birds of a feather?
Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkens have both, despite being grounded in controversial theological opinions, taken their places among the most popular works of fiction in recent years.
What else do the two have in common? According to Carl Olson of the National Review, more than first meets the eye. In both books, "the institutions of man, especially the Catholic Church" are seen as an enemy of all that is true and good. Both books "are created without much concern for fact and scholarship, but both give a wealth of lip service to supposed research and historical veracity." And both books are neo-Gnostic, in that they "promise special knowledge, or gnosis, to those willing to accept the authors' premises and suspend judgment about the veracity and solvency of those premises."
Olson's article offers an interesting analysis, especially given that many of the fans of the Left Behind series are very vocal opponents of The Da Vinci Code.
The good news about the success of these two works -- good news even for those of us who don't buy into either conspiracy theory -- is that their popularity makes for an easy introduction to talking about faith. The bad news is that, by associating faith with gnosis, these books make it easier to dismiss faith altogether.
A disturbing question raised by the success of these books: Has traditional Christianity become so irrelevant to the popular culture that, to many people, conspiracy theories look attractive by comparison?
What do you think?
Labels: rapture
posted by BruceA @ 3:08 PM
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4 Comments:
Bruce,
I think you hit it on the head about Traditional Christianity becoming irrelevant along with the culture becoming succombed to conspiracy theories.
I believe that despite the cricism that Brian McClaren is getting from his books that he is reaching out to the culture in their own language without resorting to conspiracy theories or christianese. The Secret Message of Jesus is actually a subversive message to reach out to the popular gnostic culture without being corupted by it's theology.
I didn't like the Left Behind books- not good writing. And I don't plan on reading the D. Code. For me, they have "uninteresting" in common.
Perhaps, for the average person, it is easy to be interested in the church-in-a-conspiracy because, for them, it's a picture of the church actually doing something.
"Has traditional Christianity become so irrelevant to the popular culture that, to many people, conspiracy theories look attractive by comparison?"
Most definitely...with ever-increasing access to information, it is becoming ever-increasingly obvious to the Christian faithful that teachings once held dear are nothing but vestiges of paganism.
The stampede from traditional Christianity can be laid squarely at the door of those whose responsibility it was to project the values of God into society through the example set by the man Jesus of Nazareth.
Doctrines such as the Trinity, Virgin Birth, and the various 'divinity' teachings, impose a barrier between Jesus of Nazareth and the rest of humanity; they misrepresent the values he stood for; they falsify the issues that brought him into collision with the priests; and they conceal the motives of those who caused him to be crucified.
Until these doctrines are cast aside and the simple message of the New Testament embraced by the Christian Churches, they will continue to grow in irrelevancy.
God's controversy with humanity began in the Garden of Eden and has continued through the ages right to this present moment. It is a controversy that demands of humanity that they weigh all things in the balances and find true measure.
Jesus warned his followers to beware the teachings of the Priests. This warning was given at the end of the Abrahamic period.
Now, after nearly two thousand years of the New Covenant, nothing has changed. Both Old and New Covenants have been apostasised in the same manner for a similar length of time.
"He that hath ears, let him hear."
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