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The Theology of the "Twilight" Series

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Let me preface this by saying the only people I know who’ve seen the “New Moon” movie are enthusiastic teenage girls and Boyce College Dean Denny Burk. I can guarantee you, though, that lots of adolescent and post-adolescent women in your congregation have seen the movie and are reading the novels in the “Twilight” series.

Touchstone, a magazine where I serve as a senior editor, just ran a fascinating article on the theology behind the series. Jonn Granger, who was called by Time magazine the “dean of Harry Potter scholars,” wrote this piece, focusing on what he sees as the distinctively Latter-day Saint theological-literary structure behind the series.

Read it, and think about his thesis. What does the “Twilight” series tell you about what young women in your communities are longing for? What does it tell you about the appeal of Mormonism?

Only when we see how lost we are, we can find our way again. Only when we bury what’s dead can we experience life again. Only when we lose our religion can we be amazed by grace again.

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About Russell Moore

Russell Moore is Editor in Chief of Christianity Today and is the author of the forthcoming book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (Penguin Random House).

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