Why should Christians be thanking God for Dan Brown as opposed to Patrick White? Greg Clarke explains

Never have I longed for the Second Coming more than when I first read The Da Vinci Code. "Oh, Lord, come quickly," I found myself thinking as I barged into Dan Brown’s cardboard characters, impossible storyline and outlandish fabrications of history. But two years later, I’m still writing and thinking about it—sometimes fluff sticks.

In fact, Brown’s novel will have provided me with over 60 speaking gigs by the end of June. I didn’t expect to expend so much of the last two years of my life gasbagging about a second-rate airport thriller, but in retrospect it has been an honour to do so.

I’ve challenged drunk businessmen in Bondy’s old yacht club in Perth. I’ve lectured detectives from the Parramatta Fraud Squad on how Brown uses historical evidence. I’ve spread the good news in Townsville Civic Theatre that Brown’s version of Christianity is about the most speculative one you could come up with.

As a Christian academic, I couldn’t be happier. To my ongoing amazement, people are actually listening to what I’ve got to say. It just took some schlock pop kultcha to make it possible.

And it’s been great fun. Furthermore, I suspect it has done a great deal of spiritual good for Australian society at large to have such a book in so many people’s hands (it’s almost farcical to sit in airport lounges and see how many people are reading it).

When I was writing my doctorate on Patrick White, I was thrilled to discover the impact he had on Australian readers over fifty or so years, some of whom were moved to think about religion as never before.

In fact, White did something similar to Brown—he opposed organised religion with its foibles and follies (he famously argued with a Castle Hill Anglican minister over his disallowance of a guessing game at a church fete). White provided an alternative way to think about religion, drawing on Gnosticism and mysticism in ways which Dan Brown could only dream of pulling off.

White gave Australians a spiritual language outside of the mainstream of denominational discussion and church commitment. His genius was in examining earthy, visceral faith in all of its personal complexity and confusion, and recognising that God doesn’t always (or even often) stick to the rules. "That is God," claims Stan Parker in The Tree of Man, as he spits on the path in front of an over-zealous evangelist.

White’s novel, Riders in the Chariot, has never been equalled in Australian literature as an exploration of the variety of religious experiences among Australians. His prose may be dense, even opaque at times, but he championed an idea that was not so popular at the time—life means little without pursuing (and being pursued by) the Divine.

David Marr’s generally superb biography of White lacks a little sympathy in this area of religion. White’s vicious criticisms of various religious figures are noted, but less so his envious observations of the comforts that religious belief brings. It seems to me that White was jealous of the evangelicals whose simple faith drew them to the Billy Graham crusades in incredible numbers. White’s ‘purest’ characters—Ruth Godbold from Riders, for instance—have a straightforward pietism that White presents without critique.

Where White wrote complex literature but admired simple belief, Brown writes Creative Writing 101 abominations and suggests that religion is a strange, secret, code-like mystery.

But it is Dan Brown, not Patrick White, who has returned discussion of Christian history and ancient religion to the popular conversation. It is mainstream now to know about the christological discussions at the Council of Nicea, the dating of the Gnostic Gospels, and what the Bible says about Mary Magdalene. And Dan Brown is responsible for a reinvigoration of the Christian church’s efforts to communicate with today’s culture; witness the flourishing of websites, books and lecture tours discussing and debunking The Da Vinci Code‘s claims.

One is even tempted to describe the novel as sent from heaven, whereas poor old Patrick looks like lying dormant on the shelves of university Australian studies centres until a blockbuster film starring Tom Hanks as Stan Parker gets pitched to the Hollywood executives.

To the sorrow of my literary soul, but the pleasure of my religious heart, Brown is indirectly letting in more light to more people than White ever will.