Dark Knight of the Soul

God wants to strengthen us and encourage us so that we can experience the victory that Christ purchased for us by giving His own life and rising from the dead. Hebrews 12 exhorts us:
3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.

The struggle against sin is real and it can be difficult; but thank the Lord, He has enabled us to overcome - hard-wired in the new creation to be able to resist temptation and walk in freedom. Trying to live a good life in our own strength may yield limited success, but we can find ourselves overwhelmed and weary.  We need the power of the Spirit and the promises of the Word to sustain us in our difficulty - it's a winnable war, because Christ has won the victory for us!

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In 2nd Corinthians 2, we read about the concept of victory, of triumph, in the Christian life. We can choose to depend on our own strength and fall short of what God has in store, or we can release His mighty power in our lives and discover what He wants to do. And that triumph is contagious! We can read:
14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

In the world of superheroes, it is not uncommon to see the portrayal of supernatural beings or even deities.  But, I don't really stop to consider if these characters have any sort of personal religious faith that actually guides their life.  Sure, you have the conflict between good and evil, and superheroes are driven to do noble things, like...er...save humanity.

But, the personal religious faith of a so-called superhero has garnered some coverage recently, and the storyline has to do whether or not Batman, of the comic books, has come out as an atheist.  Now, I may be treading on some spoiler information here, so please be aware, but here's the deal.

According to the website, Screenrant:

Batman doesn't believe in God... at least not in a traditional sense. The revelation comes at the conclusion of comic writer Tom King's first post-Catwoman/Batman wedding arc in Batman #53. Since Catwoman left him at the altar, Batman has thrown himself into his Bruce Wayne identity by serving jury duty - on a case where Batman might have gone too far.

It's during his efforts to prove that Batman isn't perfect that Bruce Wayne reveals some personal information to his fellow jurors. Bruce Wayne is an atheist, but that's a recent change, since Bruce just gave up the belief of his own personal god - Batman.

Batman's religious confessions begin with Bruce Wayne talking about his own theological background, raised as a Christian by his father Thomas. Though Bruce never quite believed in Christianity as a small child, he accepted it. That's until his parents were murdered and Bruce, understandably, lost faith in everyone and everything.

Writer Tom King has weighed in on the debate, according to another article on the website.  It states:

Tom King has since refuted these claims, in a Tweet which can be viewed below. King claims that it was not necessarily his intention in writing this story to depict Batman is an atheist - but admitted the work is open to interpretation. He then encouraged people to read the comic for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

The website, ComicBook.com, offered this take:

In our own Comicbook.com breakdown of Batman #53, writer Nicole Drum didn't feel as though the scene was, in fact, an expression of aetheism. In her view, the scene was trying to say something completely different:

"It would be very easy to read this part of the issue as a clear declaration that Batman is an atheist. Many fans have interpreted the issue this way, leading to interesting debates... where some have even gone on to question how, exactly, Batman can be an atheist if he regularly works with Wonder Woman.. However, if you read the issue carefully there's another possibility that opens up: Bruce Wayne believes in something, he’s just lost all of his faith in it."

Meanwhile, the most recent actor to play the Caped Crusader, even though he has not starred in a movie of his own, is battling his own real-life challenges. According to Faithwire:

Ben Affleck is heading back to rehab after his estranged wife, Jennifer Garner, asked him to go amid the actor’s ongoing struggle with alcohol addiction.

On Wednesday, Garner appeared at the 46-year-old’s home, accompanied her lawyer, and her Bible. According to the Daily Mail, Affleck did not argue and willingly decided to go to rehab.

Garner drove Affleck to a live-in rehab facility in Malibu called The Canyon Treatment Center, where he checked-in for an extended stay.

The coverage implies that Garner's concern for her ex-husband is influenced in part by her desire to make sure that their kids have the impact of their father.  The couple still has not completed the requisite divorce paperwork.

The question of whether or not Batman believes in God might be a conversation topic among those who follow the comic book stories.  It appears that for years, his faith has been more in himself and the identity and acts of the character, who, of course, does not possess powers of his own.  We can consider this: whose strength do we believe in?  Batman wears a mask and has all sorts of cool tech - he works on behalf of humanity, but strip it away and what do you have? We have to consider whether or not our faith in ourselves is greater than our faith in the One who made us and draws us into a relationship with Himself.

And, that's the same for the real-life Batman - seems like the actor Ben Affleck has been in and out of rehab, but has not been able to experience the victory over addiction that has eluded him.  His wife, who was admittedly highly influenced by the movie, Miracles from Heaven, in which she starred, is attempting to bring hope and even brought a Bible to the latest intervention.  In order to live the productive, fulfilling life God wants us to have, it's important that we bring God's Word and allow it to intervene so that we might live out the triumph that God brought and bought for us through Jesus.  We cannot trust in ourselves to the extent that we pre-empt our trust in the One who has called us to follow Him.