Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Conspiracies Gone Wild: When Thrillers Go Over the Top

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Matt Stone

2005-09-24

Have you noticed that Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has spawned an army of imitators, all peddling their own versions of anti-church conspiracy thrillers? The latest one I stumbled upon is The Omega Scroll, but the real standout in this genre has to be The Fifth Gospel by David Alexander.

In this one, the Catholic Church has supposedly kept the immortal, risen Christ locked in a dungeon beneath the Vatican for 2,000 years. Seriously. It’s so over-the-top, it almost feels like a satire of anti-Catholic thrillers, but I’m still not entirely sure it isn’t meant to be taken seriously. It’s a masterpiece of absurdity.

In my more cynical moments, I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theorists themselves. I could kick it off with Holy Blood, Holy Grail authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. But I’ve always held back—too many people struggle to recognize satire these days. Still, The Fifth Gospel definitely got my wheels turning again.

That reminds me, I really need to finish reading Foucault’s Pendulum one of these days. Now that’s a book that knows how to have fun with conspiracies.

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3 responses to “Conspiracies Gone Wild: When Thrillers Go Over the Top”

Fernando Gros

2005-09-23

“In my darker moments Ive pondered whether I should circulate a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theorists.”
I like it and imagine you could easily do it through a website. However, it is correct that people don’t always ‘get’ satire. I’ve known ministers who thought landoverbaptist.org was a real church.

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Matt Stone

2005-09-23

Yes exactly. You may have heard of an amusing but sad incident that occured a few years ago when Landover Baptist ran a news article claiming witches had sneaked into their church and sacrificed a blood splattered goat on their communion table as part of a dark ritual.
It seemed trasparently satirical to me but provoked howls of outrage from Christian fundamentalists who failed to see they were actually the butt of this joke. And it provoked equal howls of outrage from Wiccan fundamentalists who likewise mistook it for a real site and failed to discern that the real target was not them. Lots of lively misinformed debate ensued online for weeks after. There were a few savy Christians and Wiccans saying “pull your head in” to their respective constituencies but they were largely drowned out by the wailing banshees.
Yet to be fair I suppose it gets confusing for people when truth is sometimes more ‘unreal’ than the fiction. There are some genuine Christian sites out there that are so bad they make the satyrical ones look tame and plausible. Yet you’d think that after being conned a few times people would learn to test sources wouldn’t you?

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Steve

2005-09-24

Heh … as far as conspiracy theories about conspiracy theories, how about Foucault’s Pendulum?

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