Magneto was the Hero - Part 2

X-Men and the Cost of Discipleship

Suspendables edit of a Magneto trading card, circa 1995

February 4th, marked what would have been Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 119th birthday. As mentioned in part 1, the Lord called him home when he was only 39 years old. Murdered in a Nazi death camp for having the courage to pick up his cross and follow Christ. In His wisdom, the Lord called him home then. I couldn’t begin to explain to you all of the reasons why; lives he touched and impact he made on pushing the gospel message forward. Certainly Bonhoeffer has had an impact on me, but I have no doubt that is a very minuscule reason for “the why” in which God directed his path.

Out of the things I could say about Bonhoeffer, the most impactful has been his explanation of “cheap grace” vs. “costly grace.” Bonhoeffer attacks this problem that he saw in the church then, and certainly which we are seeing in the church today, in The Cost of Discipleship. Of cheap grace he says, "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace." Conversely for costly grace he says, "Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock."

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, repentance, or obedience whereas costly grace is grace that demands self-denial and obedience to Christ. He criticizes Christians who embrace forgiveness and salvation without the corresponding call to transformation and sacrifice. Bonhoeffer emphasizes the necessity of obedience to Christ's call. True discipleship, he argues, involves following Christ fully and wholeheartedly, even when it leads to suffering or death.

In part 1, I included the quote from Bonhoeffer, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." This statement is reflective of complete devotion and obedience to Christ’s call that he was emphasizing. In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer critiqued the church's accommodation to societal norms, urging believers to remain distinct and countercultural. The church, he argues, must be a visible community of people who live out Christ’s teachings. Bonhoeffer was right. So too, was Magneto.

In the clip above, Wolverine tells Storm, “You’re a mutant. The whole world out there is full of people who hate and fear you and you’re wasting your time trying to protect them. I’ve got better things to do. You know, Magneto’s right. There’s a war coming…You sure you’re on the right side?”

In the timeline of the movies, it would take decades for mutants to realize that Magneto was right. There was an era where the X-Men, lead by Professor X (Charles Xavier) were seen as superheroes, even being called on by the government to come in and save the day. During this time, Charles especially enjoyed the new found fame that came with being viewed positively by society.

Magneto, for his part, went through different phases as well. For a time he tried to live in peace with humans by attempting to live a “normal” life. He got married, had a daughter, worked at a factory. One day a large metal object was about to crush a co-worker of his, but using his mutant powers, Magneto stopped this from happening. No good deed goes unpunished. The people of the town told the governing authorities of what Magneto did, and since he was a mutant, they went to arrest him.

Magneto tried to turn himself over peacefully, but, that didn’t happen. Instead, the officers killed Magneto’s daughter and wife, which resulted in Magneto defending himself and killing all of them. Later, Magneto tried to live in solitude with only other mutants. This too ended with government overreach, although, Jean Grey, another powerful mutant played a role in the downfall of that segregated community.

Last week I mentioned the “Mutant Registration Act” (MRA). The MRA is what eventually led to all out war against mutants. Three main humans played a role here. Senator Robert Kelly, Bolivar Trask, and Colonel William Stryker. All were explicitly anti-mutant and used their positions in government to implement tyranny on them. Kelly was the main proponent for the MRA, meanwhile Trask and Stryker were experimenting on mutants for their own nefarious purposes.

The MRA was passed into law, giving the federal government legal authority to target and segregate mutants, as well as give the government legal authority to monitor them, and to limit their rights and freedoms. Professor X even noted that the President could declare a state of emergency and place any and every mutant under arrest.

Sound familiar? In our own recent history we’ve had a “state of emergency” declared by two presidents. Trump and then Biden regarding COVID-19. This gave the government “legal authority” to limit the freedom and rights of everyone. The government was implementing all sorts of draconian measures for “safety” and “health” reasons. Initially, most people, businesses, and churches complied. Based on the information we were being told by the government and other “experts,” we thought we were in the early stages of battling one of the worst pandemics in history.

