Twilight and Christianity

Being a Christian, raised as a pastor’s kid, and now operating in deliverance ministry for the past 10+ years I’ve been asked plenty of times why I think it is okay to follow the Twilight Saga. This is in response to those queries. 

WHERE I STAND ON THE SAGA

Like a good Christian girl, I had poo-pooed the books back when they were coming out. “Boo, Vampires are bad.” The first movie had been released by that time. And a friend of mine told me I should check out this love story. She handed me Twilight. (I am rather open-minded. I had read the first Harry Potter book and found out that it was no big deal, but it also wasn’t my cup of tea, so I didn’t read any more.) 

So I borrowed that black book with an apple on the cover and ended up falling in love with a vampire story. I think the major issue Christians have with Twilight is the vampire thing. They equate it to a demonic character. To the majority of Christians, demons are this mysterious and scary thing that no one understands. Oddly enough, I have been educated in the supernatural. No I’m not arrogant enough to say that I know everything about demons. I just know enough from my years in deliverance ministry of how they operate. So in my mind vampire does NOT equal demon. Vampires = fiction. Demons = real. No association, for me. 

Christians fear even the idea of demons, so when they equate vampires to demons, it is kinda ridiculous to me because I’ve never seen any demons suck blood. I think Christians fear what they don’t understand and when one Christian after the other says “Twilight-bad” it’s just ignorantly passed down the sheep-line. Yeah, we’re sheep, but God gave us a will and freedom of an opinion. 

My opinion is that the story is fascinating. I love falling in love over and over again through fiction. (I can’t handle more than a PG13 romance book, so Twilight fit my standards.) I read book after book and was hooked. 

The enemy wants to place any sort of wedge between people. A silly book came out about vampires and werewolves, now Christians have something to complain about. Yay. The enemy wins because he got us to judge others for unimportant things. Then the Christians that actually like Twilight feel shame about it and some of them hide it. Now they have what they think is a “secret sin” in their hearts. That is SAD. Might as well high-five the devil at this point. He is winning. (Not to mention, Twilight is just a story… not even worth the time I put into this article to explain.)

To mention a select group of twilight fans… the OVER-obsessed. It is common sense that elevating something as silly as a fictional story to being the most important thing in their life is down right idiotic… this group of people were messed up waaaaay before Twilight came around. (I don’t condone what the obsessed fans do!) Moderation people!

SO WHAT’S THE DRAW?

After interviewing a bunch of people sitting outside of the movie theater in line to see the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn (The 4th Twilight book) and asking them what their draw is to the Twilight Saga I’ve have a better understanding of what the big deal is about Twilight. The majority of the people mention the romance. The old fashioned romance between Edward and Bella is dreamy. Girls want to be unconditionally loved like that.

Yeah, some people go overboard and are in love with Edward or Jacob and some act as though it is “girl-porn” but I think they fall in to the “over-obsessed” category and should be slapped!

A friend of mine recently said, “The thing is, Twilight isn't like True Blood or Sookie Stackhouse where it's all about sex and sucking blood. This story is purely about relationships...the characters just happen to be fictional/fantastical beings.”

The biggest factor for me is the redemption of someone who is perceived as “evil.” Edward is a vampire. A damned soul. There is no such thing as vampires, so in my mind, we’re just dealing with the idea of a person who is damned or evil. Not a demon. Edward feels unredeemable, which is why he is so broody. But LOVE has redeemed him. I can think of several love stories where the “monster” is redeemed through love: Beauty and the Beast, and Shrek. 

He is a fictional monster/bad boy that Stephenie Meyers uses to redeem and show that even the worst of us are worthy of redemption and love. 

So is Twilight okay for Christians? It’s all in the way you look at it, I suppose. Decide for yourself. If reading Twilight causes you to sin... cut it off!