It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s… Theology! Rev. Carol Allman-Morton UUMSB July 29, 2018

My husband and I are both geeks, but with different palates. We have intersecting musical tastes. We both like Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, early punk, the Beatles, and lots of modern folk musicians. But, where I enjoy David Bowie, Tadd has copies of every Bowie live show he can find and remembers the differences in the recordings like an index. I enjoy field recordings of village singing in Bulgaria from the 1960s and lots of R&B, and Tadd’s Prog rock selections sometimes make me twitchy. We both like superhero movies, and some of the same science fiction. In the middle of the Venn diagram of our interests lives most Marvel comic movies, though not the super bloody ones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Star Wars (but Trek first), and more. Before I met Tadd, I hadn’t engaged with a lot of superhero stories, but in the first year we were dating, we saw Buffy and X-Men, and I was all in. I loved the complicated, wrenching stories. Like soap operas with a different moral compass and more explosions. When I was a kid, at the end of the Cold War, I thought Superman was an anachronism— hokey, silly, and a symbol of unexamined patriotism. Now here is an important question. Had I ever read a Superman comic? Of course not. Had I ever watched a Superman movie? I think one of the ones with Christopher Reeves, I have a vague recollection of a dam in peril? But I knew what Superman was, through absorbing the stories around me in the culture, and judged them. In doing some reading for today, I found a book on theology and superheroes by Ben Saunders, Associate Professor of English at the University of Oregon. We shared similar feelings of dislike for Superman. But he went back and read the original Superman comics from the 1930s. In the first year of Superman, he fought greedy and powerful people who were corrupt. He saved miners from dangerous conditions, attacked “dishonest stockbrokers in the oil industry”1 addressed unfair housing practices, prison reform, and was explicitly in the text a voice and helper for the oppressed. Saunders writes, “In other words, the good that Superman does is explicitly characterized from the outset as a form of sociopolitical intervention. In a world where some have power and some do not, the virtuous man, Superman, is on the side of the have-nots.”2 In these stories he destroys private property and confronts the political establishment to get to what is right. Great stories from two Jewish kids from Cleveland. When the comics started making money, they got regulated, and the stories changed. By the 1950s Superman stood for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” Whatever that means. Why are we here? What is good and evil? What does it mean to be human? Most folks engage with these kinds of questions in some way. It can be through shared family or community stories or sacred texts and practices. Some of our shared stories in the United States are about superheroes. They are shared by huge swaths of the population. Correlation does not equal causation, but it is true that in the last 50 years in the United States, our engagement with formal spiritual practices through organized religion has gone down, and our engagement with superhero stories across all types of media has gone up. We need stories about big questions and

1 Ben Saunders, Do Heroes Wear Capes?, Boomsbury, 2011, p. 21 2 22

1 ideas in order to wrestle with them, and if we don’t do it in religious community, we need to do is somewhere. Even if you haven’t seen a superhero movie in the last twenty years, you probably know roughly, the story of some of the biggest superheros, like Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, Batman, and so on. We illustrated this in our Grace Note today, as we made lists of what traits make a superhero, answered the question, “what do superheros do?” We have ideas about these things because these stories have cultural meaning outside the particulars of any given narrative. What are some of the moral and ethical messages that are communicated through superhero stories? In Spiderman we learn that “with great power comes great responsibility.” The writer Stan Lee was clear when he wrote this, that he was evoking Biblical and other philosophical references with that statement. Spiderman also teaches that there are some struggles that must be moved through, and cannot be avoided. Peter Parker keeps trying to give up the suit, and have a normal life, and simply cannot because of circumstance, and because of the responsibility he holds. X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer teach us that it is always better to tackle a problem together, that people bring different gifts to the table, and that when the leader of a group tries to go it alone, bad things will usually happen. Many superhero stories support a myth of redemptive violence, that the path for the hero to right a wrong is through hurting or killing the person who did wrong. Sometimes the hero learns that this path will only lead to their own corruption and further suffering, and some stories embrace the violence as a cleansing fire. Some Superheroes embody personal sacrifice for the greater good, and evoke a long line of mythical and religious stories in their imagery. Some of these moral and ethical messages I am down with, others I am not. So going back to Superman. Saunders writes, “The enduring appeal and significance of Superman derives less from his resemblance to prior gods and heroes than from his status as one of the most successful modern mass-media attempts to depict what philosophers since Plato have called the good.”3 Superman is always working toward what he understands to be the good, even when it puts him in danger. Consider his arch-enemy Lex Luthor. Luthor is a human who has done evil things. In Saunders words, “Luthor thus reminds us that while the consequences of evil may be spectacular, its origins are often ordinary: egotism, fear, jealousy, greed….Luthor is Superman’s arch-nemesis because of his human weaknesses and not in spite of them. It is Luthor’s job to remind us how hard it is for human beings to be genuinely good.” The theology of Superman is indeed earnest, and a little bit hokey, but like many religious traditions that have simple and earnest beliefs, they are incredibly complicated and hard to live. Love thy enemy as yourself is no easy task. Easy to consider, hard to do. If the moral of the story is that human beings are good and redeemable, even when they make bad choices, and it is our moral duty to protect other people, that is a great story. And that is not simple. “...It may be easier to fly, to see through walls, and to outrace a speeding bullet, than it is to love your enemy.”4 The particulars of any story are important for meaning making, culture, and history, but they are also important as vehicles to help us find the answers we are seeking. As Unitarian Universalists, we do not go to a single sacred text or story for answers to our big questions. We center our theological exploration in experience. So if one is steeped in science fiction, fantasy and superhero stories, then there is no reason not to use those as a jumping off point to find a

