Review: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Purchase: Amazon

Note: This is a review as part of our Worldview Dilemmas in the Movies and Comics series.

This is the third comic by Gene Luen Yang that I read.  The first two works I read by Gene Yang were his later works, Boxers and Saints, which impressed me enough that I decided that I have to read American Born Chinese which was the Graphic Novel that made Yang popular.  The book has countless awards such as being the National Book Award Finalist for Young People Literature, the first Graphic Novel to achieve this status.  While I enjoyed Boxers and Saints more than I did American Born Chinese, I must say that American Born Chinese was still a pleasant leisure reading.

The book tells the story of an American Born Chinese boy growing up in America. Throughout the book the author tells his story with great humor and insightful to the phenomenon of being second generation American while having traditional Chinese parents.  I’m sure American Born Chinese would be able to identify with it.  The book is partly autobiographical—like the main character Jin Wang, Gene Yang also had parents who first met in the Library.  Also like the main character Yang also grew up listening to the story of the Monkey King, which comes out in the book.  The book is creative, with the author balancing what at first seems like three stories that later comes together (I won’t spoil it).  I loved how the three stories are foils to the American Born Chinese experience.  In fact even within the main story of Jin Wang there are wonderful characters that are foils to Jin Wang himself.  Wang tries very hard to fit into America and has some success but this is in contrast to those who were more recent immigrants.

I know that as a pastor reviewing this book the question among some would be “What can we learn spiritually after reading this book?”  I think the book brings greater awareness of negative Chinese stereotypes in our culture today.  Those in ministry with Asian American background might want to be conscious of those.  The stories in the book should also shed awareness that there are different kinds of cultural barriers, even among those who are Asian Americans.  I am not bringing this up to say we must idolize certain specific cultures (or sub-cultures), and I also appreciate the fact that the author doesn’t really point fingers, having had enough personally of all the stock liberal neo-colonial and ethnic studies dribble in my undergraduate days.  But being aware of certain cultural current should allow us to be better friends and better minister to people who are different than us culturally.

The book at times did have it’s quirky moments.  Sometimes it’s a bit slap-stick or it made me say, “Awkard…”  However, it is still insightful and a good story.  After reading this book and comparing how much he has improved with his story telling in later works, I hope to see the author produce more works in the future, works that I will read whenever the opportunity for leisure reading arises.

Purchase: Amazon

Read Full Post »

Apologetics at Starbucks: New Horizon Magazine February 2015

New Horizon Magazine, a publication of Orthodox Presbyterian Church, has focused on their topic on Apologetics for their February 2015 issue.  This issue is available online.

Thanks to Jeff Downs for letting me know about this.

The entire issue is available in the following formats: PDF  ePub  and  Mobi

Apologetics at Starbucks

by Roger Wagner

When we think about “doing apologetics,” too often (in our circles, at least) what first comes to mind is a debate over apologetic methodology. Are we going to be presuppositionalist-covenantal or “classical”-evidentialist? As a friend of mine used to say, “We seem more concerned with sharpening and polishing our swords than with actually carrying them into the battle.”

Doing Apologetics

Read more

The Witness Needed by a Weary World

by Alan D. Strange

Postmodernism is rightly critical of modernism. It recognizes that modernism is unable to account for its closed, naturalistic, materialistic worldview. Modernism’s failure may be seen in its scientism (the conviction that the scientific method is the only path to objective, public knowledge), in its rationalism (which is purportedly autonomous and anti-supernatural), and in the myth of human evolution and progress. Postmodernism does not turn to Christianity, though, to provide the preconditions that make logic, science, ethics, love, and beauty intelligible.

In its critique of modernism, postmodernism embraces irrationalism and thus commits intellectual suicide by attempting to “establish” irrationalism through rational argument. That is an internal inconsistency not unlike a Hindu monism that argues against distinctions and at the same time urges its adherents to develop good karma. So postmodernism argues against the best aspects of modernism—the affirmation of objective truth, the reliability of the senses, the importance of the use of reason, and the laws of logic—denouncing them as mere conventions concocted by society’s masters. Thus, postmodernism may rightly be seen, not as completely different from modernism, but as the logical outcome of a worldview that cannot account for itself—modernism gone to seed, in which “anything goes.” Read more

We Are Weak, but He Is Strong

by Jamie Dean

When Erick and Kristyn Nieves of Reformation OPC in Queens, New York, learned they were expecting a baby in 2013, the couple was happily surprised. The Nieveses already had two daughters, ages 4 and 1, and hadn’t anticipated an addition to their family so soon.

