Tag: Christ Figures

Mary Poppins is an Unlikely Christ Figure

On By Christopher LansdownIn Uncategorized2 Comments

When it comes to Christ figures in movies, a British nanny with a talking umbrella in a musical for Children is not, perhaps, where one would first look. And yet, I think a strong case can be made that Mary Poppins is, in fact, a Christ figure. She’s not a complete representation of Christ, of course, but then most Christ figures aren’t. (Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is the only one I can think of who is. And he’s not so much a Christ figure as, well, Christ, just in a different universe.)

If you look at the basic structure of the movie, the Banks’ home is in chaos. They do not value things in the right order, with the things of highest important at the top, and so the relations between all the people are in disarray and they do not get along. In this dysfunction Mary Poppins enters, literally descending from the heavens. She does all things rightly (she is practically perfect in every way), and calls all of the people around to live their life well. That is, she calls sinners to repentance. She demonstrates, with wonders, that she is no mere sage, but someone having authority beyond that of human authority. After restoring a right ordering to the things that the people value, which reconciles them to each other, she then departs, because if she were to stay they could not do the work they’re supposed to do. She departs by ascending back to the heavens from which she came.

As I said, she’s obviously not a complete Christ figure. For one thing, she doesn’t heal anyone. The blind don’t see, the lame don’t walk, and the deaf don’t hear. Also, she atones for no one’s sins. That’s kind of a big one.

None the less, this is an interesting lens through which to view the film, and I think it can help one to get true things out of it.

Christ Figures in Fiction

On By Christopher LansdownIn Writing1 Comment

Relating to my recent post about Christ Figures & Heresies, I thought it worth pointing out what I meant by a Christ Figure, since the term is often used narrowly and in suspicious circumstances (English classes where people are trying to seem clever).

Christ figures in literature are—when done well—about characters who relate to the rest of the story as Christ related to the world. At the extremes they are basically a re-presentation of Christ with some of the details changed. Probably the best example of this is Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Far more common, though, is a limited Christ figure.

The salient features of Christ that a limited Christ figure can partake in are:

  1. Saves the world from the effects of the mis-use of free will.
  2. Has a dual-nature where one of these natures is what allows #1.
  3. Bridges the gap, in his person, between the two natures.
  4. Sacrifices himself willingly for the sake of the world
  5. In sacrificing himself, takes the problems of the world into him and conquers them, thus saving the world from them.
  6. Comes back from the sacrifice because of his other nature.

A favorite example of a limited Christ figure is a detective in a mystery story. In a mystery story, the right-ordering of the world is destroyed through the misuse of reason (the crime) and the detective, who is an outsider, comes into the damaged nature in order to, through the right use of reason, restore the right ordering of the world. The detective does not die and come back, but he does take the confusing of the world into himself and then, through his superior reasoning and impartiality from not being immediately impacted, restores it first in himself, and then from him the restored order flows out to others.

As you can see, this isn’t about being a clever ass to notices a few external similarities, in the manner of a desperate English teacher saying, “He offered someone wine then later went on a three day vacation and came back! He’s a Christ figure!”

Good Christ figures are about the nature of the character, the nature of the world, and their relationship to each other.

Another feature of good Christ figures is that you don’t need to identify them as Christ figures in order for the stories they’re in to be good stories. Identifying a character as a Christ figure should deepen one’s understanding of the story and of the real world. If the story is garbage without your secret decoder ring, it’s garbage with it, too.