Dan Brown's debt to Protestantism

[Glen Chancy]

Christ is Risen!

A lot of authors have been debunking the Da Vinci Code. As bad as both the history and Theology are in it, that is somewhat akin to shooting fish in a barrell. In an article, I took a different track and instead examined why I think that Dan Brown's basic premises are attracting such sympathetic reasonance in the United States and the Western World.

In an article called Dan Brown's Debt to Protestantism I postulate that it might just be the similarity of Dan Brown's thought to radical Protestant dogma that is, at least partially, behind this. The article can be found on the Central Florida Orthodox Christian Forum at the following URL: http://www.ststephenoca.com/phpBB/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=73

Please feel free to give me feedback at either this forum or the other one!

Thanks,

Glen Chancy
Webmaster, Orthodox Church of St. Stephen

[Herman Blaydoe]

Overall an interesting article, cogent and lucid. The only possible editorial question I have is that I did not see any references for where the quotes are from, like footnotes. I probably missed it. Please excuse if that is the case.

[Glen Chancy]

Hello Herman!

No, you didn't miss the citations. I uploaded a version of the article as a Word file and attached it to the post. The Word file contains Hyperlink tags so that you could visit the source documents used in the preparation of the article. I am hoping the article will be published at an appropriate Orthodox Website, and then will appear as HTML with the reference tags embedded so that it will be easy for the source docs to be viewed.

I should have posted end notes in the forum version, but alas, I simply lacked the time. Feel free to check out the Word version attached to the post if you'd like to see the original docs.

Thanks!

[Ian Leyda]

Well, as the new guy and token Presbyterian.....

I found this article to be mostly uninformed about Evangelical Protestantism and largely a collection of generalizations. I am not an Evangelical Protestant, as that category is known. But this article is quite false. If I have time later, I perhaps will make a better case for it.

It is true that Evangelicals exercise quite a bit of freedom in their liturgy and style of worship (especially compared to the Orthodox traditions). But you would be hard pressed to find an Evangelical church that is not Trinitarian and celebrate the the Lord's Supper. Those that deviate from this are by far in the minority.

I was quite surprised that someone would link Dan Brown and Evangelicals. It is really off the wall if you know what it means to be Evangelical. Most Evangelicals were outraged with Brown's portrayal of Jesus and its implications about his divinity, etc.

I would argue that Brown's approach attracts mostly those generally disenfranchised with the Catholic/Orthodox church, those who have had a negative experience, and those who tend toward skepticism. While I can understand why one would see similarities of these tendecies within the Reformed traditions, I think it is unfounded.

Very few Protestants were impressed with Dan Brown aside from his storytelling. And very few thought his account was at all historical.

Peace,

Ian

[M.C. Steenberg]

I think it is probably off the mark to speak of Dan Brown's book being overly-informed by any specific Christian tradition at all. It's largely a collection and modernisation of various popular mythologies of divine lineages, secret societies, etc. Apart from the characters and specific action plot (which in many ways is creative and well-written), there is really nothing new in the book vis-a-vis mythologies of such things.

I suppose it is apparent to some (and certainly was to me) that he is influenced by Protestantism inasmuch as he is almost viruently anti-Roman Catholic in his reading of ecclesiastical history, hierarchy, etc., and there are certainly some evident strains of classical Protestant responses to these things in the most general terms in his book.

But as to specific theological background, it does seem a stretch.

INXC, Matthew

[Ian Leyda]

I think it is probably off the mark to speak of Dan Brown's book being overly-informed by any specific Christian tradition at all. It's largely a collection and modernisation of various popular mythologies of divine lineages, secret societies, etc.

I suppose it is apparent to some (and certainly was to me) that he is influenced by Protestantism inasmuch as he is almost viruently anti-Roman Catholic in his reading of ecclesiastical history, hierarchy, etc., and there are certainly some evident strains of classical Protestant responses to these things in the most general terms in his book.

But as to specific theological background, it does seem a stretch.

INXC, Matthew

As a Presbyterian, I will not deny the unfortunate anti-Roman Catholicism in my tradition. In fact, it grieves me deeply.

While the anti-Roman Catholic sentiment in Brown's novel is evident, I do not think that its origin is necessarily driven by Protestantism. I think instead that the primary "bearers of the torch" against Catholic/Orthodox traditions now are driven by modern secularism.

If I understand you correctly, Matthew, you make a similar move here but not quite so far as I wish to make.?

Secularism and Protestantism, though, at times resemble one another because they both are "children of Enlightenment thought." These two are similar because both have elevated reason as a primary curator of knowledge and in a sense taken a more critical view of knowledge as handed down through tradition. I think Karl Barth sought to correct this in the early 20th century.

But I do think Brown is far more secular than Protestant. It is just that some of his methods and arguments "smell like" Protestant ones. And of course, they stink.

Peace,

Ian

[Glen Chancy]

Well, as the new guy and token Presbyterian.....

I found this article to be mostly uninformed about Evangelical Protestantism and largely a collection of generalizations. I am not an Evangelical Protestant, as that category is known. But this article is quite false. If I have time later, I perhaps will make a better case for it.

It is true that Evangelicals exercise quite a bit of freedom in their liturgy and style of worship (especially compared to the Orthodox traditions). But you would be hard pressed to find an Evangelical church that is not Trinitarian and celebrate the the Lord's Supper. Those that deviate from this are by far in the minority.

I was quite surprised that someone would link Dan Brown and Evangelicals. It is really off the wall if you know what it means to be Evangelical. Most Evangelicals were outraged with Brown's portrayal of Jesus and its implications about his divinity, etc.

I would argue that Brown's approach attracts mostly those generally disenfranchised with the Catholic/Orthodox church, those who have had a negative experience, and those who tend toward skepticism. While I can understand why one would see similarities of these tendecies within the Reformed traditions, I think it is unfounded.

Very few Protestants were impressed with Dan Brown aside from his storytelling. And very few thought his account was at all historical.

Peace,

Ian


This article wasn't about Dan Brown being influenced by Evangelicals. The article was about how the influence of certain Evangelical beliefs (such as the 'Apostate Church' idea) contributed to an environment in which Brown's silly ideas were taken seriously. It isn't about Dan Brown getting his ideas from Evangelical preachers, it is exactly about the similarity of his ideas about the suppression of the truth by the 'official' church creating plausibility for his nutty ideas.