The Christian Post has a story up on a site called SermonSpice.com that “aids pastors in ‘spicing up’ their sermons.” This week, they’re offering Bible study guides and other tools based on Spider-Man 3:
“Half of Aunt May’s advice is good, but the other half – though well-meant and widely believed – is wrong,” explains one supplementary comment to a scene in the movie. “When we do wrong to others, when we sin against them, our responsibility is not to forgive ourselves, but to seek forgiveness from them and try to make right what we have done wrong. It may not be the pop-psychology way, but it is God’s way.”
Visitors to the site can view clips directly from the movie, several which can be applied to a sermon. The audience can then relate how the characters act and how a religious perspective would view their response.
Besides quite a few Aunt May clips (despite the quote above, she is clearly on the side of the angels), the site also has a clip featuring Eddie Brock: “Even as Spider-Man struggles to free himself from the tight grip of evil; Eddie makes himself a ripe host for the black, oozing venom that envelopes him, giving external expression to the depravity in his heart.” That bit sounds a whole lot cooler when I imagine Stan Lee saying it.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
It’s odd how the Christian right-media is so happily glauming onto “3″ much as they did “Spidey 2″.
The source materials each film is based on are hardly religious in nature.
May 8th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Yeah, but most Christians can make applications of the faith in everyday situations or, in this case, NOT so everyday situations (being taken over by an alien symbiote).
As for how happy the “Christian right-media” is, I think it’s because it’s often refreshing to come across something as hugely popular as a Spider-Man movie that parallels many of the issues and struggles we face as Christians…even though the Spider-Man movies are by no means explicitly Christian in their presentation.
May 8th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
By the bye, to be clear, my definition of the “Christian-right media” includes (for example) Ted Baehr, Pat Robertson, and other Christian media critics who look at pop culture via a literal worldview just as they do the Bible.
May 8th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Not being religious in nature doesn’t preclude something being religious in action.
Spider-Man is all about being his brother’s keeper, if you’ll pardon a glib turn of phrase.
Mark’s right, too. Finding religious affirmation isn’t a strictly Biblical or church-bound phenomenon.
May 8th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Actually, it’s more like the Good Samaritan – the guy who does the right thing even though people hate the bones of him.
And people will see religious allegory wherever they want to. Spider-Man is about people. People making choices. Without recourse to a higher power – like, oh, plucking an example FROM NOWHERE, like the Grand Moff Spider-Totem.
To be fair, I see parallels to Spider-Man in all sorts of places. But then, the geek have inherited the Earth…
//\Oo/\\
May 8th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
To Mark:
You hit the nail on the head about why Christian critics are responding so positively to Spider Man 3. For example, despite his initial surprise, critic Bob Hoose at Plugged In admits that there are some positive Christian values portrayed in a secular comic book film:
http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0003209.cfm
Having seen Spidey 3 today, I agree with Hoose that the film covers some truly spiritual issues ranging from the need to forgive to the ongoing struggle against temptation. Speaking from personal experience, Spider-Man’s dilemmas are quite Christian even if he isn’t one by name.
What I find ironic is how Spider-Man 3 is more truly Christian than Superman Returns with its heavy-handed but ultimately superficial view of the religion.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:06 am
“That bit sounds a whole lot cooler when I imagine Stan Lee saying it.”
Dude, stan lee should narrate my life.
May 9th, 2007 at 5:14 am
“Dude, stan lee should narrate my life.”
he should narrate everything..
“Lo, true believers! what perils await larry
in the bathroom of share-housing horrors!”
as a Christian, I appreciate that spidey is a good guy, but really I was just trying to watch and enjoy the movie
[however he does seem to enjoy those catholic steeples].
May 9th, 2007 at 8:04 am
There are many of us who use all kinds of films in teaching the lessons of our Christian Faith. Spider-Man 3 has some instances, but really it was filled more with the negative lessons, those that are learned after messing up. The wierd thing about Spidey having more religious themes than Superman Returns, to me deals with the way truth comes across. Spidey is not taking ownership of the moral truth that is present, those ideals are just there and the watcher can take them in or not.
Superman Returns wanted to say that Kal-el was a Messianic figure. They directly made him a Jesus figure. In that they are trying to force the nature of Christ upon the character and beating the watcher over the head. The condition of ones faith will wrap around and filter each attempt to be something spiritual. In terms of how they are presented, Spidey wins every time because of teh freedom of interpretation.
One Christian’s take….