SOS on the DVC

From the New Yorker:

Joan Acocella traces the growth of the Mary Magdalene myth—neither the Bible nor current Catholic doctrine identify her as a prostitute. According to gnostic texts discovered last century, she was Jesus’ chief disciple. The fallen Magdalene we know may be a result of successful doctrinal warfare waged by the Orthodox Church against competing Christian sects.

HT Slate

Huh? That, I must admit, is the dumbest thing I’ve read in a while. Can someone, perhaps having read the article, enlighten me?

Here’s DV on the DVC …

The main purpose of this anti-Christian sub-plot in [The Da Vinci Code] is twofold … [Dan Brown] wants to make the case for a revival of paganism, which embraces the “sacred feminine” and is superior to Christianity, seen as male-dominated and hierarchical.

Now the “sacred feminine” is not unfamiliar to Episcopalians, many of whose ultra-feminist priests have also embraced it as part of the ECUSA new religion. The New Age movement has been incorporated into the Episcopal Church. “This is a call from the Mother Earth and the Sacred Feminine to bring the feminine principle into consciousness and create a critical mass, a tipping point–the metaphoric millionth circle,” wrote one Episcopal feminist. Other New Age supporters the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, formerly the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and now President of the Temple of Understanding. While at St. John the Divine, Morton said, “The language of the ‘Sacred Earth’ has got to become mainline.” Morton acted on this belief by holding a St. Francis Day communion service in 1993 that invoked the gods Yemanja, Ra, Ausar, and Obatala; the celebrant was Episcopal Bishop of New York Richard Grein.

The tragedy of books like The Da Vinci Code is not so much their error as their persuasiveness. Men and women are being lured into believing a lie, the ancient Gnostic lie which h the early church fought so tenaciously to suppress. Brown is offering men and women a spirituality that does not work. He is proffering sex and “the Force” instead of relationship with a transcendent Lord. People are being sold a lie that will never provide the satisfaction for which they hunger and thirst.

More.