Faith and fantasy

Why I don8217;t want Dan Brown8217;s 8216;The Da Vinci Code8217; to be banned

Let me state it upfront. I am against banning Dan Brown8217;s book, The Da Vinci Code, or the film based on it. I am puzzled by the hysterical media hype over it. Perhaps this tells more about ourselves than about the work. We do not seem to have outgrown the inability to distinguish reel life from real life. But the Church, especially the Catholic Church, has reasons to feel aggrieved. The Da Vinci Code is a poorly veiled challenge to the Church. It also questions an important aspect of the scriptural image of Jesus who, according to Brown, had a relationship with Mary Magdalene and sired a child by her, establishing a clandestine royal lineage of which Sophie, in the film, is the last remnant.

This is complemented by the insinuation that Jesus was only a human being, with no pretension to divinity, which eventuates into the allegation that the church suppressed the truth about Jesus8217;s relationship with Mary Magdalene and established itself on a willful lie. This is incendiary stuff! But, as a Christian priest and theologian, I would not advocate banning the film for several reasons. First, I must have faith in truth. The faith that truth, and not untruth, will prevail is an article of faith that Christianity shares with Hinduism. Jesus said: 8220;I am the truth8221;. To relate to him is to come under the obligation to seek the truth. Basic to this is confidence in truth, proved by tolerance towards the flights of fantasy that those who seek the truth erroneously may evolve. It is a spiritual offence to suppress the quest for truth and nothing demonises this urge more than dogmatism about truth. But the tolerance that honours truth insists on the distinction between truths and myths, between research and fantasy masquerading as research.

The apprehension that what Brown himself admits to be a work of fiction could be mistaken for historical truth is understandable; but it is not a good enough reason to ban the film. 8220;What is truth?8221; Pontius Pilate had asked Jesus. The reply was deafening silence. This was because Pilate was not willing to encounter experiential truth. Truth was, to him, an academic question. It is a presumption of western culture that truth is a matter of spinning sensational stories that do not lend themselves to verification by non-experts. The Da Vinci Code could be Dan Brown8217;s version, despite his disclaimer, of the truth about the life of Jesus.

The question I ask myself is this: of what use is this truth to the lived realities of my life or the life of my non-Christian neighbour? The Da Vinci Code has provided an opportunity to debate the relationship between faith and truth in religion and it needs to be welcomed for the simple reason that what is not debated is not really understood. This is crucial because I notice widespread ignorance about the faith among Christians. Ironically, we are more keen to defend the faith than to understand it.

The super-edifice of Brown8217;s thesis rests on a dubious hypothesis: that the person sitting next to Jesus, in 8216;The Last Supper8217; by Da Vinci, is Mary Magdalene. Some tenuous evidence is advanced to corroborate this. The Gospels leave us in no doubt that this is John, the 8216;beloved disciple8217;. Why did Brown see Mary where John was sitting? Well, the film itself explains it: you see what you look for. For the sake of The Da Vinci Code, John has to become Mary and so he does. It is an incredible flight of fantasy. That in the tradition bound Jewish society of the times, when it was a scandal for a rabbi to be even seen talking to a woman in public, Jesus would have Mary Magdalene sit next to him. For this Brown has an explanation: she was pregnant at that time! No basis is offered for this inference. The script needs her to be pregnant. That8217;s it. Is not an author a god, after all?

For me, this film is not a litmus test of the truth or otherwise of what the church is founded on. It is a test of the truth of my faith. Does it make any difference, asks Robert Langdon, in the film, that Jesus was a man or God? What makes all the difference is the truth of one8217;s belief. How does it profit us to defend doctrines and dogmas, violently even, so long as they have nothing to do with the way we live? It is when our life drifts from the discipline of living the faith that we become insecure about the webs of fantasies that come and go. They are treated best as wake up calls, alerting us to the fact that life is ebbing out of a living faith.

As Christians, we need to engage with the question as to what it means to live in a secular democracy. Do we have the right to coerce others to conform to our religious sensitivities? The Church may decide what its members may see, though even this needs to be done with utmost restraint. But we cannot legislate for the rest of society. What we can do is work with people of goodwill of all religions and create a climate respectful of the inviolability of the sacred. Debunking the sacred is not a problem exclusive to Christians. It8217;s a problem for everyone who is serious about spiritual life. This is where we are at an incalculable advantage in India. The name of Jesus Christ is revered even by the detractors of the church. The person of Jesus has always had a profound appeal to the soul of India. Swami Vivekanand once said: 8220;Had I lived two thousand years ago,8221; he said, 8220;I would have washed his feet not with water, but with the blood of my heart.8221;

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My faith in Jesus did not increase with Mel Gibson8217;s The Passion of Christ. Nor is my faith in him doing to decline because of Dan Brown8217;s work. That a spectacle on the screen can deal a body blow to a historical faith that has stood the test of time is a naive apprehension. Christianity, being a historical faith, is based on facts. Facts are never beyond contestation. What cannot be contested are figments of fantasy. Works like The Da Vinci Code are, ironically, a tribute to the historical foundation of the biblical faith. Rather than seek to proscribe them we need to welcome them since they urge us to examine if facts of history are turning, because of us, into untested hypotheses of contrived religiosity that leads to paranoia at any sign of non-conformity.

Religion in the end is a personal matter. Its truth or otherwise have to be borne out by the extent to which it empowers individuals to make sense of their life. Surely, there is life beyond The Da Vinci Code!

The writer is member, National Integration Councilvalsan_thampuhotmail.com