Double Standards

When it comes to Harry Potter and Narnia, while it’s not hard to raise objections to the former (I myself fell into this in a way), but when it comes to the latter among Christians I feel it constitutes a socially acceptable way to read something taboo or off-limits in some way. But this involves realising something about themselves that feel drawn to things they shouldn’t even be into, I feel a children’s story featuring characters going through the trials and tribulations of their own wrongdoing and striving to be faithful to God would get off the ground, if it didn’t have any magic at all perhaps other than it being the byproduct of suspicious characters, would get off the ground the way Narnia did.

Even if it would’ve been more Biblically consistent, given the Bible’s stance on magic, but I guess something that’s taboo is more appealing than if it’s already good for other people. It kind of lines up with the verses about being tempted into doing something sinful/evil but also risking negative consequences as it’s been like this with me before, perhaps because a lot of Christians are rather worldly that even if they’re against the world on principle, they actually like it in practise for as long as it’s done in a socially acceptable form. Though sin is still sin, regardless of the form it takes on, it’s kind of unsaid in Christian communities that sin is kind of lovable if it takes on a socially acceptable form like Narnia for instance.

To put it this way it would be like the taboo surrounding male nudity, put them in tight clothing (for as long as you ignore the crotch area) then it’s kind of okay to look at. It’s already the case with superhero stories in a way, but at times it’s so close to actual nudity that inevitably many superhero cartoonists would’ve inevitably looked at naked fit men at some point. Maybe not really but it does feel like it whenever they make it so tight as to be bodypainted, maybe in ways not many would immediately realise what superhero cartoonists are actually up to. But it does make you wonder about how people enjoy consuming something taboo in a socially acceptable form, it may not be male nudity as it is with superhero comics. It could be something like magic in Narnia, but not many will admit it in some way.

I thought about this when it comes to Narnia’s own author CS Lewis, where I feel some of his popularity owes to how he can indulge in things taboo to a lot of Christians and still be beloved for it. He wouldn’t enjoy the same degree of cultish fame among Evangelicals if he was square through and through, something like CH Spurgeon and it’s kind of telling how CH Spurgeon never spawned a cult following among Evangelicals the way Lewis did. Even though he advocated and did more things in line with both Evangelical dogma and the Bible, there’s not a single CH Spurgeon society the way there is for CS Lewis. I still think Evangelicals actually enjoy taboo matters, for as long as it’s presented in a way that doesn’t offend them.

But it does make you wonder if their standards for what’s good and edifying are lower than they realise.

Stan

Celestial has said many times over that America is Mystery Babylon, and in here it’s Mystery Babylon for enabling the sin or vice of idolatry. As God is a jealous God, it would be hard to not make him jealous when we turn to something else. I personally think some charges about idolatry should be best applied to secular fandoms, which makes much more sense since I see fandom as concentrated idolatry. It’s not necessarily wrong to like something, for as long as it doesn’t overshadow your faith in and love for God. It’s not wrong to like cats, dogs, football, rugby, foreign countries and so on. Though the hardest part is not make them into idols.

I feel what America has done is to enable so much idolatry of almost everything and anything that it’s going to be punished by the Lord for doing this, despite proclaiming itself to be a Christian nation and it gets worse when you have otherwise self-proclaimed Christians like Brian Littrell enabling this in some way. It would be super horrifying if he and his bandmates have the audacity to dress up as demons in a concert in Mexico, one would only wonder who Brian Littrell is more loyal to. He may sing about praising God, but at times he doesn’t do as he should’ve been told to. Perhaps this is the natural outcome of him enabling idolatry of his band a lot.

There are other musicians who’ve done the same, but I think it would be more shameful if it was a Christian doing this. Gerard Way may not be a Christian, at least not yet, but for most of the part he doesn’t know any better. Brian Littrell should know better as he’s a Christian, he should know that idolatry is a sin and that pride is also a sin. But I don’t think it’s something he’ll be comfortable realising, if because he actually likes the attention his fans give to his band a lot.

