The Leonardo Gulag, by Kevin Doherty, hypothesizes a Stalin-era plot to forge Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketches. Involved is Sir Anthony Blunt, a leading British art historian and Soviet spy. Brilliant young artist Pasha Kalmenov is arrested and sent without trial to a forced-labor camp in the Arctic gulag. The lies of Stalinism become evident and Pasha is faced with the dilemma of his whole society being nothing but lies. When there is nothing but lies, Doherty suggests we are forced to seek God.
But which version? Big business aspects of Christianity are mercilessly portrayed in Sinclair Lewis’ 1927 novel, Elmer Gantry. Lewis, an atheist, preaches an anti-god – a poor replacement for vulgar depictions. How does the book compare with the 1960 film version? The film is less cynical than the book! It also uses only a portion of Lewis’ Elmer Gantry story.
Maybe the Knights Templar figured it out. In two novels, The Last Templar and The Templar Salvation, Raymond Khoury theorizes a canonical plot which excluded a majority of other interpretations of Christianity. “It has served us well, this myth of Christ,” Pope Leo X is quoted as having said. Unfortunately, Khoury’s two novels are weighed down by the usual these days boilerplate figures. We have Sean Reilly, heroic FBI agent, and Tess Chaykin, bold female archaeologist, and their finding of true love.
When there is nothing but lies, we are forced to seek God (or Allah, or Yahweh, or Krishna, or some other name for the infinite). Each day we look to Internet: Maybe this will be the day that Truth explodes! Instead we get Stalinist repetitions. Oh well, maybe tomorrow Truth will break through. How long wilt thou forget us, O Lord? (Psalm 13: 1)
“God is a concept by which we measure our pain,” sang John Lennon. And then they killed him. The “Son of Man was not crucified once for all,” wrote T.S. Eliot in Choruses from the Rock, “The blood of the martyrs not shed once for all, The lives of the Saints not given once for all: But the Son of Man is crucified always And there shall be Martyrs and Saints.”