The Gospel According to Lucifer
If you haven’t watched Lucifer on Netflix, go right now and watch the 93 episodes. This will only take about 3 days if you skip meals and sleep. Then hurry back.
Just kidding. This article will refrain from major spoilers, and it should make sense even if you haven’t watched or never plan to watch this show. This piece will be part homage to a great TV show and part reflection on how hell and the devil as concepts, even if they have been weaponized and have caused harm, can actually play a role in fruitful theological imagination.
An Homage to Lucifer
I first watched Lucifer because its main character is a version of the devil pulled from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman—the greatest graphic novel series of all time (and apparently soon to be a Netflix series also!). In Gaiman’s comic book universe, the devil has grown tired of ruling hell, so he leaves his post and runs a night club in Los Angeles.
I was sad to learn that this premise is literally the only thing the show has borrowed from The Sandman—the devil in LA. That’s it. No other elements of Gaiman’s masterpiece. In fact, I was perplexed as I watched the pilot episode, because the show presented itself as a procedural cop show! It was basically CSI: Los Angeles (Feat. the Devil). Who came up with this idea?
But for some reason, it works. I don’t know why it works, but it works. The LAPD solving murders with the help of a devilish consultant… works.
Maybe it’s the acting, or the singing(!), or the inventive weaving of mythology and religion into real-world relationships. If this appeals to you, again I encourage you to check out the show.
Serious Themes
But now on to the reflection: how can this show be enriching to our spirituality?
The show humanizes “spiritual warfare”
For instance, Lucifer (fallen angel) and Amenadiel (virtuous, obedient angel) are rivals, and they disagree—but they’re still brothers. Deep down, they still care about each other. Think about how relatable this scenario is—angelic beings who, at the end of the day, deal with the same complexities of relationship that we do. Contrast this with our common notions of “spiritual warfare,” just violent clashes between lovely angels and devilish creatures of pure evil. How can such conflict relate to us?
The show reimagines hell
Now, the show is not doing anything new here. Countless religious thinkers have tried to explain how there could be both a loving Creator and a place to mete out justice for evil. The hell in Lucifer is one where people are only consigned there by their own guilt. Yes, there are demons there to “torture” people, but it is only the torture of reliving the moments that cause the person to feel guilty. And—perhaps most crucially [MINOR SPOILER]—when a person is able to move past that guilt and extend/receive forgiveness, they are released from hell and enter into heaven.
The show offers redemption to everyone
This is not only true on the human level, where people of all genders, sexualities, races, and religions (or no religion) can experience heaven through love and forgiveness. It is also not only true for “good people.” But the show also [MORE MINOR SPOILERS] portrays learning, growth, and transformation for murderers, angels, demons, and the devil himself. This invites us into reflection on major questions about redemption. Can the most wicked person change? Aside from a lightning bolt from heaven, how can this change come about? And perhaps even more vexing—how can the holiest, most virtuous people grow and change?
If this isn’t already clear, the show does not claim to be Christian. I’m not sure Jesus is mentioned a single time in the six-season run. It does draw quite a bit from Genesis and other ancient Jewish mythology. But this is one of the beautiful things about stepping out from the shadow of conservative evangelicalism: we do not need to relegate ourselves to only Christian (and let’s be honest, only conservative evangelical) art and theology. We can learn from all kinds of ideas and perspectives.
We can learn from Lucifer.
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