Inspired by this thread, I was wondering what films/books/etc. tend to wrap themselves in Christian themes while not actually being Christian?
Let me say that this may be a bit of a judgment call. It’s conceivable that some authors were trying to convey a genuine Christian message, but really did a superficial job of it. I suppose this might still qualify as a “Christian work.” (I suppose “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan comes to mind. The whole thing reeks of blatant metaphors. Maybe it’s a beloved classic work, but I hated the thing.) What I’m going for here are works that, say, borrow Christian elements, but leave you scratching your head as to why it did so.
My best example would be The Matrix: Revolutions. The whole film left a bad taste in my mouth, but I was particularly annoyed at (what I felt was) the meaningless Christian imagery at the end. Neo sacrifices himself, his body assumes a “crucified” shape, and the giant head mumbles “it is finished.” Yeah, great. I’m surprised that they didn’t have a calendar show up somewhere that said it was Good Friday, or that the Sentinels didn’t demand 30 pieces of silver for admission to see the big giant head. I left the theatre practically screaming, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”
(Sidebar: oddly, I thought the first Matrix was passable as a Christian work, although I won’t say this conclusively, since I really don’t know whether the Washowski (sp?) brothers were going for that, or if it was just more superficial philosophy. Suffice it to say that Neo seemed to have a Christ-like role in that he tries to effect a moral change in people. Neo’s job was to open people’s eyes to the trappings of the Matrix, as Christ was to free people from the trappings of sin. Was this the intent of the film? I don’t know, but it might be a useful metaphor to explain Christianity to a teenager who likes movies where a lot of shooting happens. :D)
Oh, yeah: and the Left Behind books that I’ve read sucked.
I think it’s interesting that E.T.–directed by Spielberg who is Jewish–has many Christ-like characteristics (he has powers including healing, his existance is doubted by some but he gains a loyal following, he seemingly dies only to be miraculously resurrected).
Left Behind sure did suck, but I don’t know why that makes it “pretend” Christian. Pilgrim’s Progress was an allegory and was full of metaphors, but the meaning was very deeply Christian and the author was quite sincere. There was nothing shallow about it, in my estimation. Not my cup of tea either though.
I’m much fonder of things like the Chronicles of Narnia which ironically enough aren’t meant to be allegories, though they are probably even deeper than allegories since they start with the assumption that Christianity is perfectly true and simply imagine what would or might happen in other circumstances, given that truth.
The Chronicles of Narnia aren’t meant as allegories? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle are the very definition of the term.
Anyway, when I read the thread title, I thought the OP meant something like Jack Chick tracts (yeah, I’m sure what Jesus really meant was that people should be creepy hatemongers) or bands that are pseudo-religious to cash in on the “I love mediocre-to-bad music about Jesus” market.
No, they are not intended to be allegories at all. Lewis was pretty adamant about that. I’ve read a lot of his nonfiction and autobiographical things which is why it came to mind specifically, as did “The Pilgrim’s Regress” which he did write as an actual allegory. Rather than hitting my bookshelves I found a link on it.
Another makes this point: “Indeed, there is a similar problem with applying the word ‘allegory’ to Narnia in the first place. Saying ‘Aslan is Jesus’ misses the point of the books: Aslan works precisely because he is not Jesus—because there are no stained glass windows and teachers and stupid hymns telling us we ought to love him. Saying ‘Aslan is not Jesus, its just a story, just a fantasy, just entertainment’ (as one contributer to the C.S Lewis usenet group did) misses the point in just the opposite way. Aslan both is and is not Jesus; the books both do an do not have order.”
Rev. Lovejoy: I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens, he came in peace and then died, only to come back to life, and his name was E.T., the Extra-terrestrial. I loved that little guy.
I remember Mike Nichols talking about how people interpreted Benjy Braddock as a satirical Christ figure in the church at the closing of The Graduate because he stretches his arms out crucifix-like when calling for Elaine from the organ loft. Nichols said that the reason Dustin Hoffman was positioned that way was that was the only way he could bang on the glass of the window for the desired audio & visual effect.
Ok I’m not trying to be a nudge, seriously, so please don’t take it that way, AG. It’s just that I saw some Nichols interviews and he said he hated the fact that Hoffman had to do that stupid position. They wanted him pounding on it the way you would expect him to in real life. The reason they did it was because the church had had that particular glass donated to them by parishioners they cared about and they were unwilling that it should break. So even though the filmmakers begged and promised that they would pay for any damage if it broke, they said no way. He said well how is he supposed to bang on the glass and be sure not to break it? They came up with the stupid idea that if he did it with his arms widespread like that and only bent at the wrists, it probably wouldn’t break. Take it for what it’s worth, he may have said other things at other times. That was on my 25th Anniversary edition of The Graduate though.
Age Quod Agis you twit, I didn’t read the whole OP, but your quote did the spoiler for me. If ya going to call for a spoiler tag use please use one yourself
What’s Christian about the “Left Behind” books? AFAIK, they’re based on various recent analyses of some chunks of the Bible (mostly Revelations), which are, to put it mildly, open to other interpretation … and their theology, in terms of mainstream Christianity, seems to be decidedly shaky.
(And, eh, I haven’t seen The Matrix either, but I’m not losing any sleep over that spoiler … )
Donnie Darko’s got a bunch of Christian imagery. But why not? Even if the filmmaker’s not Christian, I’m sure, if he’s American, he was bombarded with Christian symbolism and stories throughout his life (many of which were, of course, were borrowed from other religions).
the whole Narnia Chronicles as allegory thing was almost explained to me by an over-zealous scripture dude when I was in grade school, lo-those many years ago. I say, ‘almost’ cos his ‘explanation’ was, ‘oh, those are based on the bible, you know’, and left it at that. My atheistic upbringing and child-of-science lifestyle never pushed me to probe further, but I have a good grasp of biblical history and the contruction of the faith from an outsiders standpoint. So…
my question is this. On the Two Towers extended edition, one of thev featurettes talks about Tolkien being a devout christian and C.S.Lewis being an atheist. So was Narnia a psuedo-allegory from the standpoint that ‘these are interesting myths and the concept can be wrapped into a more complex fantasy tale?’ or um… what? Why would an atheist (who disavows the existance of a higher power, rather than an agnostic who claims to not know either way) write a book that is allegorical?
Or should I read through those links before posting this? I don’t know, and this is the SMDB, so… can anyone elighten this little heathen?
I might be being slow here, but isn’t that pretty much what an allegory is? Roughly, putting the same ideas into a different setting so people get them.
Further, is it necessary to being allegory that you can’t enjoy the book until you get it? I can understand trying to avoid associating yourself with people who wrote bad books, but saying “You can enjoy the books without recognising Jesus=Aslan, and not everything in the books has a parallel, and he’s kept the essential Jesus, but changed all the inessential distracting trappings” says to me that this book uses allegory well, not that it doesn’t at all.
dangergene, C.S. Lewis was an atheist for a part of his life, before he converted to Christianity. The Chronicles of Narnia are very clearly Christian metaphor; Lewis also wrote Mere Christianity, a rational defense of the religion.
Actually, in “The Last Battle” they all but say he is. There’s a line or two after going into the “real” narnia about how they looked at aslan and he looked different, but they still recognized him.
You’re not being slow at all, you just define allegory differently than Tolkien, who defined it differently than Lewis. Neither author was writing an allegory by his definition, but I think Narnia is much closer than Middle-earth to most people’s idea of allegory. There’s not much room to debate who represents Christ in Lewis’ books.
