Christian nerds, I present for your consideration: Holden Hardman. If you haven’t heard of this guy, go look him up on YouTube. He spent his quarantine showing his friends the MCU and getting their opinions. If that’s not nerd cred, I don’t know what is.
Holden recently began a series called God in the MCU in which he analyzes Christian (or Christian-adjacent) imagery in Marvel movies. He does it with Scripture, good ol’ common sense, and a good-natured attitude. It’s pretty good.
Watching this series made me realize I never got around to completing my own contemplation of Christian-compatible themes in the MCU. I’ve been inspired, so let’s jump into this, starting with Iron Man.
The story of Tony Stark is a story of redemption and forgiveness. In the beginning of his story, he’s about as worldly as it gets, complete with the selfish ego that often comes from a life with very few consequences. When the consequences do come, he almost dies.
After Tony survives, he spends his entire life – right until the end – trying to make the most of the second chance he’s received. No, he doesn’t give his life to Jesus, but in many ways, he’s a great model of the redemption process.
And it is a process. Christians often emphasize the fact that we don’t need to do anything to earn God’s forgiveness. We just need to ask for it and accept it. God’s forgiveness is the easy part. Dealing with people is usually harder. Even after we’ve received God’s grace, we probably still need to do something about our past mistakes as far as people are concerned.
Most of the bad things that happen to Tony Stark/Iron Man is because of something he did – someone he hurt – back when he was a more terrible person. Some of the people he hurt – Whiplash, Justin Hammer, the Mandarin – have no interest in reconciliation, so he has to rocket-punch them in the face. But he needs to swallow his pride over and over again to navigate his relationships with Rhodey, Pepper, Peter Parker, and Steve Rogers.
He keeps making mistakes, but he keeps trying to be better than he was before. That’s what we can learn from him.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Let’s Connect!
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The Correlation 