I have mixed feelings about the movie because I know the people making it are very politically Conservative, the kinds of Christians I'm very often specifically arguing against on my other blogs since I'm a Communist and LGBTQ Ally.
However I try very hard to view these disagreements as a disagreement within the family. I still value much of what I've learned from the likes of Kent Hovind, Chuck Missler, Chris White and Rob Skiba, and those individuals are in some ways to the right of Kirk Cameron. And of all the recent trend of Evangelical movies, this one is kind of the easiest to separate from their politics. And the BreadTubers as much I love them are taking a lot out of context when they try to paint the film as if it's main message is F*** poor people.
What Kirk says near the end about "imbuing old symbols with new meaning" is what the Church has always done. And I find it amusing how people while mocking the movie want to call that deceptive when they promote Death of The Author elsewhere. The first people the movie is actually against are those Christians saying we should reject Christmas for being UnBiblical, he's trying to say if it bothers you so much make it Biblical. It's what Peter Hiett is doing when he says to "watch the Harry Potter movies looking for Jesus" in his Acts 17 sermon. And it's what I sometimes do looking for Jesus in Anime.
And that's where I come in. Because I see that quote from the movie as partly his call for others to continue doing what he started. And who better then me to start creating Biblical meanings for uniquely Anime related Christmas traditions?
One uniquely modern Japanese Christmas tradition you might notice in Anime from time to time is eating KFC at Christmas time. It apparently had it's beginnings in an old KFC marketing campaign. Well Chicken is commonly interpreted as being a Levitically clean animal, Chickens aren't directly mentioned in Scripture but when comparing birds that are clean to birds that aren't Chickens seem to fit in with the clean ones, being similar to Quail, Turkey, Geese and Ducks, some of those were already common Christmas meal options in the West. In fact it's even become acceptable in modern Rabbinic Judaism to eat Chicken instead of Lamb for Passover. The rest of that connection should be self explanatory.
I said last year that in the context of it's position in the conversation about what makes a Christmas Movie I consider Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's to be the Batman Returns of Anime. So I seek to make it a personal tradition of mine to watch that Anime every holiday season. The Christian meaning I see in it is about the same as I usually do in the rest of the Magical Girl Warrior Genre, themes about Love and Found Family and saving even the villain of the story.
However my main event tonight is what has over the last few years become a Christmas tradition of the Anime Meme community. For those of you who don't know what Padoru Padoru is, here are some links.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/padoru
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKr96s8sxk
It doesn't take long at all to connect this to Christianity. Because the character who started it all is the historical Roman Emperor Nero re-imagined as a Cute Anime Girl because..... well because Anime.
She is sometimes refereed to as "Saber Red" or "Red Saber" which can create confusion with Mordred in Fate/Apocypha.
Nero is traditionally viewed as the first Emperor to persecute the Church. I have argued that the Neornian Persecution is actually ahsitorical. But Fate/ is not aware of any of that niche historical dispute, and they didn't ignore the issue either. They included the Persecution as part of Nero Claudius's backstory, but also gave her character depth and nuance.
Even the sin of persecuting Christians is one Jesus can and Will forgive, it was after all Paul's sin which is why he called himself the Chief of Sinners. So this image of one who once persecuted the Brethren of Christ thousands of years later joyously celebrating the Birthday of Christ fits perfectly what I believe in as a proponent of Universal Salvation.
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