Burk Parsons dodged a bullet by refusing to join the Backstreet Boys and became a pastor instead, he himself has his own demons from time to time. The only real difference is that he strives to do better by God, while he never became a famous musician he’s done better by actually introducing people to something spiritually substantial as a pastor. We may not be called to ministry but it’s best to introduce people to God, than to wallow in being worshipped as an idol ourselves no matter how tempting it is.

I admit being prone to time from time to time, though it’s something Littrell fell into and he got really deep into it. I said before that he never seems to make fans read the Bible and devotionals, never makes them listen to sermons in whatever medium they appear in and take them to church. He’d rather invite them over to Backstreet Boys sponsored cruises and concerts, than to actually take them to church to worship the Creator. Perhaps him turning to the Devil is an inevitable consequence of his own pride and enabling his fans’ idolatry of himself and the band, if because the Devil himself is very proud and resides in the world.

It’s easier to talk about Donald Trump, Taylor Swift and Beyonce enabling idolatry of themselves as they’re relevant to more people these days, but I think the Backstreet Boys deserve more mention if because what they’re doing is more shameful because they have a Christian member. That shows if you have somebody who should know better, but don’t do anything about it then it’s on them for turning themselves into a stumbling block for others. Christians shouldn’t cause others to sin, however hard it may be at times, it seems Brian Littrell took the path of least resistance. Perhaps the world is too strong for him to resist in any way, which proves my point about him.

It should also be noted that Disney and Warner Bros are pretty guilty of enabling idolatry in people, not just with the usual suspects but also something more unexpected like superheroes. Sort of like how Stan Lee co-opted the whole ‘true believers’ thing from Christians when he applied this label to diehard Marvel readers, though at some point he actually considered doing a line of Christian superhero comics and stories. That could work to some extent, especially with something like Power Mark. But I suspect a superhero who bothers to forgive their enemies, believes in God and is rarely ever violent in any way is a harder sell than a superhero who acts vindictively and gets into a fight because they can.

So it seems despite Lee’s good intentions, Marvel has more staying power than his proposed Christian superhero imprint. Easier to enable somebody’s idolatry and satiating it perpetually than to lead them to God, no matter how uncomfortable or preachy it would be and get. DC’s no different in some, though similar regards with one editor rejecting one writer’s proposal to turn one superheroine into a Christian, I personally feel Gail Simone is somebody who does respect and understand Christianity well despite being secular. She can be considered an ally, one who’s an ally to Christians which is increasingly rare in the realm of storytelling as time passes.

If Narnia is any indication, it’s possible to have a religious story and still have any renown outside of religious circles though Narnia’s biggest fans are always Christians. So DC and Marvel go for the easy way out by pandering to somebody’s idolatry, satiating them a lot and enabling them in ways where and when it shouldn’t be, than to make them actively seek out God in hard times like these and those. The path to least resistance is what they undertook, this is what they ended up with and why they do anything to reward people’s idolatry of their products. It’s not wrong to like DC and Marvel, or even Disney and Looney Tunes.

The real problem lies with turning them into idols, but this is something they ended up enabling a lot. Instead of stories where a character like Cassandra Cain does become a Christian and quit a life of violence for good, it’s easier to keep people hooked on their favourite characters a lot without making them read the Bible in some way or another. Perhaps telling them about sin is a particularly heavy pill to swallow, one that’s too bitter to be easily digested by many secular people.

While Christians shouldn’t preach to the choir that much, in fact they’re called to preach to many unbelievers and help them on their path to worshipping God. But then again they’re also pressured to not rock the boat, that’s to hammer the nail that stands out too much, to cut the tall poppy because it’s getting too preachy. Enabling somebody else’s idolatry is one example of the path of least resistance, spiritually speaking.

Disney pretty much developed a habit of enabling somebody’s idolatry for years, to the point of creating the Disney adult and from a business perspective, this is an excellent example of brand loyalty implanted since childhood. But from a spiritual perspective, with Walt Disney being bent on destroying anything Christian, that the well is poisoned even if it’s possible to love Disney products from afar. That’s by not turning Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Carl Barks into idols, but Disney would rather encourage people’s idolatry of its products and characters. It will do anything to enable it, no matter how spiritually unhealthy it is.

