The Twilight of Humanity
“They did not maintain their own principle, that is, the estate which God had given them… they were not satisfied with the status in which God had placed them, and desired something more.” [1]
I will admit this only for the purpose of this essay—I am reading the Twilight series. Mind you, by day, I tackle stacks of theology tomes for my MABTS degree; come night, one needs one’s fluff. I had long been curious to check out the great teenybopper fuss and was hoping for mindless entertainment. What I picked up as cerebral cotton candy, I instead found sticking to my teeth. As it turns out, the theology of my days and the mythical creatures of my nights insist on endless debate. So much for teen fluff. Seminary has ruined me for uncritical consumption.
In this popular series, awkward teen falls for hot vampire and gives up her humanity to be with him forever. Though embraced by a wide audience, critiques of Stephenie Meyer’s saga abound: protagonist Bella’s overdrawn clumsiness and blandness, her fast obsession with her new man (pardon me, immortal creature of the night); and, from former fans turned parents, a fresh unease with Edward’s creepy night peeps as Bella sleeps, and general lack of adult presence as teen makes irreversible choices. The theme I found most unsettling, however, was more—to use my new seminary categories—ontological. Bella does not pine for the typical teen changes in body shape, boyfriends, or social status; she craves instead to alter her very existence. Eyes full of godlike Edward, Bella becomes consumed with the desire to trade up her lame humanity and transform into vampyre.
Edward warns her, naturally, that his cold and restless infinity is not one to wish for. Naturally, she ignores his protests. What downside? Comparing herself to her faster, stronger, richer, gifted, and blindingly fine vampire friends, she broils in a self-loathing no teen should have to face. High School is hard enough; thankfully, few of us at seventeen had any real shot with the stunning undead. She suffers a growing contempt for her fleshly weakness, her failure to bring anything to the superhuman brood beyond a penchant for breaking bones, needing regular rescue, and being a continual blood temptation to her forbearing boyfriend. She is desperate to shuffle off her mortal coil. Although Edward frets over the forfeit of her soul should she freely choose this monstrous exchange, she can no longer envision life without him. “I was ready to join his family and his world…the next time something came at us, I would be ready. An asset, not a liability.”[2] Bella’s humanity has become her greatest handicap to flourishing.
Young adult literature often deals with the growing pains of adulthood; but Bella’s agony springs from her growing disdain at being human at all. As her fictional peers confront social struggles by getting popular, getting perspective, or just getting through, Bella decides to just get out. Not merely mercenary, her “courageous” choice is clearly patterned on the modern value of pursuing True Love past any obstacle; but ultimately for Bella, it is the embodied life that is not worth living. As friends move on to college, careers, and children, Bella’s post-graduation plans are to get bit and join the plausibly damned.
Aside from this unnerving Faustian leap, and discouragingly low view of humanity, Twilight cleverly taps in to the longing to exceed our frustrating limits and fly beyond this broken world. Who would not also grab at the chance to run like lightning, be breathlessly gorgeous and blissfully alive? But there are strings on this dream—Bella sacks her humanity at the risk of her soul; and unlike sacrificial superhero stories, she will likely become a predator, not a savior, of mankind. There is little virtue in her choice beyond sheer self-interest. Still, we can relate to her slamming the door on suffering, as we fester on in disease and futility, oppression and death. In this way, oddly, vampiric life becomes a dim stand-in for renewal. (Indeed, after Edward agrees to transform her via venom, Bella refers to the change as her upcoming “renovations.”[3]) Yet with so much at stake, her choice cannot be the unqualified salute the series presents. Bella seizes past her station at immortal bliss, but it feels like a devil’s bargain.
I get it—this is fantasy, a genre that trades on the dream of transcending fleshly limits; and it is no crime to wish for heaven. Yet it is seminary, surprisingly, that has brought me back down to earth. Studying Scripture has restored to me the high value of our human embodiment and earthly post. As theologian Herman Bavinck expresses, “Man is the purpose and end, the head and crown of the whole work of creation...It is said of no other creatures, not even of the angels, that they were created in God’s image and that they exhibit His image.”[4] It is man’s sin, not his humanity, that corrupts the earth. The Bible agrees with Bella that fallen human life is painful; at the same time, it affirms our unbroken call to steward the earth, and marvelously promises the final restoration of all creation.
Tell Bella there is hope for human life—and this from an embodied Savior! The God of creation so loved humanity that he sent his own Son to be born of flesh, die for our sins, and rise again in an imperishable body. Jesus did not scorn being cloaked in human weakness, but willingly identified with us in order to raise us up with him forever. The great hope of the Resurrection is not a final trashing of the failed flesh project, but a transformation of his people into bodies that can withstand a glorious eternity in God’s presence. As Paul declares, “We will all be changed…in the twinkling of an eye”[5] unto perfect, embodied joy forever. And it will be the Lamb of God, not seduction by vampire, that takes us there.
[Originally submitted to Covenant Theological Seminary’s student magazine, The Common Table, Fall 2021]
[1] Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1956), 222.
[2] Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse (The Twilight Saga Book 3) (New York, NY: Hachette, 2007), 435, Kindle.
[3] Meyer, Eclipse, 440.
[4] Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 184.
[5] I Cor. 15:51-52