Catholics and Conspiracy
Ross Douthat on Dan Brown:
Brown’s message has been called anti-Catholic, but that’s only part of the story. True, his depiction of the Roman Church’s past constitutes a greatest hits of anti-Catholicism, with slurs invented by 19th-century Protestants jostling for space alongside libels fabricated by 20th-century Wiccans. (If he targeted Judaism or Islam this way, one suspects that no publisher would touch him.)
I think this is a bit apples-to-oranges. You could target Judaism or Islam for criticism in a book, but you simply couldn’t target Judaism or Islam “this way.” The Catholic Church has a centralized bureaucracy and an institutional continuity lasting over a thousand years. That’s good fodder for conspiracy theories. Other religions aren’t organized this way. Protocols of the Elders of Zion had to postulate not only a conspiracy, but the elders themselves, since you can’t have a conspiracy without conspirators.
That said, my favorite work of historical conspiracy fiction, The Eight, does the proper thing and takes aim at the Freemasons, a group that seems to have been invented precisely to provide fodder for good conspiracy theories. Plus, it also involves accounting improprieties!
86 Responses to “Catholics and Conspiracy”
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May 19th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Ross may not have heard of The Satanic Verses.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:04 am
The Catholic Church has a centralized bureaucracy and an institutional continuity lasting over a thousand years. That’s good fodder for conspiracy theories. Other religions aren’t organized this way.
The Methodists are, but they don’t want you or anyone else to know it.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:08 am
I’ve read Angels & Demons (haven’t seen the movie yet), but I have no recollection of it containing any “libels fabricated by 20th-century Wiccans.” Being Wiccan myself, it’s something I probably would have noticed. I’m really curious WTF Douthat’s talking about. Considering there are – at best estimate – less than 150,000 Wiccans in this country, and we have no unified “church” to speak for us, where does he think we get the power to influence Brown’s writings or even get noticed at all? Honestly, some of these guys would be afraid of their own shadows at high noon.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:09 am
You can target Judaism or even Protestantism in this way because secret-societies are inherently believeable. You don’t need the actually existing bureaucracy tht the Catholic Church has. As you say, you can create compelling WASPy conspiracies of Freemasons. You can invent Jewish conpiracies based on suppressed Jewish societies hiding out in Spain and Latin America or remaining followers of Shabbetai Zevi in Turkey.
I don’t think you need the infrastructure that the Catholic Church provides here. As Umberto Eco in Foucault’s Pendulum pointed out, the human mind is perfectly capable of positing and believing such things anyway.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Exactly what libels have 20th Century Wiccans fabricated about the Roman church (whether or not they were in the book/movie)? I’m genuinely curious.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Also, let’s not forget that Catholics are responsible for some pretty gruesome acts in world history (e.g., Spanish Inquisition).
May 19th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I’ll take (c): Not having Ross Douthat.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:17 am
let’s not forget that Catholics are responsible for some pretty gruesome acts in world history (e.g., Spanish Inquisition).
In context, the English were pretty brutal about suppressing Catholics on the British Isles, as well. Dan-Brown-like depictions of the English monarchy and the Anglicans only live on in literature in the form of Lyndon LaRouche tracts, however.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:21 am
You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.
Tom Hanks is a practicing Christian. He simply realizes that Dan Brown writes fiction. Now, granted, I’m sure that many readers have trouble separating the fact from the fiction and don’t realize that Brown isn’t writing “historical fiction”, he’s writing fictional fiction. We can watch “Ghostbusters,” too, without actually believing that some of the apartment towers were built by cultists seeking to summon Sumerian gods.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Catholics are responsible for some pretty gruesome acts in world history (e.g., Spanish Inquisition)
Actually, the Catholic Church as a whole was not responsible for the Spanish Inquisition. It was pretty much a Spanish imperial policy, supported by the church in Spain since the king let them in on the spoils. (Obviously everyone concerned was Catholic loosely speaking, but it wasn’t like the Pope decreed it from Rome.)
