Party?  Is it truly unprecedented?

• First, as Brian C. Anderson argues, “For two years, Senator [Charles] Schumer has waged a campaign to subvert the criteria by which the Senate ratifies presidential judicial picks.  For much of American history, the Senate, in its confirmation of judges, has relied on principles laid down by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist: integrity, intelligence and temperament, and faithfulness to the rule of law--terms on which President Bush’s picks...pass with high marks.”  What Schumer adds is that senators must make a judge’s “ideology” their principal concern.  By this he means the judge’s private political opinions, as well as the political results his decisions have led to in past cases and could lead to in the future.  In his opinion, judges whose views on affirmative action and abortion are outside the “mainstream” should be disqualified from sitting on the federal bench, regardless of competence.  For the definition of “mainstream” Schumer holds simply that conservative views are “extremist.”  Such partisanship goes beyond anything the Democrats have asserted earlier in previous judicial battles.  The defeat of Robert Bork and the near defeat of Justice Clarence Thomas were argued on the grounds of temperament and integrity.

• Second, how is this new doctrine applied to the President’s judicial nominees?  Democrats justify the filibuster of Priscilla Owen because she argued in one case that parents should play a role in the decision-making process for their minor daughter’s quest for an abortion.  Although most Americans support parental notification laws, any judge willing to contemplate any limitation on abortion at any time is an “extremist.”  Miguel Estrada was unacceptable because his views are conservative, despite his impeccable credentials and sterling record under the Clinton administration.  California Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown has been nominated for the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  Schumer argues she is out of the mainstream.  But this is absurd since she has authored the second largest number of majority opinions on that court, and has received favorable recommendations from her Democratic colleagues.

• Finally, as Anderson argues, “liberals have happily watched an activist judiciary twist the Constitution to make it produce ‘progressive’ policy outcomes that the left could never have won from the voters.”  Conservatives have lamented this trend toward legislating from the bench.  More than anything else, this is what is at stake.  The left can never get its progressive and radical legislation through Congress, so it goes to the Courts.  Abortion, radical sexuality and other social causes can only be “legislated” in the Courts.  That is what the left fears losing and hence the filibuster.  It adds to the partisan and polarized atmosphere of Washington.  As I have argued on this program many times, the power to appoint judges is one of the most critical in presidential elections.  It should be a major issue in this upcoming election. 

See Anderson’s article in the Wall Street Journal (5 November 2003).

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MARRIAGE AS BUFFET CHOICE

The current debate about same-sex marriage has brought marriage once again to the forefront of the culture debate within America.  As David Frum has observed, “. . . we’ve come to understand the importance of marriage at exactly the moment that the institution is approaching the verge of collapse.”  A generation of social scientists has documented the benefits to children of growing up in a father-mother household.  “Yet, today [those same children] ha[ve] less than a one-in-two chance of reaching the age of 18 in the same home as both of his or her parents.”  Few would argue that that is a good thing.  So, how would same-sex marriages affect this statistic?  In the past decade, same-sex marriage or something like it has entered the law of eight countries:  Denmark, France, Hungary, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and now Canada.  As Frum argues, “today . . . marriage is a continuum, a series of gradations between true singlehood and formal matrimony.”  Cohabitation is on that continuum, but is hardly stable.  In fact, the average cohabitation in Canada lasts only five years.  What if there are children in that relationship?  Is this social experiment a good idea for children?  “Domestic partnerships,” “civil pacts,” and “common law marriages” are also all along that continuum.  None of these are especially stable or secure.  In short, the institution of marriage is being redefined and it is the children who will suffer acutely for this grand social experiment!  In Frum’s words, “You need a very strange definition of progress to regard such an outcome as a progressive reform.”

See Frum’s article in the Wall Street Journal (16 October 2003).

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