On April 17th, 2015, I attended the Upper Midwest Regional Conference of the American Academy of Religion. During this event, I presented the following paper about faith and doubt in comic books. Essentially, I sat in a room with respectable religious scholars and professors and talked about comic books for twenty minutes or so.
And of course they selected me to go first. Which wasn't intimidating at all for someone who was pretty much the least educated person in the room.
Anyway, if you've followed Wednesday Theology for the past year or so you will recognize a lot of these themes. Doubt has, in a way, become my main message, my strongest expression of my faith, and comic books have facilitated that expression and exploration. So, I hope you enjoy the following. I hope you appreciate the proper citations.
But why do this? Why go to the trouble to write such a thing and present it to only a select few? Well, this is pretty much an example of the culmination of everything Wednesday Theology strives to be: a legitimation, scholarly or otherwise, of the exploration of the intersection of theology and comic books.
Plus, it also gives me a sense of purpose to my life.
Graphic Doubt: The Disruption of Faith in Comic Books and Graphic Literature
If
you will allow me to appropriate a cliché movie quote, doubt, for
lack of a better word, is good. That thought, though, runs counter
to most popular Christian teaching, especially in evangelical
circles, where doubt is portrayed as the enemy of faith. Such a
disruption of an individual's faith is often frowned upon,
discouraged, or even viewed as a grievous sin. Expectedly, many
Christian narratives follow the path of unbelief to belief. The
heathen converts to Christianity and lives happily ever after,
assured of his or her faith and never to doubt again.
However, real life
rarely follows this simple path, for doubt is natural and even
necessary for a growing, engaged faith. A faith unencountered by
doubt is not faith at all, but certainty. Narratives not directly
pandered toward Christian audiences provide a greater tendency to
address such doubt that faithful people and characters may confront.
In this instance, the realm of comic books, those juxtapositions of
words and pictures, alternatively called graphic novels or graphic
literature in a pretentious attempt to legitimize the format as
worthy of sophisticated discussion and study, those comic books,
provide several examples of characters of faith experiencing a
disruption of that faith. Remarkably, these examples do not view
this disruption in a necessarily negative light.
The idea that
believers can look favorably upon their doubt is not unheard of in
modern Christianity. Though the champions of certainty are far more
vocal, those that wish to foster doubt and dismantle certainty are
also speaking up. Peter Rollins wrote a book about certainty
entitled The Idolatry of God.
In this work he voices his opinion that we should acknowledge the
rather obvious idea that we do not know everything. “When
we accept our unknowing and brokenness,” he writes, “we are not
weakening our faith, we are boldly expressing it. It is our faith
that brings us into this place of accepting humility and
acknowledging our limits.”1
Admitting that we do not know might just prove more faithful than
systematically defending every aspect of our faith.
If we are going to
talk about disruptions of faith in comic books and graphic novels, we
might as well start with the work that helped popularize the term
“graphic novel.” In 1976, comic book creator and legend Will
Eisner published A Contract with God.
The book contains several
short stories, with the tale
baring the book's title
following the life of a pious
man named Frimme Hersh.
Frimme Hersh is
certain of the conditions of his relationship with God. As long as
he remains true and devout, God will bless him. But one day, for
seemingly no discernible reason, Hersh's young daughter falls ill and
dies. In the midst of a raging thunderstrom, Hersh shouts to the
sky, “If God requires that men
honor their agreements...then is not GOD, ALSO, so obligated??”2
As lightning flashes, Frimme Hersh doubts.
Is this not a
reflection of our own engagement with the Divine? No matter how
deeply we believe that if we obey God he will bless us and if we
disobey him he will curse us, the actual occurrences in our lives may
make us wonder if God is even paying attention. God has blessed me
when I have been at my worst. And all manner of troubles have
befallen me when I thought I had actually been doing pretty well
behaving like a good little Christian.
The real amazing
thing is that Hersh lasted so long in life before his certainty began
to crack. Ultimately there was no easy, clear answer for the tragedy
that befell him and caused him to doubt his certain contract with
God. Likewise, there was no easy answer for the tragedy that
inspired Eisner to write A Contract with God. The author's
own daughter died from leukemia, an event that understandably
disrupted his own faith. A Contract with God became an
expression of this doubt. In an introduction to the book, Eisner
writes of Frimme Hersh, “his
anguish was mine. His argument with God was also mine. I exorcised
my rage at a deity that I believed violated my faith and deprived my
lovely 16-year-old child of her life at the very flowering of it.”3
Now, the typical
response to this heartbreaking story is the act of theodicy, or
finding a way to excuse God for allowing evil to happen. Theodicy is
an attempt to maintain our certainty that God does fulfill his
covenants, contracts, and obligations, despite all the apparent
evidences to the contrary. The book of Job in the Bible provides
examples of the arrogance of theodicy. Greg Boyd writes, “Job’s
friends were chastised precisely because they tried to remain certain
about their beliefs in the face of evidence against them.”4
Along those lines, John D. Caputo calls all instances of theodicy
obscenities.5
Theodicy is an obscenity against God, for how dare we attempt to
excuse God of his behavior? And it is an obscenity against those who
are experiencing real hurt and pain that we heartlessly minimize in
order to maintain the certainty of our beliefs about God.
