The caped-hero's creation came as physical wish-fulfillment to confront a very physical problem. We continue to look for heroes in pop culture to address our current problems. The New York Times knocked Iron Man 3 for failing to adequately depict modern terror, and Man of Steel only ventured into today's real world during a brief discussion of a surveillance drone.
Still, it's not these heroes' cutting-edge understanding of the horrors of our time that makes them popular and powerful; it's their willingness to fight evil in all circumstances, usually for the sole motivation of fighting evil. As CT's review wrote , "Superman… is there mostly to satiate that part of the American psyche that wants their messiahs to punch things, too. I don't dispute the idea that the Superman archetype relies on Christ-like characteristics; the popularity of this form demonstrates how much we as humans are drawn to the attributes of our Savior.
But, Kal-El is not humanity's Savior and falls far short of Christ. Christ represents a very specific hope and an eternal promise much better than just a longer lifespan.
Next to that kind of power, sacrifice, and deliverance for all, Superman seems downright puny. So let Jesus be Christ, Hollywood, and Superman be a hero. This article was originally published as part of Her. Already a subscriber? Log in to continue reading. To unlock this article for your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below.
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Superman Isn't Jesus Hollywood's overblown superhero-savior parallels. Alicia Cohn June 19, General Zod and his forces fail, however, and are damned to an eternity of punishment. For a time though, they roam about in the universe aiming to disrupt the plans of the Jor-el.
Heb ; Rev I have seen in some sources that it refers to Jehovah, but in others, it was something different. Furthermore, in the back-story of the conflict in Krypton—before Superman comes on the scene—Jor-el encodes the codex, which contains all possibility of life in the heavenly realms, into the blood of Kal-el, Superman.
Similarly, Christianity holds the same notion for life and salvation—that it is only found in the blood of the Son of God. Jor-el sent Kal-el to Earth knowing that humanity would reject him, but he did it anyway because it was the only way. In the same way, God sent Jesus to save the world all the while knowing that the world would nevertheless reject him. Similarly, Jesus began proclaiming his lordship and saviorship when he was 30, but actually made atoning salvation for the world when he was Similarly, Jesus was commissioned by the Father to be the bridge between God and humanity—the mediator of heaven and earth—through the saving power of reconciliation by the cross.
Jor-el said that it was necessary for Kal-el to go to earth so that he could truly relate to humanity, knowing and experiencing their sufferings, as that would qualify him to be their adequate leader and savior. Similarly, Jesus was Son of Man and Son of God—both humanly and other-worldly—that he might be able to truly relate to us, knowing and experiencing our sufferings, so that he would be qualified as our perfect mediator, leader, and savior.
When General Zod went to destroy Superman and Earth, he erected two giant, magnetic devices on opposite sides of the planet to pulsate a new atmospheric composition and level of gravity—fundamentally reversing the natural order of earth, and making it more like his own dark kingdom.
Likewise, Jesus stands as the only hope for humanity, and the clearest picture of that hope is emblazoned on his stretched frame as he hung at the intersection of the cross, the final junction of justice and peace. At the end of the movie, an American general tells Superman that they cannot be sure they can trust him.
Superman responds that he is one of them—born and raised alongside them—and that his rescuing of them proves he is for them. But ultimately, they must trust his authority over them is good by remembering his rescue of them was good. In the same way, Jesus rules with all deserving authority, and we can trust that his authority over us is good because his rescue of us was good. Louis Lane, the famous news reporter, has no connection to Mary Magdalene.
I asked the director about this, you can trust me, ha. But if anything, Louis Lane resembles the church, the bride of Christ, who is collectively called to participate in his mission by spreading the news of the saving work of Christ to the world.
Christians are news reporters—not saviors. WWJD, Dad? Guilt and shame — or the fearful avoidance of either — are the crappy glues that hold this flim-flam Man of Steel together. Some might say the same thing about some Christians. Never once does the ultimate First Responder think of breaking from the battle to help imperiled bystanders. This is simply a mistake of storytelling or a problematic omission. He hates himself for doing it — he unleashes a yelp of grief — but the moment is more confusing than powerful: Where was that same anguish when he and Zod were trashing Metropolis and endangering if not killing scores of its citizens with their violence?
There could have been a brief bit in which Superman barks at his military allies to evacuate Metropolis while he devotes himself exclusively to putting down Zod. Consequently, Superman scraps without discipline, wages war without strategy.
He brawls panicked, like a rabid UFC contestant, trying to win the bout with wild swings and dirty tricks, chasing after a knockout blow that he can never land because his opponent is so formidable, and equally desperate especially when Zod comes into his own powers in the middle of the final fight and goes mad. Do we really expect Superman to make himself vulnerable to defeat by turning his back on Zod just to airlift a couple thousand people out of Metropolis to create a safer theater of war?
If you live at Ground Zero, sure. Me in Los Angeles, sweating the prospect of what Zod will do next if he kills the only guy on Earth who can stop him? The Good Father reveals that Kal-El has never been wrong to feel as he does, that his impulse to respond directly to the problem of evil has always been correct, that divine hiddenness is a bizarre counter-intuitive policy for someone so innately good, who could possibly change the world for the better by simply by being known.
The alien no longer alienated from himself, Superman is set free to be the superhero — and the foster God — he was meant to be. The encounter with a minister roughly his own age is tense. Is he the all-grown-up kid who bullied Clark as a boy, seen in the flashback that immediately preceded this scene?
He literally, loudly gulps. Kal-El is anxious, as well: He is at the brink of a profound spiritual conversion. No more hiddenness. No more hesitance and ambivalence in his response to evil.
Is this the right thing to do? Kal-El and the minister arrive at logical resolution: If Superman takes a leap of faith — if he reveals himself and demonstrates his goodness — then the trust he wants from humanity might follow. Clark lives out the advice. And so Superman at last enters into his fullness of his metaphorical godhood. The final book of The New Testament, The Apocalypse or Revelation according to John, tells of a last battle between Christ and Satan in which The Devil will be destroyed and afterward Jesus and his truest believers will live together forever in a new creation.
Man of Steel turns this eschatology inside out to take perhaps its most veiled shot at Christianity and all religions that espouse a final judgment that divides humanity into sheep and goats, wheat and chaff, clean and unclean. Zod wants Superman, dead or alive, because his generic material contains The Codex, which would allow Zod to repopulate a terraformed Earth purged of human beings with genetically engineered Kryptonians.
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