The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn and Chastity

If you have not read the Twilight Saga books by Stephanie Meyer I think you should.  The four books are Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.  All have been turned into motion pictures and the final book, Breaking Dawn, will be released in theaters tomorrow.  The books are much better than the movies, which have the most beautiful scenery and the most marginal acting I have ever seen.  These are books that have a remarkable, well constructed, nuanced and intriguing point.  Stephanie Meyer has done what I might have thought impossible in the hedonistic climate of pop culture.  She presents a compelling argument for sexual abstinence. 

            I learned long ago, and not without the usual fumbles, tumbles and miscues, that it is a good idea to listen to your children as often as you talk to them.  As my children became adults (and the kind of adults any parent would be proud of) the listening became easier.  One area where we always find a lively conversation is books.  But I don’t like horror as a genre.  I tried reading the Anne Rice books and gave up on them.  But my oldest girl kept telling me I was missing out by not reading, Twilight.  So, I scanned the first page and was hooked.

            These books started out as simple entertainment, but then an interesting and unmistakable message kept bubbling up to the surface.  The first message was obvious, clearly stated:  the two main characters, in love as only teenagers can be in love, were consistently choosing not to have sexual intercourse.  Their reasons were both personal choice and logistics.  [Evidently it is dangerous for vampires to have sex with humans—you think?!?]  Therein lies the second, much more subtle, message.  The vampires who make up the, “good guys” in this series have made the conscious choice not to drink human blood.  They exist on the blood of wild animals.  They find this choice a difficult one which demands discipline and constant reaffirmation.  The vampires who don’t make this sacrifice, who live in a state of baseness, obeying only their natural urges, form the antagonists in the story.  They are doomed to a life dictated by their lusts, unmitigated by higher thinking and purpose.  My goodness, what a dose of philosophy to weave, almost unseen but certainly, purposefully there, in a story for modern teens!

            The series doesn’t soft peddle the romance.  Stephanie Meyer knows her audience.  As Billy Graham once said about young love, “It may be puppy love, but it’s real to the puppy!”  But she consistently shows the principle characters making the correct, if difficult, choice.  The main character, Bella, even refuses to abort her half-vampire child, conceived on her honeymoon.  And here, by the way, is where the far left goes crazy with this series.  They can not stand the thought of young people actually choosing abstinence.  What is wrong with choosing chastity?  What is wrong with choosing life?  What is wrong with seeing humanity as being more than one big trip down impulse lane?  Stephanie Meyer has entertained us while teaching us something important about what it is to be a fully formed, responsible human.  I want my granddaughters to read these books.  If they have to see the movies to get the message, fine. 

            Read a good book this weekend, and keep the faith. 

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