Have you noticed that Dan Brown has attracted a hoard of imitators in the wake of the runaway success of the DaVinci Code? The Omega Scroll is the latest I’ve come across but for a comprehensive list of anti-church conspiracy thriller novels why not check out the Speculative Catholic. I particularly liked his last one:
The Fifth Gospel: by David Alexander. “The Catholic Church has kept the immortal Risen Christ prisoner in a dungeon beneath the Vatican for 2,000 years. This last is a masterpiece of anti-Catholicism, so over the top that I’m still not certain that it isn’t a satire of the genre.”
In my darker moments Ive pondered whether I should circulate a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theorists, starting with Holy Blood Holy Grail authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln . I’ve always held back though because not enough people recognize satire when they see it. Anyway The Fifth Gospel gets my mind ticking. That reminds me, I must finish reading Foucault’s Pendulum some day.
Curious Christian 
“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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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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Heh … as far as conspiracy theories about conspiracy theories, how about Foucault’s Pendulum?
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