Superman from the Pulpit?

"It's A Bird ... It's A Plane ...It's Superman!”

Preaching from the Pulpit?  

Can you blame Warner Bros. for enlisting a special media marketer to promote its new Superman movie to special interests groups---including religious groups, including sending out stock "Superman Sermon Notes?"  This IS the way of promotion!  It was not different when other films came out like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.   Now, I have no problem whatsoever in finding analogies between films and faith--"this could mean that" and so forth.  But, if we compare them this way, then we must also point out stark contrasts.  In fact! I contend that the opposite is true--that Truth can be best seen in sharp contrasts.  In the same way that Isaiah proclaimed that "your thoughts are not my thoughts and my ways not your ways," so too can we use the media to identify what we do believe which Hollywood INC cannot possibly capture.  I mean--look at it seriously, do we wish to make the slightest comparison between superman and a God who flies around preventing tragedy?  Or, do we proclaim the God who pulls order out of chaos and life out of death?

The point is that small comparisons might oversell the larger themes.  Jesus as the "Man of Steel?"  Jesus as the "Super-Man?"  Really!  God becomes Jesus, fully human--not the "idealized type" because the fullness of God dwells in him, the human being.  So as the ancient professions says, "God come down to us to lift us up to God."  (Augustine)  He does not enter the human race as the master policeman to defend "truth, justice and the American way."  Jesus' sign is the cross and not powerful "S."