Doubt, though, does
not always come in such a dramatic fashion, like what Frimme Hersh
experienced. In Blankets, a graphic memoir, Craig Thompson
recounts his exploration of faith and love while growing up in rural
Wisconsin. Unlike sudden moment of crippling doubt in A Contract
with God, Thompson slowly encountered a series of troubling
questions and doubts that incrementally chipped away at the
fundamentalist certainty instilled in him by his family and his
church.
An early example of
Thompson's questioning occurs in an elementary Sunday School class
discussing how everyone would praise and worship God in Heaven. The
teacher provides the typical notion that such worship is limited
almost exclusively to singing. This unnerves Thompson, for he does
not sing well or is otherwise musically inclined. His real passion,
though, what some might call his God given talent, is art. “But I
don't like to sing. Couldn't I praise God with my drawings?” he
asks. The teacher dismisses his concern. “I mean, come on,
Craig,” she replies, “How can you praise God with drawings?”6
The young Thompson began to question the propositional paradigm that
religions impose on their adherents. He did not fit perfectly into
that mold, not that any of us really do. Most people simply brush
such concerns aside, but in Thompson his questions only festered as
he grew. Periodically, he would voice such questions only to be
quickly shut down by others asserting the correctness of their
certainty.
Eventually it was
the Bible itself that crippled his faith. The human element of the
Bible, that it was written by humans over a long period of time, and
that it reflected such a growth process, proved irreconcilable with
Thompson's previous instruction that Scripture was God's exact and
perfect word.7
The simplistic certainty in the Bible that his church taught now
failed to answer, or even address, this pressing revelation of his.
For an example,
Thompson writes about the comments actually included in his Bible.
"Leafing through the pages,” he says, “I marveled at the
'OR's - footnotes referencing questionable vocabulary - gracing
nearly every page of the Bible. The Old Testament was written in
Hebrew, the New Testament in 'koine' Greek. Both languages create
challenges in translation. I like 'OR's. Doubt is reassuring."8
For most people such doubt is not so reassuring, at least not at
first. The pillars of certainty must come crumbling down beforehand,
and that can prove quite the traumatic event.
Author Sharon L.
Baker recounts her own, and similar,
encounter with the Bible causing a dramatic disruption of her faith.
“Learning Greek, Hebrew, and basic hermeneutical skills made me
realize that I had been so wrong about so much. My whole belief
system came crashing down around me, and I wandered around in the
rubble, kicking at the broken pieces of my absolute certainty.”9
Near the close of
Blankets, Craig Thompson
comments on the unsettled, even paradoxical nature of his faith, or
lack thereof. He knows the loss of his beliefs would greatly upset
his parents. “But,”he says, “I can't deny my lack of
faith, either. I still believe in God; the teachings of Jesus even,
but the rest of Christianity...its Bible, its churches, its dogma –
only sets up boundaries between people and cultures. It denies the
beauty of being human, and it ignores all these gaps that need to be
filled in by the individual.”10
Religious certainty creates an all or nothing scenario, allowing no
room for ambiguity, or even questioning. Throughout his life, Craig
Thompson brought his doubts, concerns, and questions to leaders in
his church and religious life. Instead of lending an empathetic ear
or joining Thompson in his journey of struggle, they quickly
dismissed him. It takes great courage, and even great faith, to
voice doubt like Thompson did.
Once again, the
concerns within Blankets
about the Bible, church, and religion are impressively echoed in the
writings of contemporary religious thinkers.
Peter Rollins
champions the idea that we are lost, broken, and depressed, and that
we do not know how to fix this condition. More importantly, he
argues that religion cannot fully fix these issues, and we should not
expect it to provide such answers. Instead, Christianity should help
us acknowledge and confront our hurt, rather than attempt to escape
it. Rollins writes his in his book Insurrection,
“I would love to see churches take seriously the idea that
mystery, unknowing, brokenness, doubt, and mourning should be
expressed in the very structure of the church itself. Religion is a
system that gives us a sense of being right, of having the answers
and knowing how to stay on the right team. I want to see churches
that break religion open through the sermons, music, and prayers;
churches that bring us face-to-face with the truth of our unknowing
and pain.”11
While A Contract
with God and Blankets
personal, subdued tales, the
potential of the comic book medium is not limited to
expressing real life instances of doubt. A medium most well known
for the larger than life antics of superheroes in capes and tights
seems ideal for fantastic and incredible tales of the Divine. One
such incredible tale centers on the notion of God doubting God.
