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Thoughts on the Christian life in a fallen world

Monday, July 23, 2012

God on the streets of Gotham - Paul Asay

What the big screen Batman can teach us about God and ourselves.  The author is Associate Editor at Unplugged, a ministry that provides movie and media reviews from a Christian perspective and is more than qualified to write a book on the subject.  However, I'm not sure this book needed to be written.  I would have rather seen a book based on his special interest, "the unexpected ways faith and media intersect."  rather than on one fictional character.
Besides the obvious analogies of good vs. evil.,  he analyzes each bad guy and how they each relate to the story.  His dad, after becoming a Christian, told him he should have only one hero, Jesus.  In the Introduction he states, "I've written a book about Batman and Jesus.  In it, I often mention them in the same sentence."  I'm not so sure they should be in the same sentence.  He deals mostly with the Batman from the movies, and only briefly mentions my favorite Batman, Adam West, on page 3 while introducing the origins of the character.  Maybe that is one reason this book did not particularly appeal to me.  I think too much credence is given to the current Batman.
" I must reiterate that Batman is not an explicitly Christian Hero."  the author states.  I don't think we will get him confused with Bibleman. There is a lot of dialog from the movies, and sometimes it is a stretch to relate it to Christianity.   He does try to answer the question - Why does Batman continue to fascinate?
All in all, I understand the author's points, but even being a Batman fan way before the movies came out, I still think this particular subject to be better suited to an article rather than an entire book.
I would recommend this book to a Batman fan who was searching as possibly an introduction to Christianity.
This book was provided to me at no cost by Tyndale Publishers.
www.pluggedin.net, www.tyndale.com

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