Doing Evil that Good May Come
Doug Wilson on Twilight:
Let me take this opportunity to point out the theological logic of this whole sorry business, offered as yet another reason why Christians ought to be having nothing whatever to do with this, as I say, sorry business. After all, what sense does it make to say, “Yes, well, I know the writing is terrible, but at least it has lots of Mormon weirdness!”
So there is something of a spoiler here, so if it is your policy to avoid spoilers, then stop reading now. At the end of the series, Bella does get it in the neck, so to speak. She gets vampirized, although I don’t exactly know how, having no intention myself of reading that far. Why does that matter?
The cover of the first book is a pair of hands offering a bright, red apple. Remind you of anything? And Bella is being drawn into the circle of the beautiful people, and they really are beautiful (if you like ochre eyes). This is the temptation and fall, only with a peculiar Mormon twist. The Fall was, according to Mormon theology, necessary in order to allow for spirit children to acquire physical bodies. As it says in their writings, “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:19-25). This is their version of the felix culpa, the happy fault, the fall considered as a sort of roundabout upgrade.
So the question now is, “Why shouldn’t parents allow their children to learn that we should do evil that good may come, just so long as they acquire that knowledge in writing bad enough to make your molars ache?” Not an easy question to answer.