In the six issue
miniseries Punk Rock Jesus,
writer and artist Sean Murphy crafts a tale in the not too distant
future where a media conglomerate manages to clone Jesus. The
company then proceeds to raise the cloned Jesus on a reality
television show. The
endeavor is not without controversy, and a militant, fundamentalist,
Christian group
known as the New American
Christians, or NAC, soon
stages violent attacks
on the island compound where the show is filmed. Early on, the group
declares they are “messengers of the Lord” and nothing will stop
them.12.
The certainty of this group reflects Sharon L. Baker's fears that
religious certainly paves the way for religious violence. In
her book Executing God,
she writes, “I'm
extremely concerned about religious violence; I am worried about the
thousands upon thousands of people injured, massacred, or otherwise
abused by violence committed in the name of some God or some
theological 'certainty.'”13
For
Baker, the detrimental result of certainty is not merely a shallow
and stagnant faith. Instead, she feels such religious certainty
inspires religious violence. Certainty allows for no wiggle room.
It is rigid and unwavering, but also rather fragile, requiring
vigilant defense.
While
certain Christian groups object to the show, many more Christians
ardently watch the show. Despite objections from a scientist on
staff, the producer of the show insists that the cloned Jesus, named
Chris, be instilled with the religious certainty of the show's
audience. “Many of our viewers
are fundamentalists and would be uncomfortable
with their savior learning about science and evolution,” he
explains.14
Chris initially embraces this
certainty of belief forced upon him, but eventually the world around
him begins to crack. After facing some of the tragic events life can
offer, Chris begins to question both this God he is supposed to be as
well as the culture that has shaped expectations on how a clone of
Jesus should behave.
In
a rapid fit of rebellion, the now teenage Chris consumes as much
previously banned content as possible. He becomes obsessed with
viewpoints that counter everything he has been raised to believe.
The clone of Jesus forsakes Christianity, becomes an atheist, and
escapes his reality television show to join a punk rock band. Not
only does he abandon his religion, he
attacks it and strives to
undermine it. Chris
deliberately antagonizes his critics, goading them into increasingly
violent and erratic behavior. “It's
all part of my plan,” he explains. “Fundamentalists
like the NAC are destroying their own religion. Because of their bad
example, many Christians are stepping back.”15
At one point,
Chris' bodyguard, Tom, recounts to Chris his past as a violent foot
soldier in the Irish Republican Army. Chris says that religion made
Tom that way and that Chris' radical atheism will stop that. Tom,
however, counters, “Blind idealism did this to me. And it's doing
it to you.”16
Certainty of unbelief can be just as damaging and hurtful as the
certainty of belief. Performatively, there's little difference
between secular authoritarianism and religious authoritarianism.
The blind idealism
of religious certainty twists and corrupts faith. It can lead us to
violence. It can lead us to willful ignorance in the face of simple
facts or common sense. However,
certainty is appealing
because it is clean and comforting, while faith, true faith that
encounters, wrestles, and struggles with doubt
can be an unwieldy,
scary mess. But, it is also a beautiful mess.
Stories
and narratives of popular Christian culture reassure audiences that
the certainty of their belief is correct. But perhaps believers
would be better served by engaging narratives, like these examples
from comic books, that acknowledge and address the doubts of the
faithful. Perhaps
then, they might just be better equipped to cope with the inevitable
disruptions of their own faith whenever and however they should
occur. For, as Greg
Boyd says in his aptly
titled book Benefit of
the Doubt, “It’s
not a faith centered on right beliefs and pious language. And it’s
certainly not a faith that focuses on feeling secure and worthwhile
by convincing ourselves that we’re right. It’s rather a faith
grounded in authenticity that is therefore unwilling to sweep
questions, doubts, and complaints under a pious rug to avoid the pain
of cognitive dissonance. It’s a faith that is not afraid of going
to the mat with God.”17
1Peter
Rollins, The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty
and Satisfaction (New York: Howard Books, 2012), 156.
2Will
Eisner, The Contract with God Trilogy, (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2006), 25.
3Eisner,
xvi.
4Gregory
A. Boyd, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013), kindle location 1762.
5John
D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event
(Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2006), kindle location
5073.
6Craig
Thompson, Blankets
(Marietta, GA, Top Shelf Productions, 2003), 137.
7Ibid.,
548-550.
8Ibid.,
526.
9Sharon
L. Baker, Executing God: Rethinking Everything You've Been Taught
About Salvation and the Cross (Louisville, KY: Westminster John
Knox, 2013), 1.
10Thompson,
532-533.
11Rollins,
Insurrection: To Believe is Human, To Doubt, Divine (New
York: Howard Books, 2011), kindle location 2424.
13Baker,
4.
16Ibid.,
25.
17Boyd,
kindle location 1383.
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