Disney is one of those companies that perfected the art of brand loyalty with a lot of people, that people will try out anything Disney-related because it encourages this a lot. Not just with Disney merchandise, divisions, brands and the like but also other things like Radio Disney, which is still a thing in many Latin American countries to this day oddly enough. Disney will find ways of keeping people interested in it in some fashion, which if done carelessly would enable somebody’s idolatry of Disney or a certain Disney product. Unfortunately, it would be that easy to swing into that direction, no wonder why it’s perilous for Christians.

It’s not necessarily wrong to like Disney products, the best a Christian can do is to love them from a distance. That’s by not making it into an idol, even if it’s not always easy sometimes. Anything else really, because God gets jealous real easily. But it’s much easier to lead somebody to sin, sometimes deliberately not just with porn and gluttony. But also idolatry especially when it comes to the very nature of every secular fandom around, it’s not wrong to like sports and it’s not necessarily wrong to love athletes for as long as you pray for their salvation then God will take care of the rest. It’s also not wrong to like comics, video games and film though not all of them edify somebody spiritually.

There are too many things that Americans make an idol out of, sometimes it’s the innocuous stuff like cats and dogs as well as sports and science. Sometimes it’s the more dubious stuff we should steer away from like certain celebrities and stories, especially if they don’t glorify God in any way. It’s not necessarily wrong to like cats and dogs, but the trick here is to not be too obsessive over them. So you have grounded dog owners who do see their dogs as mere animals, rather than substitute humans where they know this is where it gets worrying when they’re treated as proxies for people. The problem is Americans have glorified these things, worshipping the creature instead of the Creator.

No sooner or later we’ll get a series of Jezebel like situations where dogs turn against their owners by eating them, a comeuppance for what these people have done and arguably a case of God using the wicked to punish the wicked since dogs don’t seem to be esteemed that highly in the Bible. If he has done this to Jezebel before, then he will do it to women similar to her when he needs to. It’s not necessarily wrong to like dogs, the Bible does have some instances of dogs being used for good though depending on the Bible verse and also edition of the Bible. But this is tempered by a recurring suspicion, so the precipice of turning them into idols is something writers knew too well.

Known Babylon, as I’d like to call it, was a major hotbed of idolatry that would’ve easily tempted God’s people at any point. It made idols out of dogs, anything and everything which sounds like what a supposedly Christian country like America ended up doing, except that other people don’t recognise many secular fandoms for what they really are: concentrated idolatry where one would do anything to attend to fandom activities and meetings where one would do with churchgoing and worshipping God.

Things like comic books, fantasy novels and video games have been treated as a sort of religious text with fans co-opting religious terminology like canon. Canon as in it meant whatever that is officially part of the Bible, biblical canon would vary depending on the denomination where some editions of the Bible would officially include texts like the Book of Tobit and the Maccabees, others like the Book of Enoch and some just have them as apocrypha.

They have their place, but it’s not the main place. There are people who argue that Christianity is a fandom but whenever fandom tries to bring Christianity to its level, if God is like a king then fandom’s like a pretender to the throne. It claims pretensions to the king but has no official relation to him whatsoever, this is why God is referred to as a father, his church is like a bride and family, why nuns and monks are referred to as brothers and sisters. Fandom is really a commoner wanting to be recognised as part of a royal family, but it’s never noble and it’s never going to be royal if you get the pun. So it’s better to recognise fandom for what it is, that’s being concentrated idolatry.

It’s calling the spade for what it really is to the Lord, so we shouldn’t pussyfoot around its true nature. When you have people who spend a lot of their time not just watching Good Omens, but also making a lot of fanworks around it with virtually no time for the Lord then it is idolatrous. Many geek fandoms are practically idolatrous, though it takes a brave soul to call them out for what they actually are. It’s not necessarily wrong to love characters like Catwoman, Batman and Superman but one would have to draw the line at worshipping them like one would with the Lord, so this is something one would have to tread carefully as Christians.

God is jealous, so we shouldn’t make him jealous even though sometimes we do anyways. It’s not going to be easy, given human nature being sinful, but the best we can do is to ask for repentance from God and learn from our mistakes, however hard and shameful it may be.

