Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

The house that jack built

Good vs Evil in Hollywood

Good vs Evil by Sugargrl14.

In the movie 30 days of Night, there’s a scene in which a girl walks through the town calling out for help because the evil vampires put her up to it.  She reaches the end of the street and no one has come out to help her – no one has taken the bait.  The vampires threaten her and she says “Oh God, please. Please Oh God.” The vampire just shakes his head and says “No.  No God.”  In narrative terms this establishes a base premise of the created universe.  In the world in which 30 days of Night takes place, there is no God (in the movie version, I haven’t read the graphic novels so I don’t know if it’s different) in much the same way the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe have a base premise of the existence of superheroes.

But have you noticed how even in supernatural thrillers like The Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Exorcist in which the church plays an important part, the Father rarely does?  Even Constantine which has a base premise of Spiritual Warfare has more about angels and the church than it does about the Father.  I think this occurs for three reasons.

Upholding standards or being a snob?

I tend to listen to Christian music.  I listen to Christian radio and NPR talk radio.  My favorite bands are Skillet, Pillar, and Thousand Foot Krutch.  I also have a deep affection for Romantic classical music and it’s modern cinematic children from composers such as Howard Shore (soundtrack from Lord of the Rings) and John Williams (Close Encounters of the third Kind).  So for some reason I’m not entirely sure of I decide to listen to some contemporary music.  I flip the radio to a local pop station and I manage to last all of three minutes before I have to change.  I luck out and get the traffic report but then I get probably two and a half minutes of music before I have to change again.

Demons, comic books, and Old King James?

So I’ve started reading this manga called “Blue Exorcist.”   The basic concept is that this kid’s father is actually Satan, but rather than join the family business, the kid decides to join the ranks of elite exorcists and take down the Prince of Darkness.  Ignore for the moment that he was defeated at the Cross- that takes guts.  What I really want to talk about though is how scripture is used in this manga.

Background: in the world of “Blue Exorcist” there are five ways to fight demons: with a gun, with pharmacology, with a sword, by taming demons and turning them against one another, and by reciting scripture.