It didn’t take long, though, for some to realize that we were mostly being lied to. By late 2023, some of the longer term data, like this study from Quinn et al, made it clear that government interventions such as masking, lockdowns, travel restrictions, and vaccines were essentially useless during the pandemic. Many, however, not nearly enough, already came to that conclusion based on using their eyes and brain throughout those years.

During this time even more insidious deception was afoot. Like most of society at that time, many churches began to jump off of the deep end into cultural marxism, or what I referred to in part 1, the Woke Church. I say this is more insidious because it has to do with ultimate Truth and one’s eternal “safety” and “health.” Social justice, abortion, the patriarchy, racism, LGTBQ+ ideology and other aspects of cultural marxism were embraced by the church like never before.

From a biblical perspective, much of that is easy enough to refute (or really should be for those who search the Scriptures like the noble Bereans), but, like in Bonhoeffer’s day, many embraced the culture instead of boldly standing for biblical truth. Why? I don’t know the extent of the answer, but, and you won’t be surprised, I think the beginning of it is fear and the end of it cowardice. There are all sorts of other factors that vary in degree in between, but fear and cowardice are what it comes down to.

Take for instance, megachurch pastor Andy Stanley, who called George Floyd “this generation’s Samson.” Or when he defended same sex marriage by saying that Jesus drew circles and we should too. That “[t]hey chose to marry for the same reason many of us do: love, companionship, and family.” Or how about “Reverend” Amelia Fulbright and her affirmation of not only LGBTQ+ idolatry, but also murder of the preborn. She fluidly uses the twisted, satanic language as well, calling the anti-abortion movement “patriarchal” and infanticide, “women’s reproductive rights.”

Fullbright from her 2021 MSNBC appearance

What about “Reverend” Rebecca Todd Peters, who bragged about her own two abortions, saying she “felt god’s presence” while sending her own pre-born children to the afterlife. She has also said that the only way she can be a Christian is by being a feminist Christian, that “feminist theology has taught” her “how to reinterpret scripture,” and that she refuses “to allow conservative Christians to take my god away from me.”

Examples like these do not taking searching God’s word like the Bereans, or really should not take much deep study at all. These are plain truths that are readily apparent to all who have not been turned over to a reprobate, depraved, debased mind. Do I really need to go into detail as to why I am using a lowercase “g” god for her quotes, or why any of the examples I mentioned here are nothing but anti-Christ, anti-God, anti-Truth teachings? There are many more examples readily available as well. Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Mariann Budde (briefly mentioned last week and in Fast Club), and yes, even President Trump’s “spiritual advisor,” Paula White, to name a few more. If I need to go deeper into the “why,” I will, but I will leave it up to you to tell me in the comments if I should pull this thread further in future posts.

These examples run parallel to the cultural issues Bonhoeffer was battling in Nazi Germany. The issues may not be exactly the same, but the fear and cowardice portrayed by the church is. Bonhoeffer, and the handful of other “Confessing Church” pastors and congregants, were not just speaking truth to the culture, they were also battling the heresy of the “German Christians.” Likewise we, the “True Church” are pitted against not only the increasingly anti-Christ, woke culture, but also the “Woke Church.”

Bonhoeffer’s critique of the church’s accommodation to societal norms is rooted in his conviction that the church should not merely blend into the world but instead serve as a countercultural community that embodies the radical teachings of Jesus Christ. He believed that when the church seeks power, comfort, or acceptance from the broader society, it loses its distinctiveness and compromises its witness to the gospel.

That sounds exactly like what we see with the Woke Church today; and even many that have not gone full anti-Christ woke, but have nonetheless leaned into their fear and are “the weak church.” They still want the comfort and acceptance from broader society. In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer leaned heavily into Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) to further distill these points.

Bonhoeffer was especially critical of "cultural Christianity," where the church becomes aligned with societal power structures or reduces faith to a set of rituals and traditions divorced from the transformative power of the gospel. He said, "Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him." For Bonhoeffer, the church must always maintain its prophetic voice, calling out injustice and speaking truth to power. If the church becomes complicit with evil or indifferent to suffering, it betrays its calling.

