Wednesday, April 26, 2006

DA VINCI & THE CONSPIRATORIAL MIND

With sales of the new paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code topping 1 million copies the reason for the popularity can in part be explained by the conspiratorial mindset:
As Dan Brown writes in “The Da Vinci Code,” “Everyone loves a conspiracy.”

So here they are — the supposed secrets nobody wants you to know, least of all the Christian church. Jesus never died on the cross. No, he retired to Egypt. Or was it France? He sired a royal bloodline with wife Mary Magdalene.

Can this all be true? No, say virtually all serious historians who deal with the first century....

To people like Lynn Garrett, religion editor of Publishers Weekly for the past decade, the explanation is simple: “Conspiracy theories have tremendous appeal for Americans.”

In particular, Brown’s novel feeds into “a willingness on peoples’ part to believe the worst about Christianity generally and the Roman Catholic Church in particular.” She sees it as the religious equivalent of the many theories about President Kennedy’s assassination. [emphasis added, nac]

Just so. As I stated recently, those who are willing to believe the worst--eg, what Dan Brown is peddling--aren't interested in seriously following the Bible anyway.

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