Savior Uberman
Okay, I'll have to admit that I feel a little silly writing about Superman, but my goal is to drive home the point that nothing is neutral — nothing is outside the Lordship of Jesus.
Superman was the creation of two Jewish kids from Cleveland, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They originally created him to be a newspaper comic strip character, but when it did not sell, they reformatted it and sold the idea to a publisher who was trying to put together one of the first comic books. When it first appeared, children all over the US absolutely loved it.[i] The problem with Superman, however, has little to do with his creators or his overwhelming acceptance by masses of children. The problem with Superman is with what he has become — a humanist substitution for Jesus, the Son of Almighty God. America's Superman is Nietzsche's "Uberman" which is translated overman or superman.
This statement, of course, will be denounced by many, but if it is, it is out of either ignorance or denial. Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips in the 1940's and 50's, is a metaphysical existentialist. Here is an excerpt from the back cover of his recent book An Unlikely Prophet : A Metaphysical Memoir by the Legendary Writer of Superman and Batman
Writer Alvin Schwartz received a great deal of attention from fans when he began talking publicly about his seventeen-year stint writing Superman and Batman comics. One of the individuals who contacted him was no ordinary fan, but a seven-foot Buddhist monk named Thongden, a tulpa or individual who was thought into being by a Tibetan mystic. Thongden put Alvin Schwartz on the Path without Form, an amazing journey he took in the company of Hawaiian kahunas, quantum physicists, and superheroes. Superman, as it turns out, is also a tulpa, a being created by thought that takes on a life of its own and, in Mr. Schwartz's words, is an archetype expressing the sense of nonlocality that is always present in the back of our minds—the capacity to be everywhere instantly. Superman is one of the specific forms that embodies our reality when we're at our highest point, when we're truly impermeable, indestructible, totally concentrated, and living entirely in the now, a condition each of us actually attains from time to time.
Alvin Schwartz's story is a personal journey through a lifelong remembrance of synchrony, inspiration, accident, and magic. As it unfolds it puts into vivid clarity the saving grace that inhabits every moment of our lives. The author travels as a stranger in a strange land, whose greatest oddity is that this land is our own.
ALVIN SCHWARTZ wrote both the Superman and Batman comics as well as many other comic-book titles during the 1940s and 1950s. He is the author of two philosophical novels, No Such Mirrors and The Blowtop, which was described by the New York Times as the first conscious existentialist novel in America. A recipient of the prestigious Canada Council Horizons grant, he has also written a number of screenplays and some thirty docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada. He lives in Ontario.
(emphasis added)
Whether you listen to the "Superman Returns" movie trailers, or read the recent article about the new movie and "The Myth of Superman" in the June 2006 issue of WIRED magazine, the language that is used is positively religious. Take this line from the trailer:
Jor-El (Superman's father) speaking: "They can be a great people Kal-El (Superman), if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way. For this reason, above all for their capacity for good, I have sent you, my only son."
No doubt you see the blatant references to Christ:
- John 1:9: "That was the true Light [Jesus], which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
- John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
The difference is also obvious, Superman is not sent to save them from their sins (in fact, in the movie "Superman Returns," Lois Lane tells Superman, "the world does not need a savior, and neither do I"). Superman's purpose is to show mankind the way to goodness, which is a humanistic idea. In other words, Superman was sent to show man how to achieve the goodness which is already in man.
We also can see the religious language in these excerpts from the article "The Myth of Superman." [ii]
- "Superman transcends plot. We retell his tales because we wish he were here, real, to keep us safe."
- "When the story appeared in the premiere issue of the anthology Action Comics, kids went crazy for it, as if there has always been a Superman-shaped hole in the world and it was now filled."
- "Of course, baby Clark has a special destiny. He's literally empowered to be our salvation..."
- "Superman stands between humanity and a capricious universe." (a naturalistic salvation).
- "The few minutes of the film that outsiders have seen ... look good, a spiritual successor to the Richard Donner films from a quarter-century ago."
- "We love him for wanting to protect us from everything, including his own transcendence."
A humanistic savior is one who shows us how to save ourselves (a relativistic form of goodness) and/or saves us from the naturalistic universe (which is how humanists view science).