For Bonhoeffer, the church was not just a collection of individual believers but a visible community that demonstrated Christ’s lordship through its collective actions. This visibility requires that the church stand apart from societal norms, especially those that conflict with the gospel. He argued that the church must model Christ’s love, humility, and service in ways that challenge the surrounding culture. In this sense, the church is called to be a "city on a hill" (Matthew 5:14), shining light into the darkness. Bonhoeffer believed that this was impossible if the church merely conformed to societal values such as nationalism, materialism, or individualism.

Germany had the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. We’ve had various draconian executive orders, lockdown orders, and other mandates that were enforced with the weight of law; even though the vast majority were not. The mutants had the MRA and wicked leaders in government like Kelly, Trask and Stryker. Trask would capture mutants and study their DNA in the pursuit of unlocking their powers. Stryker was building his own mutant assassins by keeping them under mind control with a unique serum. All three wanted to exterminate mutants.

In the clip above, a “vaccine” was developed to cure mutants. In the short clip, you see the conflict amongst the mutants. Some of them, like Beast and Rogue, were eager, or at least contemplative, of the cure. Storm, Professor X, and Wolverine, less so. Storm being clearly opposed to it. In this fictitious example it comes down to a matter of choice. Rogue and Beast potentially saw it as a miracle where Storm saw it as a gross intrusion and beastly (pun intended) creation at the hands of wicked people.

Magneto was already at war. He had some other mutants on his side. Professor X and the X-Men were shown to be at least one step behind the escalation tactics of humans against mutants. Shortly after Senator Kelly pitched the MRA, Magneto told Professor X, “I’ve heard these arguments before.” If it wasn’t for Magneto living out the courage of his convictions, all mutants would have been killed at the hands of no other than Professor X.

Charles fell victim to being controlled by the humans who wanted to exterminate mutants. They brainwashed him to the point of nearly having him use his powers of telepathy to kill ALL mutants worldwide. If it wasn’t for Magneto, this plot would have worked. In one of the films Magneto says, “You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different.”

Two of the key social issues that the tales of Magneto and the X-Men have explored are “fear of the other;” how society reacts and treats those who are different and “government control vs. civil liberties;” the balance between security and freedom. Othering and freedom were just as prevalent in Bonhoeffer’s day as they are in ours.

As the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes, “During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of prisoners without their permission.” This was done “legally” under the Nazi regime. USHMM further explains, “Experiments centered around three topics: survival of military personnel, testing of drugs and treatments, and the advancement of Nazi racial and ideological goals. After the war, only a few of the biomedical experts who helped to implement and to legitimize Nazi racial hygiene policies were ever indicted or disciplined professionally. Many continued their careers.”

We’ve seen the same superiority complex and othering in our own recent era of being in a “state of emergency” as we saw in Nazi Germany and through the X-Men with things like the MRA. In the clip above, Joe Biden declares that COVID was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” His administration participated in the same kind of othering as Senator Kelly’s MRA and Nazi Germany’s ostracization of anyone they deemed “untermensch.” Nazi Germany eventually exterminated millions of people. In the X-Men universe the government eventually succeeded in eliminating millions too.

In both Nazi Germany and the X-Men universe, it took years to get to the point where society accepted these evil acts. In the early 1930s the Nazi regime coerced, legalized, mandated, and “othered” all those they deemed a threat to their power. Concentration camps didn’t just pop up over night. Thankfully, many people realized the same tactics being used during COVID and many resisted; including plenty at great personal cost.

Like Bonhoeffer’s battle against the German Christians though, we saw a similar battle raging in the church here. I recently heard a pastor say that they believed Satan used COVID to divide the church. I think that is a limiting view on God’s sovereignty. God’s word is beyond abundantly clear as to His sovereign hand ruling over ALL things; even COVID and the Woke Church; or even just the weak church.

“Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” (Psalm 135:6) “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” (Psalm 103:19) “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2) “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” (Psalm 115:3) “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.” (Proverbs 21:1) “Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’” (Isaiah 46:10), and perhaps my favorite verse on our Lord’s sovereignty, “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”” (Daniel 4:35); and these are but a few.

