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May 02, 2006
Challenging Da Vinci
The Anglican Church of Sydney has launched a Challenging Da Vinci website as part of a campaign to dispute Dan Brown's best-selling novel. For example: Was Leonardo da Vinci a gay genius?
And without that evidence, we would be foolish to develop a new religion out of the fanciful utterances of a poorly informed character in an airport novel. Wouldn't we?
Quite right. But then it also seems foolish to claim strands of Christian thought dating back to the second century are new or fanciful in comparison with a canon that has been remarkably flexible since that time. The earliest extent canon is the Bryennios manuscript dating to about AD 100. It includes twenty-seven familiar "Old Testament" books but none of the Gospels, letters and other material that make up what most Christians would now recognize as the "New Testament". Many of the earliest Christians would have regarded much of what is now considered sacred writ as being largely fanciful. This is not to dismiss any particular version of the New Testament. But it certainly suggests some forbearance in dismissing non-canonical scripture out of hand. After all, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has added an entire "newer" testament without sparking a snarky Anglican web presence every time a Mormon-themed film is released.
For the Anglicans of Sydney to reject Gnostic claims - let alone a Tom Hanks film based on an airport novel interpretation of Gnostic Christianity - is hardly surprising; the Archbishop of Canterbury recently published a rather better job of it in The Mail on Sunday. But it is disingenuous to pretend that no Christianity has ever existed outside the "closed" canon they wish to defend. It is a particularly galling claim coming from an Anglican communion which is itself schismatic and of dubious provenience.* The Church of England is a good 1500 years more recent than the Gnostic Christianity practiced by at least some people who may have known Jesus - and certainly one or another of his disciples - in person. And it is not as if "heretical" forms of early Christianity are uniquely subject to criticism. No fans of Gnosticism, the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia charges Anglicanism with Erastianism. Of course, this is a debatable difference of opinion and one which has resulted in no little bloodshed through the years. This is to say nothing of the much greater differences of opinion, and centuries of further bloodshed, between and amongst the Holy See, the Church of England and a bewildering variety of low church Protestant denominations.
In these more secular times most of these differences are tolerated if not respected. It certainly seems rude to point out, for example, Henry VIII's biography in expressing an argument about the merits of this or that version of the Book of Common Prayer. But I would hope Anglicans in Sydney could find something more important to fret about, and something better to spend their money on, than an airport novel they claim cannot be taken seriously. Unless, of course, their outrage is savvy marketing meant to take advantage of the radical success of that airport novel in comparison with their own recent evangelism.
*There are lots of Anglicans in my family, btw.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 2, 2006 08:11 AM
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