The Truth behind the DaVinci Code with Martyn Percy and Ian Markham

Seminary Events & Happenings

Christianity and Feminism

Dan Brown on his website says: ‘Two thousand years ago, we lived in a world of Gods and Goddesses. Today, we live in a world solely of Gods. Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power. The novel touches on questions of how and why this shift occurred…and on what lessons we might learn from it regarding our future.’ (See http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html)

Undoubtedly one of the reasons for the book’s success is the challenge to the patriarchy within the Christian tradition. It is true that Christian theology has at its most benign treated women as invisible; and at its most wicked, it has provided a justification for cruelty. Even though women comprise slightly over half of the human race they do not often appear in our scriptures and tradition. The main characters in the Christian drama are male kings, male prophets, a male savior, and male apostles. With a few exceptions (e.g. Deborah and Ruth), women have walk-on parts as mothers or sisters. Men, many of whom were celibate, developed the subsequent tradition; and almost all were persuaded of the inferiority of women.

It is also true that the historical Jesus would have been appalled with the patriarchy that emerged in the tradition. This is the Jesus who was willing to teach women and had women disciples. The famous sentiments of Galatians 3:28 (There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; for you are all one person in Christ Jesus) accurately captures the teaching of Jesus.

So the novel’s claim that liberating message of Jesus for women was turned into patriarchal enslavement is justified. However, the novel does go further. Langdon tells Sophie: ‘When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the lost Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine.’ Two ideas are woven together at this point: first, is there a pre-Christian past which is much more friendly to women? And second, were the stories about the Grail really stories about the lost ‘sacred feminine’? Indeed what is the sacred feminine?

A key source for the ‘sacred feminine’ is the work of Margaret Starbird. Starbird believes that it is important to recognize both the masculine and the feminine in the divine. She explains:

‘In ancient cultures, this fundamental reality was honored in cults that celebrated the mutuality and “symbiosis” of the masculine and feminine as intimate partners. Examples are Tammuz/Ishtar, Ba’al/Astarte, Adonis/Venus, Osiris/Isis. In these cultures, the joy from their bridal chambers spread out into the crops and herds, and into the people of their realm. Similar rites were acknowledged in various liturgies throughout the Near East.’ (See ‘An Interview with Margaret Starbird in Dan Burstein (ed.) Secrets of the Code p.63)

Another advocate for the significance of the goddess in pre-Christian history is Riane Eisler. She writes, ‘There is abundant evidence that spirituality, and particularly the spiritual vision characteristic of wise seers, was once associated with women. From Mesopotamian archaeological records we learn that Ishtar of Babylon . . . was still known as the Lady of Vision, She Who Directs Oracles, and the Prophetess.’ (As quoted in Burstein p.82)

It is clear that in pre-Christian societies god and goddess images were widespread. The main reason why they ceased to be so significant was the emergence of monotheism. This was developed most clearly in the teaching of the 8th century BCE Jewish prophets. Once we had a One, then the world tended to lapse into the temptation of giving it one gender and that tended to reflect the more powerful gender.

Elaine Pagels, the very distinguished scholar on Gnosticism, has claimed that part of the significance of the Gnostics is that they challenged this patriarchal trend. She draws attention to the fact that some Gnostic groups prayed to ‘both the divine Father and Mother.’ (Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels). Some of these Gnostic groups identify ‘the divine Mother as part of an original couple’. There is some evidence that Gnostic groups recognized an important teaching role for women.

However, perhaps because of the sheer unrelenting power of patriarchy, we find that both goddesses and Gnosticism did combine with patriarchy. The last saying in the Gospel of Thomas reads:

114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven." (see http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html)

Modern day Hinduism, which has many goddesses, also has patriarchal strands. The Laws of Manu, for example, forbid a woman ever to be independent; as a daughter she must depend on her father, as a wife on her husband, and as a widow on her sons.

Standing back
Brown’s generalization at the start of this article is largely true. With the emergence of monotheism, a sense of diversity in the transcendent disappeared. It is also true that many feminists suspect that in the West the lack of recognition of the feminine at the heart of the divine supported patriarchy.

Officially Christian theology never thought of God as male. God is spirit, who is beyond gender. God exists quite unlike anything else that exists. But it is also true that feminine images (God as Mother, God as Wisdom – which in Proverbs is described as female) disappeared behind the more patriarchal images and roles (e.g. Father or Lord or King or Judge).

Ian Markham

Ian Markham is Dean of Hartford Seminary and Professor of
Theology and Ethics. He has spoken extensively on “The Da Vinci Code” and conspiracy theory.

back to DeCoding The DaVinci Code

Hartford Seminary 77 Sherman Street Hartford, CT 06105 860-509-9500 info@hartsem.edu