That’s not to say the Roman church covered itself in glory; by way of competition, the Pope set up his own inquisition that was ruthless in Northern Italy.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:24 am
My guess is he is referring to the parts of The Da Vinci Code that talk about things like the “Witch Craze” and the Malleus Maleficarum in some pretty innaccurate historical light, and have been used occasionally by some 20th century Wiccans.
Here is a good rundown of some of it:
May 19th, 2009 at 10:25 am
That’s because all the deranged conspiracy-mongering about Islam has already been mined out by Douthat and his homeboys.
Actually, I suspect that more than one thriller has appeared in print containing unrealistic negative portrayals of Islam. But no, it’s Catholicism that’s unfairly singled out by fiction. (Hey, when’s the last time a primetime TV show used a Protestant when they needed a benevolent religious leader for a community?) Crikey, what’s next, attacking Coppola for Godfather III? Hint: when the Unitarians are revealed to have a shadowy banking network, they might become fodder for potboiler fiction, too.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Whoops, link didn’t work the first time:
Link
May 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am
The problem with Dan Brown specifically, though (IMO) is that he’s made several comments that, in fact, what he is writing isn’t fiction, save for the characters. That the theories, history, and conclusions are actually accurate. That, I think, is probably why he gets targeted with sharp criticism.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I was thinking of the Godfather, too, mds.
Catholicism is just inherently cinematic. The camera loves clerical vestments, stained glass, and murmured rituals.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:32 am
More importantly, the recent movie is just ponderous and dull. Explication. Running and shooting. Explication. Burning and shouting. Explication. Glaring and staring. Explication …
Aieeee!!!!
May 19th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Er, the papal bull Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus of Sixtus IV established the Castilian Inquisition in 1478, but delegated complete control of the inquisitors to the crown. To his partial credit, Sixtus initially resisted taking this step, but was brought to heel by Spanish threats to withdraw troops from the fight against Ottoman incursions. But the Pope did technically decree it from Rome.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I have to admit, I am sort of curious as to how it is that Dan Brown works so hard to use primarily incorrect pseudo-facts about church or art history that largely ’sound’ right or are the products of long-debunked nuts; particularly since many of the plot points of both books turn out to be subterfuge anyway.
I guess it’s because he’s got a very good sense for what would appeal to a lot of people’s (wrong) sense about what they think is likely to be true, thus making for very successful marketing.
The analog would be something like making an action thriller mystery detective art symbolism story out of Erich von Daniken’s writings that the Aztec and Mayan pyramids were built by space aliens, but only if that approach seemed to challenge some powerful institution’s version of history and thus seeming popular and slightly rebellious.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Yup, Douthat still sucks. Completely unfounded complaints about mockery of those poor, much-maligned Christians. Making a big deal out of the fact that a fiction novel is really not true.
And meanwhile he still misses the huge, real problem with Da Vinci Code: there’s nothing original or transgressive about it.
A more feminist Christianity? Try Kevin Smith’s Dogma. Living descendants of Jesus and a conspiracy surrounding them was the backstory of the Preacher comic book. A.A. Attanasio wrote a series of King Arthur novels based on a sort of marriage between a matriarchal Celtic culture and the pre-Christian Jewish priesthood. Fiction has been used to take a new look at sacred cows has longer than the term “speculative fiction” has been around. Dan Brown’s readers just didn’t notice them until the story was rewritten with crossword puzzles and an elementary sprinkling of French vocabulary.
The Methodists are, but they don’t want you or anyone else to know it.
Perhaps they don’t attract conspiracy theories to the same degree because they’re only, what, 150 years old or so? Or are you arguing that they’re much older?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Which, as a history student living near Dan Brown in New Hampshire, is what drives me nuts about how popular his work became.
I still remember being urged ceaselessly by friends to read the Da Vinci Code and finding myself appalled as he bungled something as easily well documented as the Council of Nicea, the reign of Constantine, and the Arian dispute.
Of course, this stuff is popular with fairly uneducated, who regard history the same way he does, something to be decided upon as opposed to what is already written. Ugh.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I’ve always been fond of the nemesis in The President’s Analyst. TPC. The Phone Company.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I wonder if Douthat is begging his new bosses to turn off the reader comments on his columns. 99% of the comments are tearing Ross and his ridiculous column apart. When he couldn’t deal with the critiques at the Atlantic, Douthat simply turned off the feature.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Propaganda fuckin’ Due, Ross.
