Sunday Night Journal 5/21/2006

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Sunday Night Journal 5/21/2006

May 22, 2006 by Daniel Nichols

The Da Vinci Code and the Concept of Fact

A concept with which an increasing number of people seem to be having difficulties.

–Maclin Horton

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Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

4 Responses

on May 22, 2006 at 3:12 pm | Reply Francesca

There was a good article in the Village Voice a few years ago (I must have read it on the web somewhere, but don’t remember where) about how it’s fruitless to present the evidential or factual case to a DaVinci believer, because they have reached the stage where they don’t care about the distinction between fact and fiction.

Within academic theology, Christians may have begun to be susceptible to the line that Christianity was derailed from the start with the early feminist writers of the 1970s such as Schlusser-Fiorenza and Rosemary Radford Ruether. They argue that a patriarchal cabal derailed the feminine church around Mary Magdalene. These contentions are not taken seriously by any academic theologians I know today – and I can’t even present them to a class of first year undergraduates without them all hooting with laugher, although admittedly it’s me doing the presenting. I don’t know of any theologians today, however much they incline to feminism, who BASE their contentions on 1970s feminist historiography of the early Church. But with the Da Vinci thing so much in the news, I cast my mind back, and this is where the curious tale of an early derailment seems to have begun.
on May 22, 2006 at 7:55 pm | Reply Maclin Horton

In the Village Voice?! Strange where you find common sense and even intellectual integrity sometimes. But then Nat Hentoff still publishes there, I think.

I decided ten or twelve years ago that in fairness I ought to read one of R.R. Reuther’s books. I think it was the one that has “God-Talk” in the title. I was astonished at how little it had to do with Christianity, and at how little attempt she made to pretend that it did. I think the really fatal step was in the habit of mind that began thinking of doctrine as simply a form of literature expressing the doctrine-maker’s personal opinions. I’m happy to hear she’s no longer taken seriously.
on May 30, 2006 at 12:37 am | Reply Anne-Marie

“There is my truth, and your truth, and even though they may contradict each other mine is still true for me, and yours for you. Few people will defend this idea if it’s stated as plainly as I just did…”

But it does happen. I had a long discussion late one night in college that ended with my interlocutor, a pious Catholic, denying point blank that if I say God exists and she says he doesn’t, one of us must be wrong.
on May 30, 2006 at 10:30 am | Reply Maclin Horton

Wow. Let me make sure I understand you. A “pious Catholic” says that “God exists” and “God does not exist” can both be true? If so, next question is how do you define “pious”?

I confess there was a time in my life when I would have said something along these lines. But I didn’t call myself a Christian.