They quickly learned the addition would be bigger than they expected. Read more

Read Full Post »

Announcement: We’ll be Blogging through Shepherd’s Conference 2015 Inerrancy Summit Next Week!

We’re trying to wrap our blog series on the Christian worldview, film and Comics soon because next week all three bloggers from Veritas Domain would reunite at The Shepherd’s Conference.  This year’s theme is on Inerrancy and is the biggest ever.  They have called it The Inerrancy Summit and have brought many different speakers that normally don’t come out but they are for this occasion such as Kevin DeYoung and Carl Trueman.

Lord willing we hope that next Tuesday through Sunday we would be able to blog our notes from some of the sessions along with recommended resources from the Bookstore and book sales.

Stay Tune!

 

Read Full Post »

Christian Thought on the Joker Complex

In a previous post, “Pursuing Worldview Apologetics and being Culturally Informed Without Compromise” I argued that there is a way where we can be biblical, engaging, and informed in our cultural apologetics while achieving that without sacrificing our sanctification:

…one way to not compromise our norms while also being informed is to see what other informed social critics have to say about a particular pop figure or cultural phenomenon.  I think one doesn’t have to experience every form of media and entertainment to critically reflect upon it as a Christian.  An example of how a Christian can be informed and reflect critically without “seeing” something is with the current crisis with ISIS.  You do not have to watch the beheading of 21 Egyptians or the burning of a Jordanian pilot to be informed about it; one can find detailed written analysis of the videos, scholarly evaluation of it’s meaning, purpose, etc.  If one put the effort one might find in-depth evaluation of ISIS militarily, geo-politically, economically and theologically.  I can’t imagine many people looking down on someone who is informed about ISIS while making the deliberate choice of not watching ISIS’ sick videos.  To demand that one can only intelligently talk about something through the experience of watching it it is really a form of audio-visual Gnosticism.

Here in this post I wanted to give an example of what that would look like with a Christian character study of the supervillain Joker.

Through Youtube I discovered that there are clips from a History channel documentary on the Joker.

The longer clip of it is below:

The shorter clip is below:

Joker: A Worldview Villain

Joker really is not merely a psychologically disturbed villain of batman; he is also the outworking of a particular worldview.  In the video clip Rabbi Cary Friedman who authored Wisdom from the Batcave said about the Joker: “He represent a kind of chaos, of meaninglessness, of randomness.  The idea of the character of the Joker is just the luck of the cards.”  Danny Fingeroth, the author of Superman on the Couch also tells us that “the Joker has an agenda of chaos.  He is a unique villain in that he is not even necessarily after money or power or any of those traditional things.  So that’s really the hardest kind of evil to fight because you cannot bargain with it.”  This fascination for chaos reflects Joker’s view of the world and life.  I thought what Professor of Social Psychology Benjamin Karney has to say is insightful concerning the philosophical nature of the conflict between Batman and the Joker:

Batman says philosophically we can acknowledge an imperfect world, we can acknowledge that we have to step outside of social norms but that does not make the social norms meaningless.  The Joker says that the presence of random injustice means that there is no justice.  The fact that innocence can be destroyed means there is no innocence.  So your life is a joke.  Now when someone says your life is a joke that is a challenge.  It is not just a physical challenge it is a moral challenge, it is an intellectual challenge and Batman can’t let that go because the Joker isn’t just threatening him physically, he’s threatening the premise of Batman’s existence.  That’s why it’s such an epic discussion they are having.  Of course it is played out physically and in fights and punches and gunshots.  Ultimately it’s a philosophical conflict and it’s not one that’s easy to resolve.”

I appreciated Dr. Karney’s observation that the fight between Batman and Joker is not merely physical but philosophical.  Philosophically speaking, Joker subscribes to a form of Nietzsche’s philosophy.  Seeing Joker’s application of a nhilistic philosophy of chaos with the goal of merely triumphing one’s will over others should make us repulse at the incarnation of such a philosophy.  We must not forget that ideas have consequences.

Is Batman the Solution?

 

No doubt in Gotham the only one who can challenge the Joker is Batman.  And yet in the comics Joker is never fully contained.  Sooner or later Joker escapes and wreck havoc on the innocent.  While the Batman is the only who could check Joker, the unfortunate reality is that Batman’s own philosophy is against capital punishment.  This in turn leads Batman’s desire to capture Joker everytime so that he can be rehabilitated.  Thus Batman enables the Joker to continue his evil, given Joker’s track record of being able to escape.  Patrick Chan has written more about this dilemma over at Triablogue.

