Rose Marie Berger’s glib essay on hell won’t do ("Damnation Will Not be Televised," November-December 2003). She concludes: "If you want to know about hell, ask someone who’s been there."
No doubt she overlooked our Lord’s powerful sermon on the subject (Luke 16). In a parable, the rich man begs for someone to return from the dead to warn the living of the terrors to come. Jesus said, "If they don’t pay attention to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded though one rose from the dead."
It’s fashionable to wave aside the thought of eternal judgment with talk of hellish poverty and war. According to our Lord Jesus’ clear teaching, it will be much, much worse than that. We’d be better off reading the Bible on the subject than watching Buffy.
I have little belief - if any - in the supernatural, and thus choose to just watch Buffy and Angel as shows. People will make of the whole religious connotations what they will, but in my money it’s just two shows that are incredibly consistent and amazingly acted.
Or you could turn it the other way around...
"I’m not a religious person but I do read the bible... and I don’t really get affected by it, I know it’s only a fairy tale."
i’m a christian too, but i love buffy to bits. if people care enough to write about how buffy is satanic and blahblahblah, then they’re the ones that are scared of falling too deep into whatver they call witchcraft.
I’m also a Christian and I couldn’t be a bigger Buffy fan. I see the point of being cautious of what we put into our mind, it does affect us. But if we keep in mind that it is a separate (make-believe if you will) universe from our own, then the threat of us downplaying the seriousness of Hell is greatly dimminished. I personally would like Joss to deal with Christianity more. Maybe a character with a Christian perspective along the lines of Nightcrawler (in X-Men) would add an interesting dynamic.
i’m a christian as well, and like people have said i dont get affected by watching buffy, i think its great television for its amazing acting. but i am worried about other people who watch the show who might not know where they stand at the moment in terms of their beliefs especially young people
The person who wrote the article clearly needs to read the Bible instead of watching Buffy, because Vicki Holland overlooked something else in the Bible. It says in the Bible that once Jesus died, he went to Hell, and got the keys to the gates of Hell,(making it now a way to go to Heaven instead of Hell), and came out of Hell, and ready to go into Heaven.
I too am a practising Christian, I watch Buffy, but I’m also mature enough to be able to take the good things from the show, and ignore other things.
but I must admit that buffy is one of the first shows of its kind not to deny the existance of heaven & hell. It doesn’t glamourise witchcraft, infact it shows the downfalls of meddling with occult, its a great show that actually supports the bible in many ways.
Jesus is my Lord & Saviour and I love the show, and I see nothing spiritually wrong with the show as long as the veiwer is matire.
I’m finishing an M.A. in Religion at a theological seminary. Right now, I’m working on my thesis, which is entitled "She Saved the World A Lot: Buffy Summers as Christ-Figure." While I would never downplay the importance of the Bible, I do believe Ms. Holland is reacting to popular, right-wing criticism of a television series with which she is not at all familiar or to which she has had very limited exposure. If she viewed the series through a postmodern theological lens, she would find it of infinite value.
hey there. for the record, Im a christian too. Losa people say that (approximately 60% of Americans I know), but I take it more seriously than most people. I still tend to agree with the general concensus of this thread though that Buffy is OK if you can separate the good from the bad. Its like that with everything though. I find Buffy to embrace ethics better than Seinfeld or the Simpsons. The diference with Buffy is that it aproaches the occult head on and people get antsy about that. Enough said. I also scanned through that article. It wasn’t that bad. I’ve seen many worse essays from Christians bashing Buffy than this one. The stuff mentioned on the board here was about the extent of any negativity towards the show...
I am a catholic but only on the paper. America seems to be a lot more religious than Europe as such discussions do not really occur over here. We see Buffy as what it is - a TV show. In my opinion a very good one. But I do not believe at all in the occult but only in science. I am sorry that I have to say to the lady who wrote the article that she should wake up to the 21st century. One simply cannot take the Bible literally as it was anyway translated about a million times. She should read up on Physics, Biology and Chemistry instead of the Bible to understand how the universe was created.
I am both a Christian and a Buffy fan, and I suspect that Miss Holland has not managed to get below the surface of Buffy. Of course, it’s not a Christian show. It could well be called ’pre-Christian,’ though: it takes seriously the facts of sin and of the need for redemption, of the real difference between good and evil, of the falseness of dogmatic materialism ... (one could go on). In short, this is a show that raises all the right questions, and as such it is a glorious exception to the general run of shallow, hedonistic television programmes screening today. The popularity of Buffy is an extraordinarily encouraging development, and I am certain that the show has done a great deal of good for its viewers, especially the younger ones.
you had to govern what was mine didnt you didnt you you belived in all their lies didnt you didnt you you dreamed a god up and called it christianity his perfect kingdom of killing suffering in vein your god is dead and no one cares if there is a hell ill see you there. cetain t.v. shows and music are a good catalyst for free thought something christians and your government will always try to take away from you. please buy guns and revolt against the christians with me when they’ve become such a cancer in that all of the freedoms we have left are threatend. i consider that a public service announcment lol.
In the UK, 7 million people watch Buffy every week while less than 2 million go to church. More people watch Buffy in the UK than in the US in spite of having a much smaller population.
I don’t know if anyone called Jesus ever existed. There is no archeological evidence so it’s purely a matter of faith. You either believe or not and I have no strong feelings one way or the other.
I do know that Buffy existed because Joss Whedon wrote it. I know for a fact she died twice to save the world and rose again from the dead. Also since Joss Whedon created Buffy I haven’t seen a single vampire, werewolf or demon in this neck of the woods. Mind you I never saw any before.
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