Is That the Best Dan Brown Could Do?
Brad Kirkegard, a Ph. D. candidate in religious studies, has a very enlightening review of The Da Vinci Code in the Journal of Luthern Ethics. Readers can check out the whole thing if they’re interested–and it is probably one of most balanced and informative short pieces on Da Vinci that I have run across. I bring it up here because of Kirkegard’s comments about the novel’s treatment of “sacred feminine.” For those three or four people who haven’t heard, one of the key themes of Dan Brown’s novel is that early Christianity held a very high view of femininity, but the institutionalized church ultimately squashed this “sacred feminine” and replaced it with a thoroughgoing patriarchalism.
In that light, Kirkegard notes that Dan Brown actually does a very poor job of elevating the standing of women. He writes,
What I find to be the greatest irony of all in this novel is its repeated statements of trying to reclaim the sacred feminine in Christianity. This would indeed be a noble, if challenging goal, and one that has engaged many theologians and historians. What is ironic though, is that the novel does not in fact elevate women, even as far as the problematic tradition of early Christianity. Consider for instance the character of Sophie Neveau. She is supposed to be a cryptographer and member of the French police force, as well as Jesus’ remarkable blood descendant. From this assessment one might rightly assume that she would be the great hero of the story. Instead she is presented as weak and powerless needing constant protection and education by the men around her.
More than that, Sophie’s ignorance of history, art, religion, etc. is repeatedly used as a plot device to give the male protagonists a chance to enlighten her about all of the contrived conspiracy theories that establish the novel’s premise. She is a police cryptographer, but she is “remarkably inept,” Kirkegard observes, “at solving any of the riddles they encounter.” No doubt she has had at least minimal police training in self defense, and yet she needs protection–from a Harvard symbology professor!–from those who seek her physical harm.
Brown also fails even to accord Mary Magdalene the same honor she received in the heretical Gospels to which he refers. In his extended treatment of the Gospel of Mary, he reads right past Mary’s depiction as someone with superior knowledge because of her closeness to Jesus (a docetic, otherworldly one, by the way, and not a mere human). No, what was most important about Mary Magdalene was … she was married to Jesus and bore his child! Kirkegard concludes,
This should be eerily familiar. Taking a specific textual tradition that celebrates Mary’s importance for her mind and perception, he has made her and women once more important only as objects and vessels to be saved by sexuality and particularly by child birth.
I’m a bit mystified by those who have latched onto The Da Vinci Code because they are feminist or egalitarian Christians looking for handles to restore a feminine voice within the church. Quite beyond the questions of orthodoxy and heresy, and even overlooking the historiographical howlers on virtually every page, if we want to give women a rightful place in the church and society, is this the best we can do?