Dan Brown is sort of “Eco for people who don’t like books but still read them”.
I only wish that Father Ted broadcast in the US, so that Douchehat could sniff about that. Truly an inauspicious start.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Well, the thing is that Christianity is based on assertions of secret knowledge about what a certain person did. It’s not that much of a leap to pose the question, “what if there’s a conspiracy there?” And the one church that existed for a millennium and a half would have to be the locus of that conspiracy.
It’s like saying that it’s bigotry that women, not men, have babies. No, it’s simply something about the way the world is.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:39 am
The problem with the rhetoric of kneejerk anti-anti-…-ism, of the kind Douthat is doing a bit of here, is that it often seems unconcerned with the fundamental issue of truth and falsity. The issue we should have with Brown’s stuff, or at least with those who read it as history, is that it is filled with utterly ridiculous and evidentially unsupported legends and buncombe. If these yarns were plausible and true, then there would be no problem with promulgating them, even if the message was anti-Catholic.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:40 am
By the way, isn’t Matt now a member of some sort of secret society of elite liberal bloggers?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Well, to be fair to Douthat, Brown’s books do read freakishly like a list of every single historical anti-Catholic slur that this atheist learned about in Catholic school.
Of course, given that Angels and Demons ALSO has its fair share of gross anti-Muslim stereotypes, I think he’s being a tad disingenuous.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:42 am
I am sort of curious as to how it is that Dan Brown works so hard to use primarily incorrect pseudo-facts about church or art history that largely ’sound’ right or are the products of long-debunked nuts
One of the Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh sued for plagiarism, but lost the case, because you apparently don’t have intellectual property rights to bollocks pseudo-histories.
There’s a human desire to join the dots. Do you have any doubt that Obama, on moving into the White House, checked the Resolute Desk for secret compartments? Just for a few minutes?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:44 am
By the way, isn’t Matt now a member of some sort of secret society of elite liberal bloggers?
I don’t think I am.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Re Tyro at 9: “He simply realizes that Dan Brown writes fiction. Now, granted, I’m sure that many readers have trouble separating the fact from the fiction and don’t realize that Brown isn’t writing “historical fiction”, he’s writing fictional fiction. We can watch “Ghostbusters,” too, without actually believing that some of the apartment towers were built by cultists seeking to summon Sumerian gods.”
—————–
Well, weren’t Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in reality, works of fiction?
So how did that work out?
The vast majority of American voters imbibe their political opinions from the movies.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Well, keep trying, it’s good to have a goal.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
This is the same column that George Will wrote a while back about jeans. Except that jeans have been replaced with the modern American phenomenon of a “general religiosity”. Douthat can inveigh against it all he wants, but, like jeans-wearing, religious behaviors are trending in the opposite direction. HA HA HA.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I don’t think I am.
Well that’s what you would say, isn’t it!
May 19th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Oh, and the other point: what most reputable professors of theology agree upon, when it comes to the history of the New Testament, is about a century of incremental embellishment turns “Jesus lives on in us” into the resurrection story.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Re myglesias at 30: “I don’t think I am.”
————–
Ah, but we cognoscenti know that when a member of the secret society of elite liberal bloggers posts here, his words are surrounded by a magical halo of baby shit yellow.
Hence, “myglesias” at 30 is an imposter and an infiltrator. Destroy him.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:53 am
You could target Judaism or Islam for criticism in a book, but you simply couldn’t target Judaism or Islam “this way.”
You’re reading “this way” too narrowly. What Ross means is “by repeating the commonest tropes of anti-Catholic bias of centuries past.” For the readiest example, compare the mass media outrage and handwringing over The Passion of the Christ, a movie about Jesus’ crucifixion that was subject to endless hostility due to certain tropes that may or may not be read into certain scenes. On the other hand, Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons present long-held smears against the Catholic Church as absolute fact, and no one minds. What do you think the reaction would be if Ron Howard made a movie about Robert Langdon trying to outfox the Elders of Zion?
