Twilight: Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Empire?

Twilight is a novel that I thought I would never read because it never caught my eye at the bookstore. I didn’t even know what the story was about because I never read the summary, and I thought I wouldn’t like the book, but when I went back home for Christmas break I met my cousin and she told me to read it. She said it was a really good book. I knew there was a movie on Twilight, so I was a little curious why many people seemed to like Twilight, but that was all it was, curiosity. Curiosity wasn’t enough for me to go out and purchase the book. Later I was at the airport and I kept bothering my sister if I could go and buy a book at the bookstore near the food court. She agreed, so I went and looked around. I was searching for a book that would last for about five to six hours on the airplane ride; a book so fat and thick that it would last longer then the ride back to school. I didn’t find that book, so I just purchased a book that seemed a little bit interesting. But when I was about to leave the bookstore I saw Twilight: it was thick and fat and it might be interesting, so my sister and I returned the other book and bought Twilight. To my surprise it was a really good book, very interesting and hard to put down, but even though I thought it was interesting and a good book I kept having doubts whether this book was a good book. I had doubts on whether the book was written well, whether I liked the characters’ personalities, and whether it was promoting good values, but I shoved my doubts aside because then I had to question why I kept purchasing the author’s next book to the Twilight series. The conclusion I came to is this: I do like the idea of the story (except the part where it’s too focused on the romance), but not how it is written, I don’t really like how the characters are portrayed, and I don’t think Twilight promotes very good values. I believe this novel cries out for the empire and despite all of this I somehow end up liking this book.

Twilight is a love story where the main characters are Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. In this story evil is seen in the nature of the vampires. They are seen as monsters by the Quileute people of La Push because they hunt humans and drink their blood, but the Cullen’s are different they do not harm humans by drinking their blood instead they are more civilized and live among the humans which is not part of their nature. To live among the humans the Cullen’s drink the blood of animals. I see this as an attempt for redemption for what they are. The one who began this way of life was Carlisle because he became a vampire by accident and his father was an Anglican pastor due to this he felt guilty of what he became, so in the beginning he tried to destroy himself, but his many attempts of suicide did not work. Later he came to a realization that he doesn’t have to drink the blood of humans; this way he won’t harm them. This is his way of repenting for what he became. Carlisle also believes that vampires might have a soul and can go to heaven, but Edward doesn’t believe this; he thinks they will not be able to go to heaven. So the idea that vampires can go to heaven makes me think that redemption can be reached to people that seem completely evil and have no redeemable quality about them. This makes me think that everyone, even beings who are seen as too evil, can go to heaven if they believe in Jesus as our savior and believe in God.

In the novel, it is revealed that life in the empire is superficial and that life is about the individual. I say this because Bella and Edward seem like superficial characters because Bella is always preoccupied with Edward’s beauty and how he’s like a god, and Edward is very arrogant and flaunts his good qualities to Bella. She always thinks she is unworthy for him; this makes me think that the author thinks girls need to be physically beautiful and look like a model to be worthy of love. The novel gives off values of the empire; values that can be sold easily to the consumers such as beauty and idolatry. I think idolatry is a value the novel is supporting because Bella is making Edward into her idol; she mentions that she wants to become a vampire and doesn’t care what might happen to her soul if she can be with Edward forever. She cares more for Edward then her self spiritually. She cares more for him then going to heaven. Her heaven is being with Edward.

Twilight in a sense is a bad book for Christians because it teaches the values of the empire. The novel supports the empire instead of the Kingdom of God because it sells the ideas and desires of the empire. This novel is trying to capture our imaginations to read what the empire says is a good book. When I read the reviews on the back of the book it said things like “A New York Times Editor’s Choice” and “A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year,” but I think this is misleading because when I went to Amazon it had reviews with one star and not all the readers liked the book, but there were some who really liked the book and gave it five or four stars, but I think those people’s imaginations are still held captive by the empire. I am not certain if I like the book; I do seem to like parts of the story, but this makes me think that my imagination is held captive by the empire. If I read the novel a few years later again maybe I won’t like the novel, and then I will be free from the empire.