Novel Sermons - The Gospel in Literature and Life
3.
“Science & Religion - Questions & Answers”
Angels & Demons by
Dan Brown
Hebrews 11:1-16
First Presbyterian Church
The Reverend Donald Ray
July 12, 2009
Return to the Sermons and Articles Page
Robert
Langdon awoke with a start from his nightmare. The
phone beside his bed was ringing. Dazed,
he picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“I’m
looking for Robert Langdon,” a man’s voice said.
Langdon
sat up in his empty bed and tried to clear his mind. “This…is
Robert Langdon.” He squinted at
his digital clock. It was 5:18 AM.
“I
must see you immediately.”
“Who
is this?”
“My
name is Maxmillian Kohler. I’m a
discreet particle physicist.”
“A
what?” Landon could barely focus. “Are
you sure you’ve got the right Langdon?”
“You’re
a professor of iconology at
“Do
you know what time it is?”
“I
apologize. I have something you need
to see…If you leave immediately, you can be here by –“
“I’m
not going anywhere! It’s five
o’clock in the morning!” Langdon
hung up and collapsed back in bed. He
closed his eyes and tried to fall back asleep. It
was no use. Reluctantly, he put on
his robe and went downstairs….
The
silence of his home was shattered again, this time by the ring of his fax
machine….The incoming fax lay in the tray.
Sighing, he scooped up the paper and looked at it.
Instantly
a wave of nausea hit him.
The
image on the page was that of a human corpse….The man had been branded . . .
imprinted with a single word. It was
a word Langdon knew well. Very well.
He stared at the ornate lettering in
disbelief.
Illuminati
“Illuminati,”
he stammered, his heart pounding. It
can’t be . . . (1)
Thus begins 569 pages of intrigue, dizzying paced
adventure, mystery . . . and Gospel in Dan Brown’s Angels
& Demons. Unlike my not
having read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick,
I had read Dan Brown before. Remembering
there was much thought provoking material, with pen and pad in hand to note page
numbers and ideas, I picked up Brown’s novel again.
Unlike the often laborious, detailed account of the
Pequod’s three year voyage in Moby Dick,
136 chapters cover a time span of about 13 hours in Angels & Demons. Langdon
is whisked by super-super sonic transport to CERN, a nuclear research lab in
Robert Langdon is the principle character of the
novel because of his expertise in symbology. The
illuminati pursuing enlightenment were forced underground by the church that saw
them as threatening to supplant belief in God with science. The
scientist, Galileo, was an Illuminatus and a devout catholic. He
had tried to soften the church’s position on science by proclaiming that
science didn’t undermine the existence of God, but rather reinforced it. He
wrote once that when he looked through his telescope at the spinning planets, he
could hear God’s voice in the music of the spheres. He
held that science and religion were not enemies, but rather allies -- two
different languages telling the same story, a story of symmetry and balance . .
. heaven and hell, night and day, hot and cold, God and Satan. Both
science and religion and religion rejoiced in God’s symmetry . . . the endless
contest of light and dark. (2)
But the Church wouldn’t buy it, so Galileo, the
artist Bernini and other Illuminati were forced underground and resorted to
symbols to mark the path of enlightenment in the very heart of
Speaking of symbolism, Greg Kellogg’s bulletin
cover is filled with them. My title
for this sermon is also in symbols. A
hint - it’s not the use of the ampersand for the word “and.”
This novel is about things not being what they are
popularly accepted to be. Langdon’s
symbology reads the road signs in pursuit of the Hassassin on his rampage of
murder and destruction following the path of the Illuminati. But
the point of it all is that things are not always what they appear to be or what
popular belief would make them to be.
When
The artist Bernini was commissioned by the Church
to create and adorn its chapels and cathedrals. The
angels he sculpted, symbols of religion, in reality pointed the path to
enlightenment. Bernini was a brother
in the Illuminati. His designs
reflected the ancient elements of science - earth, air, fire, and water.
In St. Peter’s square, Bernini created a marble
relief,
The fourth mark on the path, water, was the Fountain
of the Four Rivers. It was here
Langdon needed the sign that would point to the lair of the Illuminati. The
clue they had followed thus far was; “Let angels guide you on your lofty
quest.” But The
Fountain of the Four Rivers was a pagan work. The
carvings were all profane - humans, animals, even an awkward armadillo. No
angels. Atop the core of the
fountain, an obelisk climbed another forty feet. A
shadow atop the obelisk, Langdon thought at first was a pigeon resting. Searching
for the final Illuminati sign, Langdon looked up again and realized that what he
thought a pigeon was actually a bronze dove. The
lone dove is the pagan symbol for the Angel of Peace. The
Angel of Peace pointed the way to the Illuminati lair, right in the heart of
It’s the nature of mystery novel authors to
insert tidbits that leave the reader wondering why printer’s ink was wasted on
such seemingly insignificant detail. Then
later, the plot turns on those once seemingly trivial little gems. The
discipline of delving into a novel for sermon fodder provides a manner of
reading, be it a novel or scripture, that keeps one from just rushing through to
find out how it ends. Such an alert
reading around the plot reveals the bent of the author.
