First, a quick (and not very in-depth) review of Blankets, the graphic autobiography by Craig Thompson. It’s been a few months since I’ve read it and I’ve had time to organize some thoughts. *Spoilers*
I first heard about Blankets while reading Scott McCloud’s books. After seeing it mentioned a few more times elsewhere, I decided to pick it up. Artistically it was wonderful – the style first comes across as rough and gritty, but there’s a smoothness to it that I grew to appreciate.
The first three chapters had me absolutely hooked. I could relate to Craig very much. Growing up in a church setting, drawing a lot, and getting picked on at school. Later on, he meets his first love, something I have yet to do.
But all throughout, I was hopeful of something. Hearing about its subject matter, I was hoping that this would be a story that would give Christianity a good name.
What I saw was every Christian stereotype: Insisting on knowing God’s will for another person, considering secular professions (like art) unholy or useless, and of course, being homophobic.
Now, I didn’t mind this at first. I thought he would use this to illustrate a point. None of it really bothered me until the very end. By this time I was asking him, “Come on – wasn’t there just one person? One pastor or friend who defied those stereotypes? Out of the hundreds of Christians you saw, there had to be a real one, right?”
Probably the closest thing to it was in the last chapter (or it might have been the afterword). A pastor, in an attempt to explain some alleged contradictions and ease his doubt, told Craig that the original scribes added their own “twists” to the Bible. Instead, that was the last nail in the coffin of his faith.
What I took away from this book is a scathingly honest and all-encompassing review of Christian hypocrisy. It’s a problem that we never seem to hear the end of, but well, it isn’t going away anytime soon.
Still, that doesn’t ease the intense feeling of disappointment. The ending was a twist in the worst way for me, but I suppose if it had happened in reverse, atheist/skeptic readers would have felt just as cheated.
I write all this because I’m curious: Do you know of any major works of fiction that shed at least a little positive light on Christianity, that are not labeled Christian, Spiritual, Religious or the like? It seems like if something mentions Christianity without portraying it as negative, it falls right out of the mainstream. About the only thing that came to my mind was The Simpsons’ Ned Flanders. :|
