Pastor Seth Hedman.

One of the pillars of our cultural inheritance is the fairy tales that have been handed down through the generations. These stories are memorable because they are logical, enjoyable, and profoundly true, steeped in the biblical truth of Christian medieval Europe. They are second only to the Bible in their capacity to shape a child’s imaginative landscape.

Yet, in the last generation, the fairy tales are not only neglected, but deconstructed and distorted beyond recognition. Simply take a quick walk through the children’s section of your local library. The usual pattern is reversing the narrative: Little Red Riding Hood but the wolf is the good guy, Hansel and Gretel but the witch is just misunderstood, Cinderella but from the stepsister’s perspective. Often, there is a woke twist. The biblical worldview of good and evil has been replaced by a psychologized worldview of social-emotional learning. Virtue has been replaced by toxic empathy.

This fits the cultural tendency to reverse traditional fairy-tale categories. Giants are no longer bone-grinding ogres, but big and friendly. Monsters are no longer fearsome terrors but the cute friends on Sesame Street. Witches are no longer satanic child-eating hags but beautiful good witches (Wizard of Oz) and brave heroes (Harry Potter). Werewolves and vampires are no longer man-eating monsters but handsome and brooding heart-throbs (Twilight). Dragons are no longer the horrific pinnacle of evil, symbols of Satan himself, but big puppies waiting to be your best friend (How To Train Your Dragon).

The whole point of a monster is to represent good and evil within an imaginative landscape. A giant or ogre is an imaginative example of the false masculine, an evil brute using his strength to hurt others, perhaps a violent alcoholic. Witches are the false feminine, passive aggressively manipulating to get what she wants, as if by magic. In the process, she sucks the life out of others, especially children. A werewolf is an unpredictably animalistic man with a violent temper. A vampire is a blood-sucker, a man who uses and abuses others, especially women, for his own selfish desires. A dragon is an evil man with immense power and greed, perhaps at the top of industry or politics, who destroys others just by opening up his fire-breathing mouth.

Typically, monsters were once men whose habitual bad behavior turned them into a beast. They are beyond redemption. So, what do you do with monsters? You kill them. You burn witches. You cut the head off the giant. You pierce the dragon in the heart. In the real world, there is no man beyond the reach of God’s grace. Yet, even then, we recognize as a society that there are some men who are beyond rehabilitation and they must be literally put to death. There are murderers, rapists, and pedophiles out there. We literally call them monsters. It is for this reason that we lock our doors at night, police carry guns, we have an army, and there is capital punishment. Empathy does not solve that problem, knights do.

In fairy land, like here, there is occasionally repentance and redemption. Beast repents and marries the Beauty. The stepsisters are forgiven. But only 1 out of 100 giants is good. Only 1 out of a 1000 knights can kill a dragon. Only 1 out of a million knights could ever tame one. The rest is war. St. George vs. The Dragon. Jack vs. the Giant. Huntsmen vs. Wolves. Fairies vs. Witches. This is the real world of good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, angels vs. demons, virtue vs. sin. When we subvert fairy tales, we subvert our children’s moral ability to discern and live within the real world. It all becomes an empathetic mush that leaves them vulnerable to real evil. Yet, for all this, there is one best and worst example worth looking at: Shrek.