The Nutty Backslider

Returning to Peanuts and Charles M Schulz, the latter said that he became a secular humanist. If I’m not mistaken, his two wives were nonbelievers. While it’s true that God does use unbelievers to motivate Christians to do something, like preaching to them and the like but sometimes it’s best to stay away from them. Light has no companionship with darkness, ergo Schulz shouldn’t have married Jeannie and Joyce. It was these two that he drifted away from God, even though his cartoon was getting successful.

He has gained the world but lost his soul (and faith in God) along the way, perhaps that’s why Peanuts seems to have a larger secular audience than Narnia does. CS Lewis, for all his faults, went back to God after a period of backsliding (if he did at all) and dedicated much of his stories and writings to the Lord. Schulz, by contrast, drifted away from God the more successful his cartoon got. Cumulating in an affair with a younger woman named Tracey Claudius, which inspired cartoons where Charlie Brown catches his dog for dating on the phone.

Seems like Schulz’s own children never seem to be devout Lutherans, he evidently didn’t train them the way he should’ve. Any Christian parent should train their children, as well as subsequently their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to be devoted Christians and while they may not become Christians immediately they can and will become good Christians in due time if they pray hard enough for their salvation. Schulz didn’t seem to do this, not that they’re maladjusted.

But he never seemed to bring them up in the Lutheran church or any form of Protestantism, only one of them became a Mormon missionary and with his approval. While Charles M Schulz still clung to his faith to some extent, even after his affair with her, he gradually backslided over the years the more successful his cartoon became. While there were biblical references and teachings in Peanuts, these too could’ve lessened the more Schulz fell away from God.

Maybe that’s why the Peanuts cartoons appear to have more secular fans than Narnia does, well the Peanuts cartoons have more secular fans than CS Lewis in general. The latter seems to honour God in many of his written works, whereas Schulz pretty much stopped honouring God later on in life. While Peanuts’s advantage over Narnia is that it doesn’t come off as that preachy, but when it comes to honouring God this might also be its Achilles heel.

What Schulz gained in the world, he lost God’s favour along the way.

Nobody goes crazy over Thomas

Not Thomas Aquina, I’m referring to Thomas the Tank Engine and the odd fact that his original author and creator wasn’t just a railway fan but also an Anglican pastor or priest. Admittedly, the Thomas the Tank Engine books tend to be rather simplistic. But as to why Wilbert Awdry never became a big name among Evangelicals the same way CS Lewis has, I suspect it’s the feeling of how spiritual the work is that can make or break an author.

Despite being a pastor, the Thomas the Tank Engine never seemed to have overt Christian references the way Narnia seems to even though CS Lewis is not a pastor and believed in the things Evangelicals would find abhorrent. To be fair, some Evangelicals dislike Lewis for that reason. Awdry seemed quieter about his faith, while he did preach the word of God in church he never seemed to show it in his works. Awdry has written a Christian book called Our Child Begins to Pray, but it never caught fire the same way Mere Christianity has.

Since Thomas the Tank Engine spawned a lot of merchandise, I suspect Evangelicals never seemed to praise it a lot because it seemed worldlier than Narnia is. Other things loved by Evangelicals may not be any better, but as to why Narnia’s more popular among Evangelicals than Thomas the Tank Engine is that perhaps Thomas the Tank Engine seemed to have little overt Christian analogues and the like in them. Even though Awdry could’ve been more devout than Lewis is.

It’s life’s greatest mysteries why so many Evangelicals passed over an actual pastor in favour of a writer.

Transforming controversy

Stephen McAlpine has a good blogpost about the newer controversy surrounding the Harry Potter books and it’s not what you think it is: a generation ago, it was the hardcore Christians who wanted the Harry Potter books banned because they promote witchcraft. Now it’s the transgender activists and their sympathisers who take issue with JK Rowling (the books’ author) because she has opinions about the transgender community. I do have my sympathies for the series, despite not reading the books nor watching the films.

I would believe many Evangelicals’s criticisms of Harry Potter more if they held X-Men and Narnia to the same standard, but that would involve a greater deal of consistency and introspection than what they’re used to. Whatever Christian criticisms Narnia gets is a minority compared to what Harry Potter got, which’s something I will not accept and the same goes for X-Men. The hypocrisy Evangelicals have and do gets on my nerves a lot, like if you hold one thing to one standard and another to something else that’s pretty much having a speck in your eye.