Thinking Spiritually

• The Joker is a repulsive character.  He is the embodiment of a worldview that believes everything is chaos and that social norms and justice is meaningless.  One might find the character cool as entertainment but when someone does paint their face as the Joker and shoots up a Theatre in real life we all are awaken at the danger of what the Joker and his philosophy means.
• I’ve always thought the Joker was more of an accurate portrayal of Satan than a red horned figure with pitchforks.  The Joker doesn’t care if he wins and yet continues with his sins.  The Joker also is crafty enough to get others to participate in his evil schemes often by taking advantage of people’s greed and other temptation.  What an illustration of the demonic.
• No doubt if one reflect deeply on Joker, one want to see him eventually face justice once and for all.  Batman is not enough.  The desire for ultimate justice can only be fulfilled when God judges all the world.  That won’t happen until Christ’s second coming.  We should long for it.

Read Full Post »

Review: Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang

Purchase: Amazon

Note: This is a review as part of our Worldview Dilemmas in the Movies and Comics series.

I was teaching weekly Bible studies when some of the children in my class introduced to me this graphic novel called Boxers.  The kids told me it was a good story and that I would like it since it has to do with God and religion.  After doing a little research myself and seeing glowing reviews of the book online I decided to give the book a shot.  What at first began as a concern for the kids of whether they were reading appropriate materials turned out to be quite an enjoyable read.  Although I rarely read fiction (let alone Graphic Novels!) I must say that I really enjoyed this book and its companion work titled Saints.

The book Boxers and its sequel Saints is situated in the late nineteenth century historical even known in Chinese history as the Boxers Rebellion.  During the rebellion some Chinese whom we often called “Boxers,” took it upon themselves to attack foreigners and Chinese.  The turmoil eventually ended when eight foreign states united to put down the rebellion militarily.  As one might have guessed, the book titled Boxers tells the story from the perspective of a young boy that grew up to lead the Boxers’ rebellion while the second volume titled Saints tells the story of a Chinese girl that later became Christian.  I like how the author overlapped both stories in a similar fashion as Clint Eastwood’s movies Flag of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.  Incidents from one book is covered in the other book and one get a better picture of what happened after going through Saints.  If you only read one volume without the other I think each story would be able to stand but it would not have the same depth as it is when read together.

Both books are very well researched.  The author did his homework and the amount of historical detail is amazing for graphic novels.  I loved how the author also gave the readers recommended readings to learn more about the history of the Boxers’ rebellion.

What I really like about Boxers is that it allows the readers to see the motive of what drove the boxers.  The characters were believable and even have endearing characteristics.  It is important to realize that the author is not trying to communicate that their violence was justified, even though we can empathized with them as one of us.  In fact, as the story continued the plot gets darker and I myself started to question the legitimacy of the protagonist’s cause.  One needs to read the end of the sequel to see that the author’s main point was not a moral justification for what the Boxers did.

What I really like about Saints is the author’s ability to describe what Christianity must have sound like to those who first heard about Christianity (note: the author’s Catholic background does come through the book).  The author has a gift of being acutely aware of cultural barriers between East and West in his other comics and it is put to good use here in our story here as well.  The author was able to do a good job giving a portrait to the readers of what good can come about through sincere Christians while also balancing that with the shortcoming of Christians and even hypocrites.  The author is able to portray so many interesting characters in the limited space of the book.

Both books were beautifully illustrated.  The author has good humor although at times it seems a little bit juvenile, which reminds us that this book was intended for a younger audience!  However, the book is not just for kids; both volumes make us think about the good of faith, how some would abuse religion, what human nature is like, and the role of peace-making in contrast to violence.  It is fast paced and has an amazing conclusion in the sequel.  You wouldn’t want to miss both books!

Purchase: Amazon

Read Full Post »

Message: Personal Holiness in the Age of Entertainment

With our series on worldview, film and comics, I thought it’s good to share this sermon by Wayne Wilson.  Wayne Wilson is a pastor who has preached a messaged titled “Personal Holiness in the Age of Entertainment.”

For the audios click HERE.

Wayne Wilson has also written a book titled “Worldly Amusements: Restoring the Lordship of Christ to Our Entertainment Choices” that I wish to get to one of these days.