That said, I have no problem with this and thought Da Vinci Code was a fun read (though a lousy movie). But you have missed Ross’ point entirely.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:57 am
“By the way, isn’t Matt now a member of some sort of secret society of elite liberal bloggers?”
“I don’t think I am.”
The old, “I don’t think I am” defense. There’s no counter-move. Curses, I though we finally had him.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I love it when white guys like Douthat cry victimhood.
But Opus Dei is a kind of freemasonry Catholic group whose secrecy lends itself to conspiracy theories.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:07 am
mds:
Note to self: time to start pushing my original screenplay for In The Belly of The Veatch.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Evil conspiracies! Aren’t we forgetting the most diabolical conspiracy of all, namely the membership of the Yale fraternity, Skull and Bones? Both Bush pere and Bush fis are members. So is John Kerry. What further proof is required as to the satanic nature of this cult? End snark.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I’m always open to a good thriller, but I went to the linked Amazon page and saw that the author was Katherine Neville and the name of the main character was…Catherine Velis. To which I must say: Uhhhh…. It could be a great book, but that sort of thing generally bodes poorly.
Speaking of which, the reason Dan Brown is popular is because he makes people feel smarter without intellectually challenging them. For a good time, look up historians and linguists flipping out on their blogs about how much they hate this guy.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:16 am
@GeoffrySmith
“Of course, this stuff is popular with fairly uneducated, who regard history the same way he does, something to be decided upon as opposed to what is already written. Ugh.”
Yes, well-put. Most facts are to be decided upon, and those who claim to have special knowledge of some subset of them (e.g. college professors) are in the indoctrination business anyway, and can be safely ignored. And, that aside, having experts on a set of facts takes away from my American right to decide what is true and isn’t.
Don’t know where this strange anti-realism comes from.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am
The Eight! I LOVE that book. Thought I was the only one who’d ever read it, though.
Not just Freemasons, but also the French Revolution, OPEC, Catherine the Great, and sexy Russian chess Grand Masters. What more could you ask?
May 19th, 2009 at 11:19 am
What’s hilarious about Dan Brown’s conspiracy theories is that he is an alumni of Phillips Exeter Academy.
See http://phillips.exeter.edu/ei/news/news_danbrown.html
Any Andover grad will confirm that they sacrifice small animals there under cover of darkness.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Although Phillips Exeter does admit Jews now. And Muslims.
Even Catholics.
Mostly very wealthy ones, of course.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:25 am
What’s hilarious about Dan Brown’s conspiracy theories is that he is an alumni of Phillips Exeter Academy.
And his father was a math professor and he went to Amherst College. It’s sad how someone of his background managed to produce work that was so profoundly unintellectual.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:30 am
In fact, Dan Brown polished his talent for writing as an English instructor at Phillips Exeter.
However, like the Exeter alumni on Wall Street, he probably giggled at Exeter’s motto: “Non sibi”.
Although that motto does takes on new meaning when you get the tuition bill.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:33 am
A buddy of mine is. Staunch Catholic and he thinks the who “pedophile priest” thing was an attempt to discredit the church. Maybe Douthat thinks the wiccans enticed the priests to rape boys.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I just refuse to recognize Brown’s writing as writing. His popularity is a good sign that God is either dead or a complete asshole.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:37 am
That’s because anti-Islamic paranoia and anti-Semitic paranoia are currently treated as a totally legitimate ethos by the right and left respectively. No need to mask it in fiction when the WaPo will put it on the front page.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:42 am
You have to love that Douthat’s ultimate problem with Dan Brown’s vision of Christ and Christianity is, in essence, that it isn’t true.
Which is almost certainly right, of course. But one could say the exact same thing about an orthodox, Catholic image of Jesus.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Fifty posts into a thread about historical conspiracy fiction, and nobody’s mentioned the Illuminatus! trilogy yet?
May 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
@ Low-Tech
That’s because this is a thread about hack conspiracy theories and the hacks who complain about them. I see no reason to sully Wilson’s good name by bringing him into this.