3 Do Gods Wear Capes, 17 4 35

2 way through big questions. Why are we here? What is good and evil? What does it mean to be human? What is right and wrong? There are stories, mythologies and narratives that are around us all the time. When we are in relationship with someone with whom we there is not an obvious shared world view, perhaps a relative at the holiday table, maybe there is another story ready to help—maybe it is Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street, or X-Men or Harry Potter. Human beings exist in relationship and need to communicate with each other. Being open to finding capital T truths and questions and ideas and theology wherever we are will only help us to find ways of communicating better. And, just as importantly will help us integrate reflection and spiritual care further into our daily lives. What are your favorite kinds of stories? What are your guilty pleasures? Take some time to think about how they help you understand your world. Are they stories where the hero always gets the bad guy? Where a team works together to solve a problem? Where there is drama and explosions? Where folks talk deeply about things that are important to them? Where everyone jokes and laughs in the face of danger? What do you need out of your stories, and why? There is lot more to our choices than that we simple “like” certain things. There is information in our choices of entertainment, in our faith lives, and in what we study and care deeply about. We need to listen deeply. We need to listen for the next layer in the stories we hear. We need to listen to our responses to the stories, on the inside. Are we comforted, challenged, confirmed in our assumptions, learning something new? We need to listen for the point of view of the writer, or the entity that is seeking to bring us along with their narrative. Whether it is the news, or our favorite TV show, or our neighbor, what are the answers to big questions, and the assumptions about them that are shaping the story? It is not a new idea that we need to listen critically to what we hear, but my invitation is to check our assumptions about where ideas of value are and where theological wrestling can happen. Could it be possible for people who have no common political ground to come to agreement on how we should behave together in community through conversation about the stories that are most meaningful to them? Sure. It is also possible that one might learn of a fundamental difference in understanding of something as important as the nature of humanity, or of a moral center, in listening to what stories have the most weight for those in power? Absolutely. By seeking meaning in a variety of stories, and in the stories that are embedded in our culture, we can see the operating narratives and assumptions within ourselves better. What prejudgments and prejudices are layered on how we see foundational stories in our culture, from superheroes, to what it means to be a citizen, to goodness, and who is here to hurt and help us. If I assumed that I knew what the Superman story was, even though I had never read it, what is it that I am assuming about other foundational cultural stories? What are the religious narratives that assume that I know what they mean, but I have no idea. How about you? When we consider cultural phenomenon like Superman, is the heart of the story that Superman saved the day, or is it about the hard choices he had to make to figure out how best to serve and know what was right? Maybe the important story is about how those with power, broadcast the narrative they want shared through all the possible media they can, especially to our children—and what it means to be good and to be a hero, changes over time. It is important to know where the broader culture stands on the nature of goodness and humanity, we certainly have a stake in how that turns out. May we have open ears, open hearts, and curious minds. So may it be. Amen.

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