Maximilian Kohler, director general of CERN,
Conseil Europe’en pour la Recherche Nucle’aire says “The
men and women of CERN are here to find answers to the same questions man has
been asking since the beginning of time, Where do we come from? What are we made
of?”
“And
these answers are in a physics lab?” Langdon asked.
“You
sound surprised.”
“I
am. The questions seem spiritual.”
“Mr.
Langdon, all questions were once spiritual. Since
the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in
the gaps that science did not understand. The
rising and setting of the sun were once attributed to Helios and a flaming
chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves
were the wrath of Poseidon. Science
has now proven those gods to be false idols. Soon
all Gods will be false idols. Science
has now provided answers to almost every question man can ask. There
are only a few questions left, and they are esoteric ones. Where
do we come from? What are we doing
here? What is the meaning of life
and the universe?”
Langdon
was amazed. “And these are questions CERN is trying to answer?”
With
personal reason for a vendetta against religion Kohler says: “Correction. These
are questions we are answering.” (5)
When it would seem evident that the manifestation
of the Illuminati has won the day, the former pope’s secretary, the Camerlengo
concedes that the Illuminati and science have won: “Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and
provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has
left us in a world without wonder….Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its
inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A
cosmic accident.” He paused. “Even
the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each
of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly
alone….Does science hold anything sacred? Science
even presumes to rearrange our DNA. It
shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning . . .
and all it finds is more questions.” (6)
Amen!! Preach
it. . . . But before we become too enrapt, the Camerlengo is not all he would
appear to be. . . . No . . . This time I am not going to reveal the ending. It
would appear that the Camerlengo is the bearer of a message from God - a church
kind of miracle that saves the day, but . . . NO! I’m
really not going to tell how it ends.
It is clear that, for Dan Brown, the Church in the
name of defending God has fought to protect religion and itself; that in the
centuries of quarrel between science and religion, the Church bears the greater
blame for snarling the path to the meaning of life.
Oh, the symbology of my sermon title. It’s
in the pairing of the symmetries - Angels and Demons - good and evil, popularly
would pair religion and answers with angels. Can
you discern where my sympathies lie?
Leonardo Vetra, a scientist, was first a priest. Threaded
through his scientific exploration was the effort to heal the centuries old rift
- by science, to give credibility to God, Creator. On
the flight to
Although
he studied religion for years, Langdon was not a religious man. “I want to
believe,” he heard himself say.
He
chuckled. “Well, it’s not that easy. Having
faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of miracles - immaculate
conceptions and divine interventions. And
then there are the codes of conduct….”
“I
hope you don’t let your students dodge questions that shamelessly.”…
“Mr.
Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I
asked if you believed in God. There
is a difference. Holy Scripture is
stories . . . legends and history of man’s quest to understand his own need
for meaning. I am not asking you to
pass judgment on literature. I am
asking if you believe in God. When
you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do
you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God’s hand?”
Langdon
took a long moment to consider. “May I ask you a question, Ms Vetra….As a
scientist and the daughter of a Catholic priest, what do you think of religion?
I close with one of those gems that would seem
insignificant at first reading. This
one serves no purpose in the plot of the story. But
it is probably what gives Angels & Demons its Gospel quality.
Mortati,
senior member of the college of Cardinals heading for the Sistine Chapel to
complete the task of conclave, as he walked down the hall saw
Mortati
entered the chapel….He closed the door. “God help me.” (8)
God help the church, the world, any and each of us
if we are so caught up in for the sake of the church and all we think we know of
truth that we repeat the tale of the priest and the levite passing by on the
other side to get to the work we have to do, while leaving it for a Samaritan to
just show compassion.
Amen.
(1) Angels &
Demons by Dan Brown, Atria Books pp.
3-6
(2) P. 33
(3) Pp.300-1
(4) Pp. 408-9; 423-4
(5) P. 25
(6) P.379
(7) Pp. 108-10
(8) P. 517
© Copyright 2009 First Presbyterian Church