Western Mythological Cinematic Universe

A lesson for Christian artists from King Arthur

In American culture, for the longest time action / super heroic entertainment consisted of characters that were neither religious or nor not religious, but just safety secular.

Meanwhile religious entertainment has God-believing characters but had to always have a moral, not be too violent or too ridiculous, with the result that religious entertainment was ghettoized from the main culture.

Or if characters mention a belief in God it has to be fast, nondenominational and probably never brought up again. A good recent example of this is “There is only One God ma’am, and I am pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that . . . ” by Captain America. No controversial Christian teachings brought up, and this faith, while briefly acknowledged is never is shown driving the character.

We take for granted that we need to compartmentalize ourselves in Western culture with religious life separate from political life, our work life existing for its own sake (not to provide for our family) etc. This extends to our entertainment life. We have secular super heroes and On The Nose religious entertainment like BibleMan. We presume that they must not meet.

The Arthurian myths have brainless superheroic action, boawdyness, adultery, romances that aren’t perfect or tales that are just ridiculous. . .but still take place in a Christian world. In other words the Marvel Universe of medieval times was able to provide over-the-top entertainment and appeal to the not-too-pius, whilst still having a world ultimately shaped by Christ.

We should have heroes of faith, even in fiction that isn’t going to end with Bob the Tomato reading a Bibleverse. And the authors of those stories should feel free to depict humanity as it is, just as Arthur’s Knights were so very human (and sinful). In doing so the Arthurian storytellers were able to evangelize fiction.

The Western Mythological Cinematic universe

I recently made this flowchart showing the interconnections of numerous Western Myths from Homer to T.H. White. There is a whole literary world of adventure to explore.

From The Net: What is the Pendragon Cycle?

“Its about . . . what it is to be a man, what it is to have a mission, what it is to believe in God, in Christ in a world that isn’t receptive to that. .”