Thanks toGodcentered08 and Tiribulus for letting me know about this resource.

Read Full Post »

Tiribulus’ Helpful Comments on Dialogues with Unbelievers about Cultural References

I haven’t been able to blog as frequently or be online as much as I would like with our blog series on worldviews, movies and comics given how things are with ministry this past week.  A few days ago I wrote a post “Pursuing Worldview Apologetics and being Culturally Informed Without Compromise” (read that post before this one for context).  I enjoyed the edifying and challenging conversations with our friend Tiribulus on our comment section for this series and his comment for that particular post stood out so I will be sharing them here.

His comments touched on the issue of whether or not we should watch everything in order to engage with the world.  I think his comment is helpful in terms of what to do when a nonbeliever in an evangelistic dialogue reference ungodly movies that Christians shouldn’t watch, or even movies and other cultural references that a Christian might not know about.

My original comment that he is responding to:

SlimJim says: ” To love them also mean you want to know where they are coming from; it means listening to them. As you listen to them you will hear what “their own prophets” and poets might say.”

This is his comment:

THAT, is the key in practice. I don’t need to participate in their cultural idols. THEY can tell me about them. And they will.

If one had never seen even a single television show or movie in their entire lives, their witness is not hampered at all. In fact, I say, and so does 1st Corinthians 1, that It’s greatly enhanced.

Say somebody brings up some famous cultural figure assuming you’ll know what they’re talking about.
===========================================
Them: – “well, you know like [the guy in the movie] was saying in the scene when they were in the strip club discussing business”

You – “I haven’t seen that one, sorry”

Them – “ok, then another illustration might be where [in the some tv show] the women is lamenting her past talking about all the pain she has suffered”

You – “I haven’t seen that either. Actually I don’t have a tv.”

Them – “you don’t have a tv” (watch the SHOCKED look on their face)

You – “no sir, I don’t.”

Them – “Why not” (shocked look turns to genuine curiosity)

You – “well, it got to the point where I couldn’t tell God how my walk and service to Him was being helped by having one. I rarely go to the movies either. Same reason.”

Them – (they usually won’t know what exactly to say to that)

You – “but that ok. You can tell me about it and how it speaks to you about life and why it discredits Christianity”
==========================================

They will.

Not only do you NOT have to participate in their worldly carnal media culture to converse with them, but THEY themselves will tell you what it personally means to them. It’s all about THEM. Not YOU being a culture savvy hipster.

 

Read Full Post »

Presuppositional Apologetics Links Round Up: Third Week of February 2015

 

(Source for Picture)

These are links gathered between February 15th-21st, 2015.

1.) Do You Believe? Worldview Evidence for Jesus Christ

2.) Book Review – The Question of Canon by Michael Kruger

3.) Atheism is Pantheism: A Reflection on Carl Sagan’s Ipsedixitisms

4.) Responding to ISIS with a Christian doctrine of hell

5.) In Which Stephen Fry Steps In It

6.) Van Til’s Concrete Universal

7.) Tea Requires Water: An Analogy (via Mike Robinson)

 

Missed the last round up?  Check out the re-blogged post from a friend

Read Full Post »

Pursuing Worldview Apologetics and being Culturally Informed Without Compromise

I have been evangelizing on College Campuses for the past fourteen years.  It’s an environment that provides a wonderful opportunity to employ Christian apologetic.  I must admit though that the older I get the less frequent apologetics comes up compared to my younger days of being a rabid cage stage Presuppositionalist.  When apologetics conversations do occur I notice that most of the time I’m not necessarily dealing with the nitty gritty detail of some obscure historical point of Christianity or area of science.  What I have found instead is that practically most of my discussion often occur at the level of worldviews.  Apologetics’ discussion concerning worldviews seems to pay greater dividends at the end of the day because: (1) everyone has a worldview, (2) most people’s rejection of Christianity is driven more by their ultimate commitments rather than serious, rigorous research in a specialized field of study (3) and of course, lest we forget, one’s presuppositions shapes how one determine and dismiss what are evidences.

While discussion of worldviews can easily become abstract sometimes illustrations are helpful to get the point across.  Movies are often invoked by those whom I am witnessing towards.  For some reason when I talk about metaethical issues the person of Joker gets brought up more than anyone else from Popular Culture.  I have taught apologetics in Christian setting where believers have also brought up Joker.  Somehow he pop up during worldview apologetics’ discussion!  Perhaps the allusion to Joker has something to do with young Millennials with their Graphic Novels and Netflix and how the Joker appears to be an ungodly incarnation of certain non-Christian ethical systems.

