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| The Vampire (by Edvard Munch) |
For folks who have thought that Twilight was just a movie (and an iffy one at that), thethoughtfulchristian.com offers another view. Within a review of Elaine A. Heath’s latest book, The Gospel
According to Twilight, the website states: This book offers both a feminist critique of Twilight and a theological review of the stories’ ideas about salvation, heaven and hell, power, reconciliation, resurrection, and organized religion.
Quite a mouthful for those wishing to sink their teeth into something more than just necks.
As for Elaine A. Heath – she’s been chewing on theological fodder for quite some time. Patheos.com describes her in this manner: Elaine A. Heath is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, the McCreless Associate Professor of Evangelism at Southern Methodist University, and the director of the Center for Missional Wisdom. She has also founded New Day, “a growing network of missional micro-communities of prayer and action” – as well as the Epworth Project, “a scholarship that provides seminary and college students opportunities to experience monastic rhythms of prayer and hospitality while living in households of intentional community.”
When they’re not living in households of intentional community, perhaps these up-and-coming theologians
are watching reruns of former Twilight movies and eagerly anticipating the next ones. (After all, even the
Bible was released in installments.) What will they learn from this record-breaking saga? According to
Heath, plenty (including some not-so-sublime subliminal messages about violence towards women).
Although Heath credits author Stephenie Meyer (who awoke one morning in 2003 with vampires on the brain - and is herself a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) with promoting the vision of a “redeemed world in which vampires, werewolves, and teenage girls belong to one another – a world made new through love, where we are all family” – she also laments Meyer’s repeated “stereotyped and violent gender themes.”
Perhaps a Sixth or Seventh Coming might solve that, too.
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Copyright November 10, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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