The 16th-century Reformed theologian Peter Martyr Vermigli wrote that “nothing may be found in the world so abject or lowly that it gives no witness to God.” This was such a standard doctrine in the Christian tradition that 200 years later Jonathan Edwards, America’s greatest theologian, could write of something as mundane as the life and death cycle of insects as attesting to the “wisdom of the Creator.”
These days it has become commonplace for Christians to make far more specific claims that worldly things display the reality, power, and wisdom of God. Indeed, a distinctively Christ-oriented interpretation is a regular occurrence. For example, mega-church leader Mark Driscoll wrote recently about Jack Bauer, the lead character from the hit TV series 24, as a “type” of Christ.
This typological language is derived from a long-accepted tradition of interpreting the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, specifically that the Old Testament foreshadowed the things of the New in signs and figures. In this way, one might say that King David was a type of Christ, because he was the head of God’s people, or that Moses, as God’s prophet and lawgiver, was a type of Christ.
The latest example of this application of typological interpretation to contemporary figures comes with the recent spate of articles ahead of the release of this summer’s anticipated blockbuster Superman Returns. Religion educators in the UK are using Superman “as a modern-day example of Jesus Christ” to “give children an insight into morality and religious thinking.” Dr. Greg Garrett, professor of English at Baylor University, says that Superman “is just about as near as popular culture can come to showing us what a savior might look and act like.” Steve Skelton, author of The Gospel According to the World’s Greatest Superhero as well as the video-based Super Man Bible Study, says that the similarities between Christ and Superman are so close that he has to wonder, “Who else could it be referring to?”
These kinds of observations stem from a laudable impulse to responsibly engage the culture and bring religious convictions to bear in the public square. But Christians risk undermining our own influence when we simply latch on to the pop icon of the moment in undiscerning and uncritical ways. We simultaneously risk becoming unwitting tools of clever marketers, who wish to tap the financial and moral resources of evangelical Christianity.
Some things point us to God in rather direct ways, others more indirectly, and still others show us divine truths by opposition and contrast rather than by similarity. Superman is a figure who is striking not so much for his similarity to Christ, but rather for his dissimilarity. We might say that the typological relation between Jesus and Superman is that of Christ and anti-Christ. Indeed, those looking for a more direct analogue to the comic hero Superman would do well to look at the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose intellectual influence was in full bloom on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1930s, the decade when the Superman comic was born.
Article comments
1 - Baronius
There's definitely conflict between the Gospel image of Christ and Nietzsche's image of the Superman. But the modern Superman of movies and cartoons doesn't follow Nietzsche. He's bound by a moral code that seems out-of-step with the contemporary world. At least, that's the way he's usually been. I don't know about the new movie (although I haven't heard anything about him becoming immoral).
2 - superman fan
Superman was in no way modeled on Jesus. His creators have more than once explained precisely the origin and representative myths he arose from. Even the language and place names of his home and family reveal this. He was modeled after the Kabbalistic myth of Rabbi Loew's Golem stories of Prague, who was used to save Jews from blood libel stories and persecutions from Christians.
In that respect, he is a savior figure, but not in the manner of the Christian dogma. But this is nothing new to take a concept of Jews based on Jewish themes and to impose meaning on it that the authors have stated did not exist.
3 - The History of Superman
You may go to that link to read a brief history of Superman. That one does not mention the Rabbi Loew Golem stories which may have played a part, but Nazi Germany most certainly loomed large in the minds of the two young Jewish men who created a hero who was saved from a Holocaust of his own people, sent to live with others with a changed name and belief system. HMM..sound familiar to immigrant jewish familiy stories? Superman himself was raised in a Methodist house with human parents who would have instilled their beliefs and practice. That does not diminish that his character's origins were clearly Jewish in symbolism and not Jesus oriented. His Kryptonite name is a Hebrew name meaning voice of God. There are many web sites on the internet that tell the story of Superman and many other comic book heroes who also were created by Jewish authors with references to Jewish themes often missed by the non Jew who read them.
4 - Scarlett
Hey, the similarities ARE startling! Jesus too was sent to our Earth after his homeplanet was destroyed! Jesus could also fly, and he had heat vision, and he obtained his power from the Sun... Wow, these Christians need to stop reinterpreting things to fit their beliefs. That's all they've been doing for the past 2 thousand years. I got a kick out of this when certain church-goers I know started making the connections.
5 - Jordan
From a Christian perspective, the linkage with the Moses story would be a way to get at the similarities with Christ, since as I noted for Christians Moses is understood as a type of Christ. Thus, a Jewish origin for the Superman story wouldn't necessarily preclude a Christological interpretation.
Of course, Nietzsche also used such imagery, esp. with the Zarathustra character, named for the prominent Zoro-Astrian figure, who comes down from the mountain to share his enlightenment with the world.
There's also some confusion about what Nietzsche was really all about. He wasn't against morality, so to speak, but wanted people to create their own moralities, to breka the old and make new "tablets" of law.
6 - Ray Ellis
Superman falls into the category of what Jung loosely coined "the Christ mythos," which can be cited in virtually every culture since the beginning of time: the hero born of humble origins who rises to great power only to be smitten by overpowering forces, who journeys to hell and emerges resurrected as an eternal hero, god-like in stature. It's part of the collective unconsciousness, which may explain why acomic book character can become a focus of controversy.
7 - chaplainandrews
Or...youcan simply enjoy Superman as a Comic Book character...maybe itis just entertaining to read a story about a man who can fly and not have to think to hard about it.