Mark's Notebook

Da Vinci Code of Gnosticism

The Australian

by Jill Rowbotham

One of the Church of England's heaviest hitters, the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, has plenty to say about the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas.

Wright has been dealing with da Vinci-style phenomena for years and is matter-of-fact about the anti-theology in Brown's book, which is, he says, a variation on the gnostic heresy that flourished in the early centuries after Jesus lived.

Gnosticism was a rival version of Christianity that was suppressed in the early church by what became the orthodox view. The recently published Gospel of Judas, translated from Coptic, for example, is a gnostic text that claims history's great betrayer was acting on the orders of Jesus.

"The really interesting thing about The Da Vinci Code is why, granted it's such manifest rubbish, do people want to take it seriously?" Wright asks. "Why has it been such a runaway bestseller? It's not because it's a page-turner, because there are millions of page-turners out there."

He theorises that it says what modern Westerners want to hear.

"The mythology about Christian origins that so many people in the Western world want today is a form of gnosticism in which self-discovery, particularly discovery of gender-based aspects of 'myself', whether it's the sacred feminine or whatever, is hugely important.

"Learning that in fact the heart and centre of genuine spirituality is not about my insides but about God coming in love and grace to do something fresh for me is not what people want to hear.

(emphasis mine - Mark)

"In other words, people don't want what Christianity authentically offers: they want this substitute called gnosticism in one of its many forms; and The Da Vinci Code plays right in," Wright says.

"Jesus was going around 'doing the kingdom', healing the sick, cleansing lepers, feeding the hungry, he was celebrating at a party with all the wrong people, transforming people's lives and saying cryptic things such as: 'Let me tell you what the kingdom of God is like'," Wright says.

"The church has it the other way around. It has tended to say: 'We must say it, say it, say it as clearly as possible and if there is any energy left over, we'll do a bit of it as well."'

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20876,18798068-28737,00.html

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Last updated Monday 3 August 2009