Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Religion in Fiction?

As everyone probably knows, I'm not at all religious, but at the same time I find religion endlessly interesting to discuss. And even I admit that it isn't all bad!

In principle, I would be okay with an Elseworlds story which treats Clark as religious. (Obviously it would be in accordance with the rules of these boards to merge religion and LnC in an Elseworlds setting!) How I really would react to such a story would depend on what it actually had to say about religious Clark. Bottom line, would it turn Clark into the kind of character that kept showing up in the stories that my religious relatives gave me when I was a kid?

Let me describe a typical story that I was raised on. This one was about a boy and a girl, both around sixteen years old. One day the girl found Jesus and was born again, and she joyfully told the boy about it, asking him to open his heart to Jesus, too. The boy scoffed at her, in a way that rang totally false to me ("I don't believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer and Saviour!"). Having thus rejected Jesus, the boy instantly became a juvenile delinquent, starting to mug pensioners right away. He was soon caught and put in jail. But the girl pleaded with the judge to let her see the boy and pray with him. The judge relented, the girl got to see the boy, they prayed together, the boy cried and repented, the judge let him out, and the boy and the girl walked off into the sunset, singing and praying as the angels gathered in the sky above them. The End. I have to tell you that I didn't like this story, and if anyone writes an LnC fic which in any way resembles it, I'm not going to like that one, either! But still, it would clearly be within the rules to write such a story and post it here as an Elseworlds tale.

But the religious theme could be explored in more interesting ways in an LnC setting. You could explore ways in which Clark might try to cure his existential loneliness by trying to find a haven in religion. For example, he could become a regular church-goer and a loyal member of his congregation mostly so that he could feel that he was one of these people, that he belonged with them:



Look at this picture. Doesn't the dark-haired guy who can be seen pretty much in the middle of the picture look a lot like Clark? For someone like him, an orphan from another planet, it might feel very good and soothing to be surrounded by so many people and feel that he belonged there.

What if Clark was trying to find a spiritual haven and an explanation for why he is here at all, and an answer to what his mission on the Earth might be? He might become a spiritual seeker, seeking out different religions to see if there was one which could give him the answers he craved. When I was looking for an image to illustrate such a spritual quest, I came across this one:



As you can see, this is the cover of a book written by a man called Imam 'Abdallah Ibn 'Alawi Al-Haddad. That is an Arabic name, and the author is almost certainly a Muslim. I find it far more likely that Clark would try to find his answers within the Christian tradition than in any other religions, but still, it certainly is possible that he might turn to other religions for answers.

Let's consider another possibility:



What if Jonathan and Martha Kent had been stern, strict religious people? If Clark had been raised in such a home, that would certainly have affected his outlook on the world.

It seems to me that Americans often see their religiousness as a part of their patriotism. In comic book canon and in the Superman mythos in general, Superman has often been depicted waving the American flag.



What if he was shown holding the Bible as well as the flag? And in what ways would that change him and the role he played on the earth?



One possibility is that Superman could become a new prophet and a founder of his own religion. He could display his own strength and claim that God had given it to him, because he was God's chosen prophet.



This picture shows Samson using his God-given strength to defeat a thousand Philistines. Superman could show off his strength in a similar way and claim that God had given him his power, so that he, Superman, could show people the way to God.

To summarize, there are many different ways that religion might affect Clark Kent, and surely these questions could be discussed in fanfiction.

Ann