Given the fact that nonbelievers sometime allude to certain films and entertainment characters does that necessarily mean we must watch every movie and read every comic book to fulfill some kind of prerequisite in order to effectively evangelize the unbeliever?  My answer to that would be no.  In an earlier post, “Is it ever appropriate for Christians to view sexual sins in film?” I argued that Christians shouldn’t compromise their sanctification in the area of entertainment.  With the instance of Joker, I haven’t read enough comic books to know first hand but I think I can say not all of those movies and comic books are sanctifying; even if theoretically they are not all bad, it might not be the best use of time to become an expert on Joker in order to evangelize and speak to our age.  The same concern applies to other Pop Cultural figures.

Nor do I believe we should be ignorant about Pop cultural references such as Joker.  I think there is a way where we can be biblical, engaging, and informed in our cultural apologetics while achieving that without sacrificing our sanctification on the altar.  How can we hold on to these four highlighted aspects without compromise?

• First, to be biblical means one must know the Scripture well–and know it well in its application as one’s worldview.  The Bible should shape one’s outlook of life–for instance, the Word of God should shape one’s view of ethics, sin, man, God and Salvation, etc.  The Word of God should dictate our norms.  It should also dictate what we should and shoudn’t do in terms of entertainment.
• Secondly, to be engaging means practically loving the person you are witnessing to.  You must love them enough to be concerned for their salvation.  This is the existential aspect we can’t neglect; after all, no Christian wants to be labeled as the guy who only wants to argue but not care about people’s soul.  To love them also mean you want to know where they are coming from; it means listening to them.  As you listen to them you will hear what “their own prophets” and poets might say.
• Thirdly, our engagement with the lost and our desire to see them get saved compels us to be informed.  We want to handle our unbelieving friend’s perspective accurately and not misrepresent them.  This might require further understanding of the situational context of their cultural allusion.
• Fourthly, one way to not compromise our norms while also being informed is to see what other informed social critics have to say about a particular pop figure or cultural phenomenon.  I think one doesn’t have to experience every form of media and entertainment to critically reflect upon it as a Christian.  An example of how a Christian can be informed and reflect critically without “seeing” something is with the current crisis with ISIS.  You do not have to watch the beheading of 21 Egyptians or the burning of a Jordanian pilot to be informed about it; one can find detailed written analysis of the videos, scholarly evaluation of it’s meaning, purpose, etc.  If one put the effort one might find in-depth evaluation of ISIS militarily, geo-politically, economically and theologically.  I can’t imagine many people looking down on someone who is informed about ISIS while making the deliberate choice of not watching ISIS’ sick videos.  To demand that one can only intelligently talk about something through the experience of watching it it is really a form of audio-visual Gnosticism.

Be on the lookout for reviews, critical essays, editorials and documentaries as aides.  Even when a film or comic is appropriate for a Christian to enjoy I still find interacting with such resources from a Christian worldview can at times be insightful.

Read Full Post »

Review and Free on Kindle: Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture Edited by William Irwin

Get it for free on KINDLE

Review: This is a neat kindle book put out by the publishers Blackwell.  I typically think of their academic books that they published but apparently they have a series on Philosophy and Pop Culture.  In this book various contributors explore how superheroes are complex characters that have become the myths of our times.  In the introduction the book notes that while philosophers specialize in nuance articulation of philosophy often those who are unfamiliar with the more technical expression of philosophy “gets” their philosophy through the more familiar medium of movies, comics, music and video games.  This is a good book for those not as familiar with philosophy to see how philosophy is put in action; it is also a good book for those who are naïve not to see that there are worldview undercurrents in popular culture and entertainment to see that comics and films about superhero are not “value-free” or done in a vacuum apart from a worldview.  I think those who do enjoy philosophy will also find this book interesting in showing examples of various philosophy and isms displayed in the comics.  I think the book is insightful.  For instance I enjoyed the discussion about Captain America and the virtue of humility.  I especially enjoyed the chapter on the discussion of why Batman doesn’t kill Joker.  I admit it has also made me wanting more and seeing some of the discussion has made me see how various philosophies are inadequate; but to the end that this book is an exploration of philosophies and superheroes this book accomplished it’s goal.