Hail Eris
May 19th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Tyro – “We can watch “Ghostbusters,” too, without actually believing that some of the apartment towers were built by cultists seeking to summon Sumerian gods.”
That’s also an apples-to-oranges comparison, given that animus toward ancient Sumerians doesn’t have a great deal of political salience in this day and age.
I think one can certainly question the motives of an author who writes popular novels based upon conspiracy theories that have the potential to stir up paranoia against actually existing groups that face real-world discrimination. A 9/11 truther novel featuring a Zionist conspiracy, for example, would be somewhat reckless and irresponsible. Far less so than a similar work that falsely presents itself as non-fiction, of course, but it would still be a pretty scummy thing for an author to do.
But the point Matt raises is a valid one. The Catholics REALLY ARE controlled by a global bureaucracy that has operated partially in secret for 2000 years and has more than a few skeletons in their closet. Merely positing the existence of such an institution for Jews or Muslims would be a conspiracy theory tinged with libelous and defamatory implications. Conspiracy theories involving the Catholic Church, like conspiracy theories involving the CIA, are not prima facie absurd or bigoted.
The Mormons, unlike the Jews, really do have protocols and elders, a shadowy cabal that seeks to influence politics, and plans that could be fairly described as hoarding resources for the apocalypse. Saying so isn’t a sign of bigotry. It ain’t libel if it’s true.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
LaFollette Progressive, given that Dan Brown resorts to a lot of protestant propaganda tropes of the Catholic church, I have to sympathize with Douthat a bit.
The comparison to Godfather III is an apt one. Now, yes, the real reason people should be condemning Coppolla is because Godfather III sucked. But, as compared to Dan Brown, it’s a story about conspiracies within the mafia and the catholic church that isn’t absurd or bigotted, while inventing such conspiracies based on centuries of propaganda cribbed from Reformation-era polemicists and “seeing connections that aren’t there” conspiracies of the sort you saw written in “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” or you find in an Eco send-up of said ideas can take a bigotted turn.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
[...] silence heretics, ruin careers, or ban books. As for Brown’s warmed-over conspiracy theories, I agree with Matthew Yglesias who points out that the Catholic church is custom-made for a good conspiracy-themed fictional yarn. [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“On the other hand, Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons present long-held smears against the Catholic Church as absolute fact, and no one minds.”
- Sounds like Ross Douthat minds. Also, it is presented as ‘absolute fact’ by fictional characters in a conspiracy-thriller novel. Its like saying Michael Crichton presented cloning dinosaurs as ‘absolute fact’ because it was possible for fictional characters to clone dinosaurs.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
you simply couldn’t target Judaism or Islam “this way.”
Feh. Of course you could. The obvious and more politically influential example is right in your post, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Since when did having to “postulate conspirators” ever get in the way of a conspiracy theory?
May 19th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
- Sounds like Ross Douthat minds. Also, it is presented as ‘absolute fact’ by fictional characters in a conspiracy-thriller novel. Its like saying Michael Crichton presented cloning dinosaurs as ‘absolute fact’ because it was possible for fictional characters to clone dinosaurs.
Its like saying Michael Crichton presented a group of cynical environmentalists foisting their climate change theories on the public as ‘absolute fact’ in a novel and did things like testify to Congressional Committees on said science…. oh wait
May 19th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
A little dated, but great book:
http://www.amazon.com/Architects-Fear-George-Johnson/dp/0874772753/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242756101&sr=1-1
May 19th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
“Fifty posts into a thread about historical conspiracy fiction, and nobody’s mentioned the Illuminatus! trilogy yet?”
Ok:
_Foucault’s Pendulum_ is the long OCD version.
_The Eight_ is the snappy lightweight version.
_Illuminatus!_ is the funny version.
All three are highly recommended.
(Neville’s _The Magic Circle_, however, I don’t recommend at all. It almost made Dan Brown look good.)
May 19th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
When in doubt, blame the Masons.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
On the other hand, Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons present long-held smears against the Catholic Church as absolute fact, and no one minds.
