Spoilers…

This post doesn’t actually contain spoilers for anything.

A lot of fandoms have been looking pretty leaky lately. Doctor Who series eight premiers in a matter of weeks, but a number of scripts and the entire first episode leaked online over the summer. The BBC resorted to pleading with fans not to spread the leaks. Similarly, several episodes of The Legend of Korra leaked not long ago, causing Nickelodeon to rush into airing the third season in a bizarrely erratic manner. And those are only two examples of a growing problem. These days, if you plumb too deeply into the geeky corners of the Intertubes, you’re bound to dredge up spoilers without even trying. Online fandoms being the behemoths they are, this trend only promises to get worse.

The Avatar and the Christ, Part 2

Spoiler Alert: All seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, and associated comics, etc.

Previously on Jesus Geek…

In the fictional universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, the Avatar is a heroic being formed by the fusion of Raava, the spirit of peace and light, with a human. In our universe, the Christ is the incarnation of God, who is creator and giver of life and light. But just how alike are these two entities?

An eternal spirit of light becomes human to save the world. “Wait,” you say, “haven’t I heard this story before?” At first glance, the Avatar seems a lot like the Christ. But let’s dig deeper into the points of comparison and see how similar they actually are:

The Avatar and the Christ, Part 1

Spoiler Alert: All seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, and associated comics, etc.

No matter how much I love Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel, The Legend of Korra, I wouldn’t try to argue that these animated series are “Christian” in any meaningful sense of the word. But I am a Jesus geek, and that means I must endeavor to use the fictional universes I love as a means of worshiping God and knowing him better. So I got to thinking…

Halloween, Reformation Day, and the One Church

Geeks seem to have adopted Halloween as their own. The current popular American way of observing the holiday has been reduced mostly to candy, costumes, and carving pumpkins, retaining only the vestiges of paganism and no real Christian elements. Most people appreciate candy, and a large number of us enjoy festive gourds, but it’s the geeks more than anyone else who take to the costumes, or cosplay (costume play), an artform with a huge following at conventions. In the vacuum of meaning that is modern day Halloween, geeks see an opportunity to let their colors fly by imposing their geekiness on the vacuous celebrations. Hence, we get geeky pumpkins and a plethora of geeky costumes, and not all of them from cosplayers who have redirected their considerable efforts and skill. Some are from people who probably don’t self-identify as geeks. The recent popularity of superhero movies, coupled with big-budget sci-fi and fantasy action flicks and the dispersion of zombie-related fiction throughout popular culture, means that a wide variety of people might choose to dress up as Spiderman, Harry Potter, or Gandalf. That might be nothing more than a symptom of the widespread attention that these franchises have achieved, but it’s hard to deny that Halloween has become much geekier in the twenty-first century.

Now experience whiplash as I turn you around and direct your attention to the sixteenth century, when a German monk called Martin Luther

Geeks for God: A Manifesto

If I’m a geek and a Christian, Jesus Christ deserves for me to geek out about him above everything else, and to use my geekery to glorify him. Allow me to explain:

Geeks are known for, even defined by, their knowledge of and enthusiasm for subjects and pastimes that are a bit eccentric and fanciful. By this definition, I am a geek in a number of areas, including history, literature, fantasy, science fiction, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Pokémon, and more.

As important as all these subjects and franchises are to me, there is one thing I’m a geek about before and above anything else: Jesus Christ, his glory, gospel, Kingdom, and one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church. Being a part of geekdom and specific fandoms may be part of who I am, but my identity is truly found in nothing except Christ—and my geekery, like everything else, must be subject to him.