Novels raise theological questions

To the editor:

The Southeast Missourian has printed several stories about churches that are scrutinizing Dan Brown's sensational novel "The Da Vinci Code" with intentions of defending Christian orthodoxy. The process could lead congregations into a fruitful discussion of the role noncanonical gospels played in the formation of early Christian thought. One premise of Brown's book -- that Jesus shared a marital relationship with Mary Magdalene -- is inferred in the Gospel of Philip, a second-century gnostic gospel recovered near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi in 1945. We can't help but wonder what Dan Brown could do with the recently recovered Gospel of Judas.

While churches are calling into question the provocative claims of best-selling authors, it would also be helpful to examine the veracity of the so-called "Left Behind" series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The plots of these page-turners are rooted in a theological hybrid known as dispensationalism -- or Darbyism, after John Nelson Darby. Darby was a 19th-century British evangelical preacher who cobbled together apocalyptic passages from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures to form the end-times scenarios that are promulgated by several religious television networks and passing for orthodoxy today.

JOHN RICE, Jackson