Haven’t seen or read any of the Brown works, but isn’t it almost universally comprehended that these books, are, you know, novels? In other words, by definition they’re works of, you know, fiction.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I suspect Brown is just being a huckster. He knows he will sell more books if he allows some people to believe his books are more historical than they are. It’s kind of like how the makers of “The Blair Witch Project” were content to let people believe it was a factual documentary.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
[...] blogging mega-star Halden quoting it approvingly. There are some cheap shots — as Yglesias points out, the claim that no one could advance conspiracy theories about Judaism and Islam and get away with [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Oh, and the other point: what most reputable professors of theology agree upon, when it comes to the history of the New Testament, is about a century of incremental embellishment turns “Jesus lives on in us” into the resurrection story.
That’s nothing – virgin birth started out as a translation error. “Behold, a young woman will conceive and bear a child” isn’t very interesting until you start discussing what the child is going to do, but when you translate the Hebrew word for “young woman” with a Greek word that means *specifically* “virgin”, *then* you’ve got a prophecy people will sit up and take notice of. And it’s going to take some work to convince people that you’ve fulfilled it.
The problem with Dan Brown specifically, though (IMO) is that he’s made several comments that, in fact, what he is writing isn’t fiction, save for the characters. That the theories, history, and conclusions are actually accurate. That, I think, is probably why he gets targeted with sharp criticism.
LaHaye and Jenkins probably believe the same thing, but you don’t see anyone who doesn’t already share their religion taking them seriously. I wonder if Brown is really a nut, or if it’s a clever marketing scheme?
P.S. Douthat belongs to the religion that invented the blood libel, right? Just so we’re clear on exactly how large a beam in his own eye he is ignoring here…
May 19th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
It’s also handy to have a copy of Robert Anton Wilson’s encyclopedia of conspiracy theories on hand.
Praise Bob.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“In fact, Dan Brown polished his talent for writing as an English instructor at Phillips Exeter.”
I think you want “polished” and “writing” in quotation marks there.
As far as the anti-Catholic thing goes: someone above compared Dan Brown to Michael Crichton, as a way of saying “of course it’s just fictional.” Actually, I think it’s apt for the opposite reason: Crichton, too, has long passages in his writing which are obviously meant to be “factual,” and saw his writing as a vehicle for his ideas. He really did believe that Japan was taking over the United States (Rising Sun, that feminism was a fallacy (Sphere), that global warming was a hoax (whichever one that was). If you look at a random passage from The Da Vinci Code, you’ll be forced to conclude that anyone who read it for something other than (mis)information would have to be an utter masochist.
So while I’m no Douthat fan (and his comment about Islam/Judaism is absurd; what about that Jonah Goldberg spy thriller we were all slagging here a month ago?), I think he’s right that Brown’s books are basically anti-Catholic. How he gets from that to his conclusion that Brown is part of the “all religions are OK” trend is a complete mystery to me, though.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Oh, and the other point: what most reputable professors of theology agree upon, when it comes to the history of the New Testament, is about a century of incremental embellishment turns “Jesus lives on in us” into the resurrection story.
True if you define “reputable professors of theology” as only those who agree with you. There’s a lot of that going around, of course, but identifying any theology professor who believes in the resurrection as by definition disreputable is probably not the mainstream position.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
And you are worried, what? That the majority of Americans will stop respecting the Pope? Will push a little harder to investigate priest sexual misconduct? Will care rather less about the church’s opinions regarding homosexuality, abortion, and contraception?
How exactly would it be a bad thing if the bulk of America became a little less enthused about the catholic church?
(And it’s not just catholics. The time is right for a good Mountain Meadows movie pointing out such interesting FACTs as
- the greatest massacre of western pioneers was done by white men, not native Americans
- white men who pinned the blame on native Americans
- with the assent of the Mormon church, who has been busily covering the whole episode up ever since then, most recently with the disgusting behavior of the Utah governor in 1999.)
May 19th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
So, Maynard, you’re saying that slanders against an organization one doesn’t like are okay, if that takes the organization down a peg?