You can’t chastise one without chastising the other, double standards and favouritism. It’s not that I like Harry Potter but I neither dislike it, but that the double standards regarding it and other franchises has gotten on my nerves. As for Harry Potter and trans controversy, I think something like Ranma 1/2 wouldn’t age well in this environment mostly because of how transphobic it would come off as to newer audiences. It’s one thing to turn into a woman willingly, it’s another to turn into a woman against one’s will.

The fact that the protagonist had to be turned back into a man makes me think this goes against the experiences of transgender people who willingly live as the opposite sex, but so far to my knowledge the author (Rumiko Takahashi) isn’t as widely disowned as JK Rowling currently is. Again double standards.

Not any better but

When it comes to things like Lord of The Rings being co-opted as an alternative to let’s say Harry Potter, the former’s not without its own flaws but generally inoffensive to Christian sensibilities enough to act as a doable alternative of sorts, which the same things can be said of Narnia.

That actually makes me wonder given the tendency to criticise Disney for being occult, queer or whatever that I’m beginning to consider the likes of Veggie Tales (Christian and went back to Christian again), Flying House and Superbook as basically the religiously inoffensive answers to Disney cartoons.

(To be fair, there are Disney cartoons based on the Biblical story of Noah escaping the flood with his pets.)

That’s what dawned on me.

Just an ordinary animal

‘Aslan! Aslan! Stop what you’re doing!’

Lucy Pevensie tries to get the deer off of him but he won’t allow her go near it and attempts to scratch her, until she runs away from him.

Actually the next moment Aslan presents her the body of a dead horse, Lucy is starting to get mad at him for killing an animal.

But she can’t understand him, Aslan’s only an animal as she realised.

Nothing Christlike about him

I still think why Aslan fails to be a proper Christ figure’s that he never humbled himself to better reach out to humanity, let alone not any longer to the point where I think a benevolent extraterrestrial posing as a human would be a better analogy or deconstruction. Aslan really doesn’t do that, whereas Superman would willingly appear as the bumbling Clark Kent.

Even if Superman’s not any better, at least he’s a more doable Christ figure in the sense of being otherworldly but raised by humans upon arrival and doing anything to save people. Aslan might do that, Superman must do it which’s the salient difference between two characters. The biggest one’s that Aslan’s meant to be royalty but Superman’s raised by farmers, working as a journalist.

A better Christ figure has to appear in fiction but which Superman’s doable for now.

Not much similarities

I guess some of you might object to my points by saying that Aslan is humble but Jesus and Superman take a step further by willingly appearing as less than what they really are that it seems the real problem with Narnia and why it’s so appealing to Carnal Christians is that the Christ figure needn’t to humble himself when he could show off a lot.

Never mind that Jesus wasn’t that rich in his lifetime and probably doesn’t care about that either, just as Superman willingly appears as bumbling and human as possible. In fact both of them are adopted by humble people and raised as such, whereas there’s not much of a direct counterpart in Narnia.

Had Aslan been raised as an ordinary cat, that would make the comparison clearer but alas it’s not as recurring as Superman appearing as Clark Kent that Superman would be more analogous to Jesus better.

What Superman has taught me

As I said before, Aslan isn’t that as Christlike as some make him out to be but because he actually lacks the humility to appear as one of us any longer and frequently that I think Superman, thought not without his own issues, would be a better alternative. I.e. Superman willingly appears as the bumbling Clark Kent and was raised by farmers, alien but raised as a normal human.

I guess if Superman has taught me something, Moses and Jesus parallel each other in that they’re sent elsewhere to be raised by somebody else, becoming one of those people and doing a lot to save others. In fact, both Jesus’s mother and Moses’s sister are named Miriam/Mary just as Jonathan and Martha are names of Biblical characters (unconsciously or not).

Superman is raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent but he has his own Miriam in the form of Supergirl, who in some stories, was actually sent to look after him but didn’t go as expected. I guess in some regards, Superman is a better Christ figure than Aslan is in the sense of being humble, raised by somebody else and a willing defender.

Aslan might defend some people, Superman and Jesus defend much more.