What Dan Brown Teaches us About the Religious State of America
Russ Douthat's column in the NYT makes some insightful observations about Dan Brown, his novels, and what their success tells us about the state of religion in the US. Douthat hits the nail on the head here...and the rest is worth the read as well.
In the Brownian worldview, all religions — even Roman Catholicism — have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. It’s a message perfectly tailored for 21st-century America, where the most important religious trend is neither swelling unbelief nor rising fundamentalism, but the emergence of a generalized “religiousness” detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.
We once said God was truth. Then we said all gods were truth. Now we're saying nothing is true. And I'm not trying to be one of those dumpy abysmal backward-looking Christians longing for the days of unchallenged Christendom. I'm really interested in what the Church looks like and how we talk about Jesus in this context.
Comments
Interesting column. While I agree with Douthat that the pendulum of public thinking, at least in the U.S., is swinging away from the religious right to the more centrist belief in religious tolerance upon which our country was founded, his assertion that Dan Brown is writing his books to advance some kind of personal agenda with respect to his beliefs is way off-base. Brown wrote some other books before hitting upon the Robert Langdon character that were far afield from religion. His novel Digital Fortress is a thriller dealing with civil rights and privacy issues. His first novel, Deception Point, sounds like a run-of-the-mill government conspiracy thriller. His wife considers herself an art historian, who does much of the research for Brown's books. From the full breadth of analyses on the accuracy of Brown's books, I think she's guilty of making an occaisonal error in her research and Dan Brown does what all good novelists do, he seamlessly weaves fact and fiction to create a good story.
I really enjoy the art and achitecture history woven into Brown's Robert Langdon stories (another one is finished and many more in the pipeline), even knowing Mrs. Brown might be getting a few of the facts wrong. I certainly wouldn't be reading art history books otherwise, so I'm better off in terms of art appreciation for having read these books - plus I've been thoroughly entertained in the bargain. Being left wondering what portions of the plot might be grounded in fact is not a bad thing - it prompts curiosity to learn more.
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