Get it for free on KINDLE

Read Full Post »

Audios From Truth and Life Conference 2015

The Master’s College every year has a wonderful conference called “Truth and Life Conference.”  This year’s topic was on the subject of “Practicing the Biblical “One Anothers.””  It was held on January 14th-16th, 2015.

Below are the audios from the conference.  Enjoy!

• Scriptural Perspective on Loving One-Another

  • Dr. John MacArthur
  • | 2015
  • | 45m 13s
• Gospel Freedom to Exemplify One-Anothers

  • Dr. Mark Dever
  • | 2015
  • | 48m 38s
• True Biblical Love for One-Another

  • Dr. Abner Chou
  • | 2015
  • | 50m 51s
• Love which Unifies One-Another

  • Dr. Abner Chou
  • | 2015
  • | 50m 43s
• Peace with One-Another

  • Dr. Thabiti Anyabwile
  • | 2015
  • | 54m 43s
• How to Stir Up One-Another to Love and Good Works

  • Dr. Mark Dever
  • | 2015
  • | 52m 32s

Read Full Post »

You are an inconsistent feminist if…

True story.

On the one hand, Christian wives submitting to their loving husband is bad.  <Insert Marxist, neo-colonialism psycho-babble>.  Therefore it is oppressive.

On the other hand, one must be open minded about ungodly man manipulating and forcing a woman into unwanted sexual situation and that it is….okay?  <Insert discussion of sexual “liberation” and free from Victorian era Morality>.  Therefore 50 Shades of Grey is great?

Read Full Post »

Review: Meaning at the Movies: Becoming a Discerning Viewer by Grant Horner

A past review of another resource on Christian worldview and film

The Domain for Truth

Note: This is part of my review of books for my lists of 2012 recommended Christian worldview and apologetics gift books recommendation.

Purchase: Amazon

Excellent book on a Christian worldview when it comes to viewing movies, and probably the best book of its kind. It stresses that Christians must bring the Word of God to bear concerning what they are seeing. The best question that a Christian can ask in evaluating any film is what does it say about the nature of man. Does the movie promote an anthropology that is contrary to that of Scripture or does it confirm it? The author makes the point that even if what it teaches about man is contrary to what our systematic theology tells us about man, yet it still speaks truth–that man would try to supress the truth of God in righteousness. I love how he brings Romans 1 to bear…

View original post 365 more words

Read Full Post »

Mid-February 2015 Van Tillian Links

These are links concerning Presuppositional apologetics gathered between February 8th-14th, 2015.

1.) Do You Believe? Powerful Evidence for the Claims of Jesus Christ

2.) Twenty Ways to Answer A Fool [12]

3.) How Do You Know the Scriptures are from God? One Testimony in the Early Church

4.) Collective Ethics – Morality by Consensus

5.) Speaking Assumes Morality

6.) Debating Dillahunty

7.) NO ONE IN HELL WILL REPENT

Missed the last round up?  Check out the re-blogged post from a friend

Read Full Post »

Christian Worldview Discernment with Comics/Graphic Novels

Have you ever heard people going back and forth about Comics and Graphic Novels?

One individual calls it a comic (usually the one who doesn’t read it).

The other person who is reading it says it’s not comics but a graphic novel (usually someone who is older than a kid reading it).

The debate moves forward concerning definitions.  Usually there is the comment that comics are for kids while graphic novels are not.

I won’t enter that debate but I mention this to make the observation that a Christian shouldn’t read comics/graphic novels without being aware of its content and practicing Godly discernment.

Just as I have been making the case in this series concerning Christian discernment with movies, much of what I said is applicable here with comics/graphic novels.  I would also say one should also consult a biblical theology of reading as well.

The following are four questions to ask about one’s reading of a Comic/Graphic Novel in light of a Christian worldview:

1. What does the material says about human nature?  For example, is man all good, bad, etc.  How does the story’s view of man line up with the view of Scripture’s view of man?
2. Are there any explicit reference to God, religion and theology, and if so what is it’s message?  Sometimes a book can come out direct in talking about spiritual matters.  How does it line up with Scripture?
3. What does the story tells us about morality and ethics?  Is there relativism, moral confusion being espoused?  Who are the villains, who are the protaganists and what do they believe?
4. Does the artists have an agenda in telling the story?  Sometimes you will be surprised to learn about the artists and writer’s background and what they believe and how that shapes the story.

Read Full Post »