Anyway, I was over on Anna's blog (here) and she posted something about the new Twilight movie coming out. I intended to post a quick comment about an event from breakfast this morning and it ended up being a little mini blog post. I figured I'd repost it here.
Here, with a few edits and additions, is my comment from her blog:
I confess I haven't read the Twilight books but I did experience one of the fall-outs from the books this morning while talking to a member of my youth group. This girl wanted advice on what to do because she has a friend who actually believes that she is a vampire. In fact, she believes it so much that she sucks her boyfriend's blood. Somehow this girl's friend is so caught up into the vampire mythos that she is unable to differentiate from reality.
I'm really not blaming the books for this as much as I'm blaming what seems to be a societal renewal of interest in this narrative over the past 3-5 years (of which Twilight is just cashing in). My beef with twilight (and again I haven't read them) is the same problem I have with most of those dramatized romance books that teenage girls (and sometimes guys) read. These books paint an unreal picture of teenage "love" and affection. Causing students to seek after such intense relationships when most of them are far too emotionally immature to handle such a relationship. I fear that these types of highly dramatized romantic books will heighten the teenage problem of seeking to find fulfillment and identity in a relationship with another person instead of in God. This misplaced fulfillment will likely result in more teenage pregnancies, emotional distress, suicides over broken hearts, and other problems of the same ilk.
Maybe I'm over-reacting because I've not read the books, and to be sure I'm not intending to single them out. I put this issue squarely at the feed of all of Hollywood and book distributors.
The church is also not without blame. As protestants we mostly reject singleness as a blessing and gift from God and have outrightly rejected monasticism. This has resulted in the same problems with relationships existing in the church because we tend to view people as incomplete until they are married.
This is a major problem within Protestant theology. Not only are we refusing to accept the biblical principles, but we are imposing on people a paradigm which may indeed hinder their spiritual growth. I truly believe that some people are called to singleness and/or the monastic life. If we insist, as we often do (albeit through actions and no so often words), that these individuals are incomplete in their singleness we are in essence asserting that they cannot be fully redeemed until married.
Think about what this lie does to our Christology. If a person is incomplete in singleness then we assert that Christ, in his singleness, was not a complete individual and thus there is a part of humanity that he did not fully redeem. Are we implicitly calling Christ's work insufficient by our exhortations and expectations of others?
I'm not really trying to speak ill of the twilight books. I'm sure their well-written pieces of creative fiction. I'm not even discouraging my students from reading them, I just think that we need to be aware of the subtle messages we send our kids.
Things have been super busy here lately, but I fully intend to write part two of my filioque posts pretty soon.
- Ben
7 comments:
Ben, I commented on your comment. Check it out. Love the post here. I think some people might be intimidated by singleness/single people because it means that someone REALLY IS completely satisfied with God in this lifetime, or isn't lonely,etc., which is hard most likely for lonely people. Of course everyone needs relationships, but monasticism esp. the Desert Mothers/Fathers show solitude as sustainable Christian practice.
PS you should forget filioque for a few weeks and read the Twilight books.
Just one comment.
Solitude is not a "sustainable Christian practice." It is the normative Christian practice. Of course this doesn't always mean celibacy (marriage, particularly child-rearing, is an ascetic task). But, we must always remember that "He who loves his life will lose it."
Ok maybe two comments. The Twilight books are terrible. I say this (because?) as an avid vampire lover. In fact, the whole mythos is about how sin corrupts our lives, making us "walking undead" ("There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."). The unfortunate turn in most modern vampire works is that secularists have attempted to turn the vampire mythos into a virus (Blade, Underworld, etc). This is not a vampire movie, but a zombie movie (of which the only good one is Shaun of the Dead).
Anyway, that is the end of my vampire rant. :)
Nathaniel,
Why does it not surprise me that you are a vampire lover? That is a pretty good critique of the current trends in vampire mythology though.
Anna,
I think I'll pass on reading the twilight books. I figure why read those when there are so many church Fathers left to read. =)
You can dress the devil up and call him nice names...but he's still the devil.
~M
Ben,
Came across your blog by hitting the next blog button and found it interesting enough to comment.
I met a young man 6 years ago that had a tattoo on his arms of wings. When I asked him what the tattoo's were about, he said; it was for his religion.
Interesting says I what religion is that and he goes on to tell me that he is is a vampire. And that was before the Twilight series ever saw the light of day on a bookshelf.
I agree that singleness is a calling for some as Paul so aptly points out in Corinthians 7. And it is an biblical viable choice available to any who would pursue it.
I am very interested in vampire fiction, a semi-romantic in spite of myself, and an Eastern Orthodox Christian who loves and values monasticism. I haven't read the Twilight books but I've seen the first movie and hated it. I think your read here, and Nathaniel's, are dead on. Desperate romantic love is not something that needs to be glamourised and offered to teenagers. And 'good' vampires that sparkle in the sun are ridiculous. 'Twilight' is the worst thing that ever happened to the vampire genre. Well, maybe after Count Chocula.
Maybe that girl really is a vampire? Who knows. Furthermore, if her boyfriend lets her suck his blood, what do you care. They both enjoy it, I'm assuming, and she ain't suckin your blood. I had a girl that scratched the heck out of my back, and i didn't complain. Love and sex is weird stuff.
Post a Comment