What do you think of the Christian themes in........?

Question

What do you think of the Christian themes in the Superman movies, Spider-man movies, Star Wars movies, Star Trek movies, the Lord of the Rings movies, the Left Behind movies and in the Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe?

To crazyperson1972, One think I should point out to you...

Check this out: In Star Trek, The Original Series, Season: 2 Episode: 25 "Bread and Circuses". Spock and McCoy are forced to fight in Roman-like games on Roman-like planet. Within the Episode, There are references to "sun worshipers" Uhura, who has been monitoring the radio waves of the planet, realizes that the "sun worshipers" aren't talking about the sun in the sky, but of the "Son of God." Episode written by, none other than: Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon.

- Source: www.startrek.com

You are right that Gene Roddenberry did not adhere to any particular religion, however when writing for Star Trek and later Star Trek: TNG, Gene thought to include many of the philosophies of the major world religions into his creation and it shows.

George Lucas did the same for the Star Wars saga.

For Superman: The Movie, The Writer's Guild of America (WGA) gave screenplay credit to Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman and Robert Benton, although many involved with the production, including director Richard Donner, he credits Tom Mankiewicz with writing much of the final shooting script. To make up for the WGA omitting Mankiewicz' name from the screenplay credits, Donner gave him a "creative consultant" credit, which appears after the screenplay credit during the opening titles sequence. Tom Mankiewicz who rewrote much of the script compared the sequence where Jor-El puts infant Kal-El into the escape pod to send to Earth to save humanity similar to God sending Christ to Earth.

”The son becomes the father, and the father the son.”

"They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son."

Yes, there are many Christian references and Christian symbolism in the Harry Potter series as well. My mistake for not including it.

J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, was a devout Christian and he included a lot Christian symbolism in his works. He also was very good friends with C.S. Lewis who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia series. C.S. Lewis is also a devout Christian.

Spider-Man has Christian symbolism as well, both explicit and implicit. For instance, when did you last see a Hollywood movie in which a sympathetic character prayed before a meal or responded to grave danger by saying a heartfelt "Our Father"? Nor are these lines included to soothe only the faithful; rather, they are completely consistent with the tone and theme of the film. Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), a teenager from Queens who, discovering that a laboratory accident has endowed him with superhuman powers, squarely faces the problem of learning how to use them responsibly. His archenemy, the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), makes the opposite choice, going so far as to take young Peter up on the roof of a tall building and tempt him to do likewise, in the process using language unmistakably intended to recall the temptation of Christ.

One more interesting note: Willem Dafoe played Christ in the film "The Last Temptation OF Christ".

Answer 1

Most don't even correlate the two, movies themes and Christian themes. Congrats for being one of the few. Although Humanizing God is irreverent. When good wins over evil is the hope of all the good.

Answer 2

It's important to look at who is writing the things before making a judgement call on whether or not a movie has Christian themes.

The authors of Narnia, LOTR, Left Behind, and Harry Potter are all famous for their Christian faiths. It is not surprising then that the movies are deeply entrenched in Christian imagery and themes.

However, for example, Gene Rodenberry (Star Trek) is an atheist and humanist though, so anything that looks remotely Christian is not really based on any faith brought to it by the author.

Another interesting example: A lot of people thought that The Matrix was a Christian movie, because there were some references to things found in Christian scriptures. However, there were bits and pieces of many different faiths all intertwined in that movie, and the underlying message in that movie is that ALL religions are right, which is ironically an anti-Christian belief.

Based on your question, you will probably like this website, which is about the Christian themes in Harry Potter, in parallel to what you see in Narnia.

http://www.digital-disciple.com/harry_potter_granger.htm

A reply to your reply: I don't deny that there is a lot of imagery taken from the Christian faith in many movies. "What I think of them", in other words, how I interpret them, is based on my knowledge of the background of the authors. Back to my "Matrix" example, a lot of Christians heralded it as a "Christian movie", because they saw a few things that were clearly based on Christian faith, and a lot of people jumped on this bandwagon, without realizing the implications of all the other religions portrayed in it.

Harry Potter has the opposite problem, where some Christians are jumping on the "Harry Potter is evil witchcraft" bandwagon, even though the movies (and of course the books) have Christian themes.

Bottom line: if someone is going to embrace or discard a movie on the basis of their religion, and their religion is important enough to them, they should do some research first. It is interesting to note themes taken from a particular religion, but no one should assume that the presence of a Christian theme automatically makes it a Christian movie. (I'm not implying that you have done this, it's just a general statement about how people interpret movies.)

Answer 3

With the exceptions of The Chronicles of Narnia, and Left Behind which were written by Christian authors, these don't have Christian themes other than ones that may be being imposed upon them. If your conception of "Christian Themes" is good versus evil, then Harry Potter is (gasp) Christian themed.

There is such a thing as morals outside of Christianity.

Answer 4

I surely dont mind them and they're in a lot of movies and books but, I dont know if Id nessisarily say they are Christian themes, other than they are MORAL themes. Do we base morals on the Bible? Yeah probably but even people who dont believe the Bible generally hold similar morals.

Answer 5

I love to catch Christian themes in any show. I am a huge Xena and Hercules fan and both of shows had several shows based around Christian stories and themes.

Answer 6

I think they are largely muted themes, with the exception of Chronicles of Narnia.

Answer 7

garbage in, garbage out. but the movie action was good in spite of the religious selling points.