{"id":283,"date":"2006-04-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html"},"modified":"2006-04-28T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-28T12:00:00","slug":"look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html","title":{"rendered":"Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p>A Jewish comedian claimed not long ago that he grew up thinking that all the comic-book superheroes were Jewish, because, like, say, Goldman and Federrman, all their names end in \u201cman\u201d: Spiderman, Batman, Superman&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A report on MSNBC this week examined more seriously the topic of <a href=\"http:\/\/msnbc.msn.com\/id\/12376831\/\" target=\"_new\">religion in comics<\/a>, which are growing more concerned with faith, according to the story. The American superhero\u2019s origin in Judaism have been explored, both in fact (click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ariekaplan.com\/kingscomicspart1.htm\" target=\"_new\">here<\/a> for an essay on Superman and the Golem) and fiction, most famously in Michael Chabon\u2019s Pulitzer Prize winning <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312282990\/sr=8-1\/qid=1146159279\/ref=pd_bbs_1\/103-5218895-6488652?%5Fencoding=UTF8\" target=\"_new\">novel<\/a>, \u201cThe Adventures of Kavalier and Klay.\u201d MSNBC\u2019s reporter interviews several academics who point out the growing interest comic-book writers have taken in religion, to gratify an their audience that is increasingly adult, and, like the country as a whole, increasingly religious.<\/p>\n<p>The theme pops up too on Progressive U., a national student blog, in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.progressiveu.org\/023135-on-the-importance-of-comic-books\" target=\"_new\">an interesting essay<\/a> about the essential religious nature of comics. The author portrays comics as modern pop mythologies\u2014you know, the boogie-man stories equivalent to cave paintings that we flatter ourselves our society doesn\u2019t indulge in anymore. Comic books, the essay claims, allows us to feel awe\u2014mostly concocted but sometimes taking a share of reality, as in the nearly wordless <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0785108777\/103-5218895-6488652?v=glance&amp;n=283155\" target=\"_new\">9\/11 installment<\/a> of  \u201cThe Amazing Spiderman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the record, with due respect to my Jewish brothers and sisters, Batman was an Episcopalian, and Superman a Methodist, as you can read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adherents.com\/lit\/comics\/comic_collage.html#Episcopalian\" target=\"_new\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Jewish comedian claimed not long ago that he grew up thinking that all the comic-book superheroes were Jewish, because, like, say, Goldman and Federrman, all their names end in \u201cman\u201d: Spiderman, Batman, Superman&#8230; A report on MSNBC this week examined more seriously the topic of religion in comics, which are growing more concerned with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Jewish comedian claimed not long ago that he grew up thinking that all the comic-book superheroes were Jewish, because, like, say, Goldman and Federrman, all their names end in \u201cman\u201d: Spiderman, Batman, Superman&#8230; A report on MSNBC this week examined more seriously the topic of religion in comics, which are growing more concerned with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-04-28T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"burb\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!","og_description":"A Jewish comedian claimed not long ago that he grew up thinking that all the comic-book superheroes were Jewish, because, like, say, Goldman and Federrman, all their names end in \u201cman\u201d: Spiderman, Batman, Superman&#8230; A report on MSNBC this week examined more seriously the topic of religion in comics, which are growing more concerned with&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2006-04-28T12:00:00+00:00","author":"burb","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html","name":"Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-04-28T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-04-28T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/712e98c75f8fee807fba226a8bfa2bd8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/look-up-in-the-air-a-methodist.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Look! Up in the Air! A Methodist!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/712e98c75f8fee807fba226a8bfa2bd8","name":"burb","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"burb"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/burb"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}