If we look back over the COVID era and what happened with the church at large, what we really saw was Christ with his winnowing fork. He was threshing the wheat and separating it from the chaff (Matthew 3:12). Like the church in Bonhoeffer’s day, our church has sought power, comfort, and acceptance from the broader society, therefore losing its distinctiveness and compromising its witness to the gospel. The way churches responded to government overreach was a blessing. The vast majority complied. Very few resisted and pointed to the supremacy and inerrancy of God’s word. Those few are the “wheat.”

By and large, the church has fallen into the “cheap grace” trap of preaching love, acceptance, unity, and peace without the requirement for “costly grace,” calling those you love, want to accept, want to be in union and at peace with, to necessary repentance and truth. Bonhoeffer envisioned the church to be a "contrast society," living in a way that reflects Christ’s kingdom rather than the values of the world. Even when it puts the church at odds with political authorities or cultural expectations.

Many churches today, and certainly the Woke Church, have failed to come to grips with the dividing nature of what it means to truly follow Christ. In both Luke 11:23 and Matthew 12:30 Jesus says, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” They have failed to heed Christ’s words to the church at Laodicea from Revelation 3:15-16, “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

The Woke Church is more akin to some pagan religion, or perhaps a combination of the church at Pergamum, “the worldly church,” and the church at Thyatira, “the wrong doctrine church.” Pergamum was the tolerant church. They refused to deny Christ, but they also allowed sin like idols, immorality, cults and heresies to remain among them. Similarly, the church at Thyatira was infiltrated by idolatry, sexual sin, and pagan traditions. Those descriptions sound just like the Woke Church today.

In December 2021, “Reverend” Ruth Elizabeth Lowry wrote an opinion piece called My Take: 'Love your neighbor' means: Wear your mask. In it she says, “I write this to those who call themselves “Christian” in our community.” She goes on to say, “I have heard and read so much about “rights” that we forget our calling, which is to love one another. Indeed, as we read at the end of 1 John 4…You have a “right” to not wear a mask. However, those who say that we love God and our neighbor have a responsibility to wear a mask. Even if the government doesn’t require it. Even if your church (even at Christmas) doesn’t request it. Wearing a mask is one of THE best ways to curb the spread of COVID. And if you love yourself and your family? Get vaccinated. Now. And if you are vaccinated, get the booster shot,” and ending with, “Beloveds, love yourself. Love your neighbors. Love God. Wear a mask. Get vaxxed.”

First of all, this is coming from a heretic since, biblically speaking, she cannot be a “reverend,” pastor, or elder. Setting that aside though, this is the epitome of what Bonhoeffer was talking about regarding “cheap grace.” If we profess Christ, we have a duty to love others. Absolutely. This is one of Bonhoeffer’s main points in The Cost of Discipleship. Where the cheap grace church of our modern era misses the mark more often than not regarding “love,” is that one of the most important aspects of love of neighbor is being honest. If we love our neighbor, we have a responsibility to be honest with them.

She mentions “rights,” and is alluding to the misguided belief that you should place others anti-truth feelings above your rights. The error is palpable. But of course it is because she is masking (pun-intended, again!) the falsehoods in “love.” We have a duty, because we love our neighbor, to tell them the truth. We shouldn’t cater to them and the lies and fear they have bought into, instead we ought lovingly point them to the truth, even if they fail or refuse to see it.

As early as April of 2020, it was known that masks were ineffective. In 2019, before the pandemic, Dr. Fauci of all people, was giving medical advice rooted in decades of contagious respiratory disease knowledge and had this to say regarding masks and staying healthy:

Even in 2020 he said that “wearing a mask might make people ‘feel’ a little bit better,” but that masks did “not provide the perfect protection that they think that it is.” He went on to say that he was not against 85% of the populace wearing a mask as seen in other countries, adding “that’s fine,” and that he was “not against it.” That, however, is where we ought to differ as the church. We shouldn’t let people wander off into myths because it makes them ‘feel’ better. By 2024, Fauci admitted to Congress that the rules he helped implement were arbitrary and made up, saying, “there was no science behind it.”

Of course there wasn’t. The truth seeking people already knew that though. Tyranny is the “arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.” Regardless the level of tyranny, resistance to it is obedience to God. Resisting the MRA was the right thing to do. Resisting the Nazis was the right thing to do. Resisting tyranny here is the right thing to do. Even if it is the tyranny of the weaker believer. The 12,000 pastors who took no stand in Bonhoeffer’s day fell victim to this same falsehood of masking truth with “love.”