May 19th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Accounting improprieties?
“I’ve got a worse word for it sir, “missappropriation!”
- Weyland Smithers
May 19th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
If it’s an organization that I feel deserves ZERO respect, then, yeah, I have no problem with anything that reduces respect for them. (And before you get on your high horse, I’m an equal opportunity hater — I think all religions are bogus, and am happy with any popular culture that mocks them, points out their inadequacies and lies, etc etc.)
Is it, or is not a fact that, for example, the catholic church was aggressively against democracy in the 19th century? When they lost that battle, is it, or is it not a fact that they were aggressively against women voting?
Sure, I’d rather see Dan Brown attack them on substantive issues, rather than bullshit like whether or not Jesus had sex, but I’ll take what I can get.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
hmm… maybe we should start attacking other hierarchical churches, like Scientology or the Mormons…
May 19th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
What about Ludlum- could I have Jesus, and the Gemini Contenders? Conan Doyle and Joseph Smith and Jesus? Or would it just be easier to have The New York Times and skip Ross D.? And why doesn’t The NYT have a three strikes rule?
May 19th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
If it’s an organization that I feel deserves ZERO respect, then, yeah, I have no problem with anything that reduces respect for them.
Interestingly, this is the same attitude Republicans take towards the Democrats– lying is ok if it’s “for the cause.”
May 19th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
“I think all religions are bogus, and am happy with any popular culture that mocks them, points out their inadequacies and lies, etc etc.)”
As a fellow atheist, I have to be a little embarrassed that you don’t see the irony in pointing out the lies of religion through texts that are themselves lies. Secularists are supposed to be the rational ones, but it often doesn’t work out that way—we’re just another tribe like all the others, with all the short-sighted clannishness that implies.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I find it ironic that Douthat finds Angels & Demons anti-Catholic. Maybe he hasn’t read it?
****SPOILERS BELOW****
The whole “twist” at the end of the novel was that a lone nut was responsible for fabricating the Illuminati involvement. It’s not a renouncement of the Catholic church. It merely puts forward the idea that science and faith can coexist (which the villain decries). Maybe I’m missing something here, but I thought Douthat agreed with that interdependence of faith and science.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I’ve only read one conspiracy book that I really found good, but it was extraordinarily good: Foucault’s Pendulum. I wonder how “The Eight” compares.
Maybe because I read it by the tender age of 19, Pendulum really got under my skin. And until today I’m amazed by the sheer breadth of knowledge necessary to write the book.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
The Catholic Church has a centralized bureaucracy and an institutional continuity lasting over a thousand years. That’s good fodder for conspiracy theories. Other religions aren’t organized this way.
Stefan: The Methodists are, but they don’t want you or anyone else to know it.
I KNEW it!!!!!
May 19th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Dan Brown and his conspiracy theories are meant to distract the public from the truth. Opus Dei controls the modern Church and is actively engaged in global politics. They must be stop.
Sincerely,
Societas Iesu
May 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
That would be strange, IF it were fictional.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Opus Dei controls the modern Church and is actively engaged in global politics. They must be stop.
Wrong. I love all my religious orders and societies equally.
Signed,
God, SJ
May 20th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Sometimes folk beliefs reflect real anxieties and abuses that cannot easily be talked about. It may be that the Spanish State was really responsible for the horrors of the inquisition, but clerics carried it out.
In 1905, Norman Douglas described the South Italian aversion to abortion.
Or Ireland:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8059826.stm
May 20th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Feeding the black legend:
May 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Though this is a dead thread, just wanted to add — best anti-Catholic novel IMO: Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin (1820). It’s a novel that manages to be very suspenseful without much plot or incident. Also a receding mirror effect of narrations within narrations. Describes an underground city of Jewish refugees from the Inquisition in Madrid, among other delights.
Charlotte Bronte’s Vilette is very good too for indignant anti-Catholic horror. My guidebook to Belgium recommended it as indispensable for understanding the historical background and national character of Belgium. (There was always the Nun’s Story, speaking of Belgian Catholicism. A scandalous best-seller in its day and also a film starring Audrey Hepburn).