Why Evangelicals Should Love Twilight

The Twilight series of books (and movies) by Stephanie Meyer has gained a cult-like following among young girls and housewives the world over. Many Christians think it is a bad influence; in reality, it prepares girls and young women for the ideal Christian — or Mormon — marriage.

Many Christians are concerned by Twilight’s occult flavor; the male lead is, after all, a vampire. Don’t worry! These vampires bear no resemblance to traditional vampires, and are thus safe for Christian consumption. Indeed, there are many ingredients in this series which make it a tasty treat suitable for Christian children.

Recipe: Start with a 100+ year old immortal guy, who, we are well assured is very, very, very good looking, and sparkles for some reason. Add a female character so devoid of personality, substance and description that she can effectively serve as a Mary-Sue surrogate for the naive 13-year old girls (or 13-year old girls at heart) of the world. Stir in an abstinence obsession so convoluted and bizarre that it could only have been hatched from someone who has some serious misconceptions about sex, and then layer heavily with a abusive and unhealthy relationships. Bake for multiple printings.

Mary-Sue Bella is presented to us as superficially as possible right from the outset; not only does this demonstrate how a Christian should be — an empty vessel, waiting to be filled by God or by a Christian man — but the lack of meaningful description makes it easy for readers to place themselves in the story. As a good Christian woman should, Bella spends most of her time without a thought in her bland little head, just occupying space and waiting for someone or something to happen.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #1: Bella’s not a happy girl, since she hasn’t yet been filled by God or husband.

Before Bella has the chance to slit her wrists from boredom — or we have the chance to fall asleep — Bella meets Eddie. As soon as her man comes along, everything is sunshine and daisies. Godlike, he watches her all the time, even when they aren’t dating and he doesn’t have any justifiable reason to be anywhere near her. This is what is known as being ‘protective’. With a man now in her life, she’s safe from all harm, even actively rejecting self defense measures like pepper spray. I mean, who would need protection when you have an all powerful, omnipresent Man in your life?

Christian Marriage Ingredient #2: Your man — or God — will take care of you, so you don’t have to take care of yourself.

After an eternity of longing gazes and hack writing, they finally reach the point where we expect them to consummate the relationship like horny teens the world over. But they don’t, even though Bella really wants to! Edward remains firmly in control of their physical relationship, because he is a vampire the man, and that’s the end of the discussion.

So this centagenarian strings this teenage virgin along without even allowing her to kiss him. But it’s LOVE, readers say. It’s complicated! BULLSHIT. This has all the markings of Stockholm syndrome as well as emotional torture.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #3: The man should always remain firmly in control of every aspect of a Christian relationship.

In the second book (and movie), Edward’s benevolence is fully demonstrated when he unilaterally decides to leave Bella. Without a strong man to take care of everything, she literally shuts down. We’ve all been there, and written our fair share of emo poetry (or is that just me?). A “modern” person develops some self reliance and independence, and usually comes out a better person. Our role model? Hell, no! Emotional independence might lead to independent thinking, and men don’t like girls who think for themselves.

Bella’s luck improves when another man, Jacob, comes along to pick her up off the ground. Yes, she finds another creepily obsessed guy — this time, a werewolf — to stalk and watch over her.

Jacob introduces her to his family, which is full of other ‘normal’ relationships, including a fiancee who was beaten to the point of death by her werewolf man. But she LOVES him! Potentially fatal beatings are just one ingredient in the spicy stew that is love.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #4: Women should accept discipline from their men without question.

That’s not love, that’s abuse, and there isn’t a single person in the world that deserves that, and I don’t care how nice his pecs are or how much he really, really wants to fuck kiss you.

From this point, Bella and her female companions begin to refer to themselves only in relation to their man, in an implicitly subservient fashion (vampire girl or wolf girl). It’s very good that this was so prominently displayed, as all good girls should take their man’s name, and as much of his identity as soon as possible. Only women that don’t really love their men keep their own names.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #5: Women should think of themselves only in relation to their men (or, having no man, God).

It is almost certainly a coincidence that this book, written by a Mormon, makes the concept of waiting so central to the romantic plot. Millions of young women in our country are growing up today, receiving conflicting messages about their budding sexuality from all sources. Thankfully for the mental health of these women, Twilight has become the model for a proper relationship.

What’s Twilight’s message for young Christian women?

Their own physical, psychological and emotional needs should be completely secondary to their man’s, and that it would be utterly wrong and unnatural to pursue any sexual relationship that isn’t instigated fully by the man, or even to question or second guess his all-encompassing edicts.

Furthermore, the main reason that you should get married is to consummate the physical relationship that the man has been tempting (but never granting) you for years, and any deviation from this perfect, celestial model is indicative of a personal fault only on the woman’s part. These women now know that their main value as humans (or vampires) is to make babies, and the physical pain that results from this is because they are women. Most importantly, when they do finally become pregnant, it is vital to bring the fetus to term, even and especially when the woman’s life is in danger. After all, there is part of her man inside her that is worth much more than she could ever hope to be.

When you combine that with the quality of writing that you find in parts of the Bible, not to mention the warped moral messages contained therein, it becomes obvious why Twilight should be heartily embraced by every Evangelical family under the sun.

We’ve already seen what positive results this abstinence-only message has caused within the evangelical subculture, what with the higher birthrate among young evangelicals (like Bristol Palin), so the messages contained within the Twilight series could only be good for a Christian society at large.

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Andrew Komar

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