They hid themselves behind “love” and spreading the gospel. Of those 12,000, Eric Metaxas writes in Letter to the American Church, “One presumes most of them agreed with the Confessing Church, but somehow they simply didn’t have the courage to take a bold stand along such lines. It seems they reckoned it the better part of valor to let the three thousand take all the heat. The twelve thousand preferred to remain “neutral,” as if this were possible.” Later in that same chapter called “12,000 Pastors,” Metaxas adds, “They only wished to “preach the Gospel” and not to take any “political” stand.” They must’ve forgotten about Luke 12 where Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” The political, social, and religious division that Jesus caused is what ultimately led to his crucifixion. The division we saw during COVID likewise came from God’s hand to separate truth from lies and light from darkness.

When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in Mark 3 we are told that “he looked around at them with anger.” Again in Mark, this time in chapter 10, when his disciples rebuked the children that were coming to Jesus we are told, “he was indignant” at them. Perhaps Jesus’s most well known display of anger was when he cleared the temple of the moneychangers and animal-sellers; which he did twice (John 2 and Matthew 21/Mark 11/Luke 21). Jesus didn’t allow these hucksters to carry on with their erroneous ways out of some false notion of “love.” Instead, for love of Truth, and a desire for them to turn from their wicked ways, he made their errors known and took decisive action.

In 1 Corinthians 3 the Apostle Paul tells the church at Corinth, “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.” Paul foreshadows a latter part of his letter here as the actual eating of meat became an issue for some of the weaker believers. He’s telling the church that they are as infants and that is why he had already fed them with milk. He wants to feed them with meat, or at least solid food, but chastises them here since they are still spiritual infants. They haven’t grown, even though he thought he already had weened them from spiritual milk.

Similarly, the author of Hebrews in his warning against apostasy says in chapter 5, “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Both of these New Testament authors are beckoning Believers to grow up! To move on from the milk that is for babies and that they should be meat eaters.

The Hebrews author goes on in Chapter 6 verse 1, “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” We are to be salt and light, but not to remain stagnant eating only spiritual milk. We need to lovingly beckon fellow believers into the truth and onto “meat,” while at the same time boldly proclaiming and standing for truth in the public square. We must stand for truth, even when those around us do not and urge others to do the same.

Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about whether we should or should not eat meat offered to pagan gods, resolving that we should not if it would cause a weaker believer to stumble. What Paul is talking about here is “adiaphora,” or indifferent matters. Certainly we can abstain from certain things, thus submitting to the tyranny of the weaker believer, it would help them in their faith. However, if you do search the scriptures like the noble Bereans, you will likely find that very few matters are indifferent. We cannot treat truth as indifferent, whether it be the truth of the gospel or the truth of government or woke/weak church doctrine.

God is the God of truth and Satan the harbinger of lies and evil. In Acts 17, prior to the mention of the noble Bereans who searched “the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so,” we are told about Paul and Silas in Thessalonica. They so boldly proclaimed the truth that a mob was formed that stirred up strife regarding their teaching. They wanted to bring them out into the crowd to answer and pay for what they were saying. To answer for the truth.

When they could not find Paul and Silas they dragged some other believers in front of the authorities, saying, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” Speaking truth is necessary, even if it leads to persecution at the hands of a wicked government. Even if it leads to division as Christ brought, as Bonhoeffer faced, and as we have today.

Isaiah 59: 14-15 says, “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.” Truth is lacking. Failure to tell the truth, even in things that perhaps seem unimportant is failure to love.

One final quote from Bonhoeffer regarding “costly grace.” He says, “It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”

Postscript

Truth be told, both part 1 and part 2 are scant the reader’s digest version of everything I tried to pack into these two short posts. Along with the books, movies, articles and other links throughout, here’s some more videos that helped me frame what I was after.

For the Magneto portion of these last two posts, I could have just sent you this:

Or this:

And for the Bonhoeffer sections:

The woke and weak church:

And probably a few others, but I’ll spare you…for now.