Touchstone Archives: Mormon Vampires in the Garden of Eden

From Russ Moore @ Moore tot he Point
The Theology of the “Twilight” Series
— Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 —

Let me preface this by saying the only people I know who’ve seen the “New Moon” movie are enthusiastic teenage girls and Boyce College Dean Denny Burk. I can guarantee you, though, that lots of adolescent and post-adolescent women in your congregation have seen the movie and are reading the novels in the “Twilight” series.

Touchstone, a magazine where I serve as a senior editor, just ran a fascinating article on the theology behind the series. Jonn Granger, who was called by Time magazine the “dean of Harry Potter scholars,” wrote this piece, focusing on what he sees as the distinctively Latter-day Saint theological-literary structure behind the series.

Read it, and think about his thesis. What does the “Twilight” series tell you about what young women in your communities are longing for? What does it tell you about the appeal of Mormonism?

Touchstone Archives: Mormon Vampires in the Garden of Eden

Family Christmas

Generation after generation of Christmases are strung across the decades of family histories via journals, diaries, drawings, paintings, illustrations, photographs, and videos that stand witness to precious memories. Treasured long-standing traditions become Christmas legacies carefully fostered and presented to each new generation of children, who are taught the role they play in maintaining the family's Christmas traditions.

These traditions can be very strong. They can be most useful in helping pass down the truth of the gospel from one generation to the next. We know from Scripture that the reason God led both Israel and the early church to practice such holy days was to help remind them of the statutes and testimonies of God and to cause the children to ask why these things were all about.
There is so little left of Christmas in our culture that represents a real holy day. Therefore, we must be intentional about passing down the heritage of faith that have received. Our children may well grow up in a culture where there is no spiritual meaning to the celebration of Christmas at all. They may grow to know it as a completely self-indulgent extravaganza of commercialism if we do not work to create traditions that communicate truth across generations.

We must be careful not to confuse the story of Jesus with the story of Santa Clause. If we do that we feed our culture’s mischaracterization of Jesus and the church as means to meeting the needs of a consumer Christianity. More importantly, we call into question the absolute truth of the gospel by equating God’s ultimate revelation of himself in the person of His Son to a fairy tale.

That is not to say that we can not play Santa and allow our children the imagination of Christmas. It is to say that we must be clear with them what is really real. It would be far worse to have to convince a child that Jesus is real because he just found out that Santa is not.
We must simply be careful that our culture is not successful in causing our children to think that Santa is more important than Jesus or that a Christmas Tree is more beautiful than the cross. We must be careful that we do not set an example that the material gifts of this world are more valuable than the spiritual gifts that we receive by the grace of God.

It is better to give than to receive. However, I pray that this Christmas we will be more intentional about communicating to our children that it is most glorious and delightful of all to receive the gift of God’s Son.

Rayanne and I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know that we are praying God’s blessing on every one of you who support us and Legacy with your prayers and material support.